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Re: Mares in Foal



How about a prayer blessing those who love and take care of the brood mares?

Our mares foal in large pipe corral type paddocks with run-in shelters about
24 x 24.  We bed the shelters down with straw.  We make a straw bed where
the mares like to nap in the paddock - invariably one mare will choose her
napping spot to foal.

As far as being paranoid, who could have prepared us for the newborn Quarab
filly who so enjoyed sailing over her gate, stampeding the herd and causing
her old mama great distress that we were forced to take away the running
start by shortening the paddock. ( She attempted her first get-away before
being completely birthed.  This one had to be held down bodily so the mare
could finish delivering the back end of her. Now that's a racer!)  Imprint
training was an aerobic exercise for this one.

Or, the Welsh pony baby who could wiggle through and/or jump over any form
of fence we made.    She often visited neighboring farms.  It was so much
fun to bound over a fence, visit a while and bound over the next one.
Houdini's antics forced us to wean her by sending mama to a neighbor's
house.  And imprint training?  It's a game, right?  Can we still do it now
that I'm six?

Or, the Paint baby who ran his own face into his mama's hoof as she loped
off - not once but twice, breaking his baby tooth, knocking himself out.
Later a malformed two year molar erupted which led to a hugely infected
sinus and major surgery.

All the planning in the world could not have prepared us for the baby who
was shot out while his poor mama was on the run, spooked by a neighboring
gelding.  One minute two tiny hooves were sticking out, and before I could
reach  mama, baby was lying in puddle looking very surprised.  He
surrendered immediately.  Imprint training was just a formality after that
entrance.

Cat

----- Original Message -----
From: <RhndLev@cs.com>
To: <>
Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 9:42 AM
Subject: RC: Mares in Foal


> In a message dated 2/11/02 3:22:49 AM Central Standard Time,
> guest@endurance.net writes:
>
> << Are there any pasture birth folks out there or do we all wait and wait
and
>  wait to have the baby dropped as soon as you decide to take a pee break?
>>
>
> That's exactly how most of my previous babies have been born.  And they
> lived!  I had a high dollar mare that I foaled out in a stall, but then
> turned her and the baby out in a barbed wire pasture within a day.  They
> lived and didn't have a mark on them.  I kept the filly on pasture for
seven
> or eight months and then moved her to a show barn and within 24 hours had
> scraped her face all up.  Blessed are the Broodmares is FREAKING ME OUT.
If
> anything happens it's all my fault for not being observant enough or being
> too lazy to make the environment completely safe or . . .   ARGH
>
> Rhonda
>
>
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