This afternoon pretty much sucked and ended badly [View all]

[csziggy]

It's already been a trying week so my knees hurt like hell last night. I ended up taking doses of both medicines for my knees - something I haven't done in over a year. As usual when I take Vicodin, I woke up with a really bad headache, plus the anti-inflammatory no longer does much good, so my knees still hurt like hell.

I dragged through the morning then decided to go look for some things in our storage shed. On the over, I saw the kid who has horses out here trying to catch a horse he has on commission and went to give him a hand. The horse was caught, loaded and the kid took off. I found the stuff I was looking for and headed back to the house.

As I passed the broodmare pasture, I realized their gate was down and both mares and the foal born last month were just standing in the opening. Then I got closer and realized there was a second foal on the ground, not moving much. I propped the gate up, noticing it was covered in blood, and rushed to the house to get my husband. Then I called the kid which turned out to be a good thing. I also called my vet to give her a heads up but she was one of the vets on duty at an international horse event and couldn't leave - she did have a vet on call for her and told me to call back if I needed help.

The foal's condition was concerning - he was thin, breathing was labored and he just was not moving very much. When he did try to move, he was floppy and uncoordinated. While I was evaluating him, the kid's parents and sister arrived. We got the gate rehung, moved the other mare and foal to a different pasture, and checked over the foal. While he was big enough to be full term, he just didn't look or act right.

The biggest worry was that he was a "dummy" foal, usually caused by something at birth that cuts the oxygen to the brain and causes enough damage that they don't have a strong suckling reflex or the coordination to stand. But he was a beautifully formed foal and we hoped it wasn't true. We all watched him for hours. Every time I was ready to say he was definitely not going to make it, he'd try again to stand. We got a nipple and bottle and some artificial colostrum (first milk) and tried to bottle feed him. His suckle reflex was weak to non-existent.

My vet called back after two hours to check and we decided to give the colt a little longer. Finally, I called back and she had a break so could come see what she could do. She tried putting a tube into the colt's stomach and pumping colostrum directly into him. Any stress at all, he could not get enough oxygen and would go a little blue.

He got no boost from the milk we did get into him and I had to make the call. That beautiful colt is now buried in our bottom field near the grave of his great-great-great-grandmother. This was the last foal of the stallion - he died of old age last fall. This may be the last foal for this mare - we had trouble getting her settled so I guess this foal was not meant to be.

This sucked. This is only the third time in over thirty years of breeding we've had to bury a new born.