About the Delay......

Sorry about the delay. I had a young filly born Mid-March who was exceptional in every way.....but one. She was born rather easily and quickly, but she is a head-strong little cuss, and was trying to "frog" up to Mom's head before she was even half-way out! For those not familiar with birthing, the babies seem to instinctively try to get to Mom's head so she can lick them and get used to them. Since they can't stand yet, they kind of "throw" themselves in the general direction and it looks like a frog hop. Because she was so absolutely determined to get up there right now, she was pulling on the cord, so I had to cut it. I prefer not to, but the choice was..... 1) cut it, 2) let her break the cord close to her body (and trust me, that means a major loss of blood on the foal's part or 3) let her pull the placenta out of Mom (major loss of blood from Mom, plus infection and all sorts of ick). So it got cut......just like human babies.....between 2 ties to prevent as much blood loss as possible. The problem with cutting it is that you usually end up with a "ropier" (thicker) cord than normal.....and that can cause hernias or other problems.

Everything went well......the booger-butt is independent and was not about to let us help her get to her feet; she found the spigot on her own and very quickly.....in fact was the easiest baby we've ever had. I should've known. She was bright-eyed and bouncy.......until no one was around. We have cameras on our broodmares, so we can watch and help if there's a problem. At about 2 weeks of age, I noticed that when there was no one around, she did the "dummy walk". A dummy foal usually does not nurse, is not aware of it's surroundings and it walks into and along the walls, rubbing its nose on the wall as if trying to nurse. I've had one, and it is heartbreaking to watch. However, she was no dummy, since she was easily distracted by people and behaved normally then. She also continued to nurse and check out Mom's feed. She just wasn't........right.

Ultimately I had the vet out; he could find nothing, no temp, no soreness.....nothing. So he took blood. He did a quick test back at the office lab and called immediately and said, "get her to the Horsepital." We are lucky enough in NE Ohio to have several very good ones within 3 hours of us. Her IgG was way low.....less than 400 and they like it at 1600. Something was going on. At first we thought it was a lack in the mare's milk (this is a first foal) so she was transfused with immunity proteins. Fortunately the vet at Equine Specialty listened to me and my gut instincts and went on HER gut instincts and checked her lungs for pneumonia (nope!) and ultra-sounded the umbilicus. Bingo. What looked like a patent yurakus. Meaning the veins, arteries and urinary tract structures that are used when the baby is in utero are still trying to work....and they should stop and shrink when the baby is born. Soooooooo. surgery. Ouch.....for both baby and pocketbook. Sure enough it was way bigger than it should be, but when it was being prepared for pathology (to find out what went wrong) it was full of nasty thick pus. Major, major antibiotics and care have been going on for some time, to clear this all up. All this time she has not acted sick.....like you would expect a sick horse to act. She just would have these little "spells" where she would act like she was a little colicky.....or at least uncomfortable. In fact, it took 4 people to contain her enough to get a sedative in her and 3 people AFTER the shot to get her clipped for the IV!!! You can just imagine the rodeo we had giving her shots at home!!!! (Note to you all: Naxcel is a wonderful drug......but it STINGS when it goes in....and booger-butt let us all know she did NOT appreciate it!!!!) Oh, yeah, she jumped straight up in the air about 5 feet (my arms were almost ripped out of their sockets) for the blood tests.

All things are healing well, now. But the important point is this:

LISTEN TO WHAT THE HORSE IS SAYING!!!!

Most people would have never noticed a change, it was that slight. Just knowing the horse and seeing a change in the sparkle in her eye......being lucky enough to watch the "dummy walk" when the barn was quiet and she was not distracted from realizing that she did not feel good (she is soooooo afraid she might miss something!!).....those were the only markers (and my own gut after seeing it). According to the ES vets, we would have had a dead foal within a week, as the infection was getting ready to bust through the abdominal wall.

So LISTEN. When you know the body language, it can tell you oh so much more than just sight along!!!