Equine Masterpiece: New Foal: Pawnee

Yay, Deceivious' foal is here!

We hadn't known the mare's actual due date as we had bought her already bred, and she had been pasture bred (no knowing when she actually took). Because of that, MiniOwner and I had to remember to check her and be watching her for signs of a soon birth.

Friday morning, MiniOwner told me that the birth would be soon. Usually because horses "don't know" the rules about showing signs of a soon labor, they won't follow them. Of course, similar thing this time - Deceivious had to break that rule by following the rules for normal signs of a close labor - bagging up (a ton; her udder looked similar to that of a milk cow :P), not eating much, lengthening of the vulva, relaxed croup/dock of tail area, shifting weight on the hind legs, and yawning.

Both Friday and Saturday night, I was able to do a foal watch at the stables. My younger sis and I did it with MiniOwner, and HorseyFriend also joined us on Saturday night. The plan? Sleeping in the lounge and checking on the mare every two hours (10, 12, 2, 4, 6, and 8).

As you can probably tell, the mare did not foal out Friday night. Or Saturday night. It was Sunday morning, probably about 15 minutes before 4 AM. Around eleven the previous night, Deceivious had been yawning and the foal had been visibly moving around a lot. A little past that, MiniOwner checked on the mare and noticed that when the mare urinated, the liquid was coming out in such a way as to imply coming up and over the foal.

All of us stayed up another hour or so (no progress on the foaling yet) and then hit the sack. MiniOwner checked at 2 AM, but nothing new. At four, MiniOwner said HorseyFriend and I could go check on the mare, and to call her cell phone if the mare gave birth yet.

HorseyFriend looked through the front left window, didn't see anything, I checked through the right window, and there's a foal on the ground. Yay! :D

After that, it was a mixture of stuff. Calling MiniOwner, watching her dry the foal, give the mare some medicine, put some medication on the foal's navel, give the foal some enema to aid digestion, and taking a lot of pictures.

Anyway, if you read all that, congrats! Here are pictures. :) The first is before labor, the next ones are taken 45 minutes or so after the birth, and the outside ones were taken when the foal was about seven hours old.