05/05/2026
Some of you may have noticed over the years that I tend to be a little slow about posting foal updates until they are several weeks old. I suppose it is because there's this innate fear within me that something tragic is going to happen, and I am almost superstitiously afraid to announce the good news too soon.
I'll let you in on a little secret...foaling mares out terrifies me, every single time. Don't get me wrong, I love the process and I absolutely adore the babies, but there are so many things that can go wrong. It makes me a nervous wreck until enough time has gone by that those precious and delicate little babies are old enough to succumb to more "normal" horse incidents.
In a perfect world, for my own sanity, I would probably foal everything out at a specialty facility/veterinarian so that resources and knowledge are immediately available for any issues that may arise for mare or foal. In the past three breeding seasons, that has served me well. When Archie was born, I had CSU foal Mia out. As an older maiden mare, I wanted to ensure everything went well. While Archie was perfect, Mia had a retained placenta, and the vet hospital was able to immediately take care of her needs. The following year, I was going to take Mia back to CSU early, because I could tell things were progressing oddly, but she unceremoniously spit Livvie out the night before we were supposed to go up. Thankfully, I worked for Rose Vet Hospital at the time, so Livvie was able to receive the life saving treatments she needed immediately and got to live most of the first week of her life at the clinic. Jazzy had an extremely high risk pregnancy with Ricky, so I had her foal out at the wonderful Dr. Sarah's home, which also saved his life, as he was a red bag foal and she was able to immediately administer treatment and manage all of his needs.
This year, I had to pull up my big girl pants and foal Indie out at home. She is a 6 year old maiden mare that I have only had since the end of September, so I had no idea what to expect of her. As the months to foaling came closer, we cobbled together a foaling space, fenced off as close to a dry lot as we could to avoid fescue exposure, set up cameras, and then just started hoping and praying for the best once we hit 320 days. I kept an almost obsessive watch over Indie's udder, hind end softness, and v***a. I am not sure if having a puppy at the same time was a brilliant stroke of genius, or if it just added to my lack of sleep and anxiety, but it sure felt like I was able to keep an eye on her camera at all times.
The days passed, until around day 332, when I started noticing much bigger changes. This is where, maiden mares especially, can start to be a bit tricky. They don't always follow all of the "rules" to indicate imminent foaling. Her hindquarters seemed softer, but her tail was still extremely tense. Her v***a would elongate, and then tighten back up. Her bag seemed to be getting more full, but no wax was present, and it was still hard to express any milk to pH test. Then, day 336 rolled around. I was later than usual going out to lock her up for the evening, but had checked on her throughout the day and nothing had really changed. When I went to pen her up that evening, she had a teeny, tiny bit of wax on her right teat. Tail was still tense, v***a didn't look any looser than it had at previous times. I went ahead and grabbed some wipes to clean up her posterior a bit just in case, as she had trickled some manure juices into that region, and then I was going to head up to the house to grab my pH strips to test the milk. Well, she didn't even let me get that far. All of a sudden, she let out a huge groan and flopped to the ground. She then got up and ran over to me with a frantic look on her face, before laying back down and having her water break. From there, it was full speed ahead. Her sac started to protrude, followed by a delicate little limb. Not going to lie, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only a few minutes, I did a frantic text to Dr. Sarah to make sure I didn't need to worry, as I was only seeing the one leg at that point, and it was protruding at least half way up the cannon bone. Of course, immediately after the message was sent, the other hoof popped out, followed shortly by a properly placed nose. The remainder of the birth was about as straight forward and textbook as could be.
Once baby was out, things started to get a bit trickier. Indie was in pain and scared. Baby was strong and quick to get up and immediately demonstrated a strong suckle reflex and desire to nurse. Indie did acknowledge her foal and talk to it and nuzzle it a bit, but she was much more focused on her own discomfort and passing the remainder of the placenta, than letting baby nurse. She thankfully passed the placenta pretty quickly, and it was intact and looked good. I administered some Banamine to help Indie with her general discomfort. And then I sat back to watch to make sure the baby was able to nurse in a timely fashion. Indie was not understanding this part of the assignment, at all. She wouldn't stand still, she would spin in circles screaming every time the baby went towards her udder, and she was also worn out and really just wanted to take a nap. After watching baby repeatedly trying to suckle and being denied for almost two hours, I decided to try putting a halter on Indie and lightly restraining her so the baby could get to the udder. That ended up going very poorly, with Indie threatening violence to both me and her baby. She was just panicked. I think there was a part of her that was afraid of the strange little thing that she just popped out, and another part of her that was already fiercely protective and didn't understand that the baby was in fact not disappearing into another dimension when it wasn't immediately in front of her.
After a lot of frustrated name calling, semi-empty glue factory threats, and fervent prayer, I decided to give up and hope that Indie would eventually come to her senses on her own. Finally, after about 3 1/2 hours, the little one was allowed to latch on and nurse for the first time. Not ideal timing wise, but a relief. After watching baby successfully feed several times, I finally felt comfortable enough to go to bed.
The next morning, I had a bright eyed and feisty little filly, and a new mom that seemed to be slowly understanding what was required of her. Nursing was no longer a problem, and baby was greedily sucking down as much milk as mom could give her. However, Indie had decided that she now liked her baby and was going to protect this precocious new creature by not allowing any one near it. This is actually a good mom trait, but it made my ability to handle the baby pretty much non-existent for the first week and a half. We are finally getting to the point where Indie is no longer a helicopter mom, and I can attempt to touch her filly without my own safety being threatened. So, there have been some ups and downs and some learning curves, but overall, things are going well.
So, moral of the story for anyone who has made it this far, is that foaling is a wonderful and magical process, but it doesn't always happen without problems or drama. Enjoy watching your foals unfold and grow and learn about themselves and the world around them. And don't forget to watch your back around these new moms, because even the sweetest mare can become aggressive when those "momma bear" instincts kick in.
And now I have a whole bunch of baby photos and videos to catch up on and share, so brace yourselves for a lot of filly spam in the upcoming days!
