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Blog Update: Making a New Mom for a Rejected Filly
by: Scot Gillies, Photo/Newsletter Editor
March 08 2007 Article # 9048
Article Tools
This is a test. As you'll find out, it's a test in more ways than one.
For the next several weeks, I would like to share a little bit of my life with you. It's a story that you won't find in a veterinary text, but I think it might help save a few foals' lives. The Story Unfolds...
Post 1: Imminent Arrival
Post 2: Signs of Trouble
Post 3: Rejection! (and Sedation)
Post 4: Resignation, and Back to Work
Post 5: Orphan Options
Post 6: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
Note to the Reader
Your comments are welcome and will let us know if this type of feature is something you find useful. Your questions might help me present better information. I can't respond to every e-mail, but I will read each one. Send your comments to [email protected].
About the Author
Scot Gillies is research editor for digital media at Blood-Horse Publications, and currently serves as interim photo and newsletter editor for The Horse. He owns and breeds a couple of Thoroughbred broodmares, and rides an off-the-track gelding named Dumbledore.
Two weeks ago, the excitement and joy of a newly-arrived foal turned into the heartbreak and struggle of watching the helpless little filly get rejected by her mom. But the story doesn't end there--in fact, that's only the beginning. Have you ever heard of inducing lactation in a mare that doesn't have a foal? The idea seemed sort of crazy to me. Have you ever bottle-raised a baby on milk-replacement formula? Do you know about nurse mares and nannies, and the bond between a mare and her foal?
What you're reading is a little different from the award-winning news and features that you've always found on TheHorse.com. There will be several in-text links to topical articles--if you haven't already done so, get your free registration now for full access to all online articles. I'll be updating this section periodically--about twice per week--for a while, and will let you know how the filly is developing, and how this little test turns out. I can't guarantee a happy ending--success or failure hasn't yet been determined. But I hope that it will be informative and will introduce you to a few new ideas.
JUMP TO THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY:
Post 1: Imminent Arrival
Post 6--Feb. 16: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
So Jo and Blue weren't going to be re-introduced. Deciding to go this route was the easy part, and I think all parties--especially Blue and Jo--were happy with the choice.
But actually following this course, I soon realized, was going to be a challenge. Jo's Magic had stolen her last drink from her dam. Whatever the future held--whether or not we could get Hermione to produce milk--the next couple of weeks would continue to rotate around those every-other-hour trips to the barn. That little filly might be only a couple of days old, but she was going to have an appetite like… well, like a racehorse.
After a trip to the equine pharmacy, we started Hermione's hormone injections that evening. Twice each day to start, I would be giving her an intramuscular (IM) shot of progesterone and estradiol ("P&E"). Additional hormones would be added at a set schedule--the next 10 or 12 days would include a tight timetable of multiple hormone injections, actually, that would force Hermione's body to feign pregnancy, and would theoretically lead to milk production.
We found a lot of options for powdered formula to feed the filly. Based on the feeding chart listed on the formula tubs, it was going to cost about $8 per day to nourish the foal. We picked up all the necessary equipment, and decided on a feeding program.
If anyone ever tells you that a foal's natural instinct is to suckle, and therefore any nipple-like feeding device should work fine--it's a lie. Some rubber-nipple-manufacturing company somewhere thinks this is a great joke.
Attempts to bottle-feed the filly weren't successful. She took to the bucket pretty quickly, though.
Jo would happily suck on my fingers for hours, if I'd let her. She was content to suck on the stall door, the empty feed bin, or (her favorite target) Hermione's equally-empty teats. But she acted insulted when anyone brought in a bottle of formula with a plastic nipple. We tried everything. We squirted a little milk on the bottle tip to let her know what it contained. We held the bottle against her lips, we squeezed it to get the milk flowing. We even got down behind Hermione and held the bottle so that the nipple protruded between her two teats. Jo switched from one dry teat to the other… over, and over, and over. When the rubber nipple got in her way, she shook her head a little and tried to nose it aside.
For the next two feedings, we tried a big two-liter soda bottle, then an infant bottle, and finally a small glass rootbeer bottle, and met with abject failure each time. We used fake nipples with small holes and others with large openings, we offered them cooled and warmed and every other way we could. The filly must have felt hunger pangs, but she never yielded. She got a few ounces of nourishment in her when we half-squirted, half-poured it into her mouth. I was worried that she would aspirate the liquid, but equally concerned that she was going to become dehydrated.
At the midnight feeding, I went through this routine yet again, and had as much success. A boarder at the farm came by to do a late-evening check on her horses, and I told her, with considerable frustration, that I was about ready to pour the bottle into a bucket, leave it in the stall, and hope she figured out how to drink it! Kate went over to her supply closet, pulled out a new rubber pail, and basically told me to give it a shot. Figuring that it couldn't get much worse, I emptied the three cups of formula (by now it was cold--it had been warm when I started 45 minutes earlier!) into the bucket, and held it out to the filly. She lowered her head into the container and started to slurp. Within 90 seconds, Jo was through. She raised her milk-mustachioed face (boy, I wish I had a shot of that for the "Got Milk?" ads!) and went to the corner of the stall to lie down and sleep.
The other middle-of-the-night feedings took about three minutes each. Jo's Magic would whinny excitedly when the barn door opened, would watch the bucket as it was carried through her stall door, and would make short work of its contents. Hermione quickly got used to the interruptions, too--she received a couple of handfuls of sweet feed every time we disturbed the two. She'd need the extra nutrients if she was going to start producing milk….
In the meantime, she and Jo were quickly forgetting that they hadn't started out together. Hermione's opinion was clear: she loved this filly and she was going to be her mom. Jo agreed wholeheartedly.
Coming soon: "Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…".
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Post 5--Feb. 16: Orphan Options
While Hermione and Jo got to know each other, I talked with Chris and Tabitha about where we were headed—with a day-old filly who needed to eat every other hour, we'd have to come to a decision pretty quickly. Bottle-feeding would be time-prohibitive, since we all work long hours and our schedules wouldn't be conducive to the foal's feeding schedule.
Tabitha made inquiries about obtaining a nurse mare while Chris looked into local organizations that might be set up to provide care to an orphan foal. As luck would have it, my research was easier: I just called my boss. Kim Brown, editor of The Horse, has a lifetime of experience with horse health issues, and I knew she would be able to suggest ideas that I wouldn't find elsewhere.
While Exotic Blue is heavily drugged and restrained, Dr. Woodrow Friend helps to point Jo's Magic towards one of the few meals she'd get from her dam.
In addition to sharing advice on bottle-feeding methods and giving me contact information for a local nurse mare provider, Kim reminded me of a research report that was recently featured in the magazine and on TheHorse.com. The gist of the report is that veterinarians have been successful at getting nonpregnant mares to produce milk. Dr. Steiner (John V. Steiner, DVM, Dipl. ACT, of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky.) had significantly modified an earlier experimental procedure (from a study led by Peter F. Daels, DVM, PhD, of the Equine Embryo Transfer Center in Passendale, Belgium) and his new protocol was showing a high success rate. I'd seen the article a month earlier (in fact, I think I proofread the report before we published it), but now I went back and carefully reread the information.
Wow! Within a couple of weeks, it might be possible to take an idle mare out of the pasture and stimulate her to produce enough milk to raise an orphan foal. The idea that this could be done at all--much less with the regularity reported by Dr. Steiner--seemed phenomenal. Thanks to my work connections, I was able to speak directly with Dr. Steiner for a brief consultation, and he reiterated the information in the article. He cautioned that, at 22 years old and five years removed from having her own foal, Hermione was not an ideal candidate for this procedure--but also thought it was promising that the mare had already started to accept the filly.
While we were busy researching our options, Jo was busy getting hungry. Hermione seemed to have forgotten that the filly wasn't really hers, and was even letting Jo suckle. Of course, Hermione had been dry for several years and the foal wasn't going to get any reward, no matter how hard she sucked or how many times she switched from one teat to the other. We decided that we'd give Jo one last meal of "real milk" before switching over to an all-formula diet since Exotic Blue was still sedated from the morning feeding.
While Jo was ushered into Blue's stall and Hermione was led to an adjacent stall to wait for her, the barn rang with whinnies of protest. The filly wasn't too pleased to go from a loving companion to her hateful dam. Normally-sedate and complacent Hermione didn't agree to the separation, either, and she was going to let us know it. In fact, she paced the floor and jostled the stall door for the duration of the eight-minute separation, and she never stopped screaming. Having met the filly only a couple of hours earlier, we were surprised by her degree of possessiveness. But her reaction helped seal the deal on our decision. How could we separate the two now?
We spoke with our veterinarians at Rood & Riddle and made it official: we would play the odds and see if Hermione could make the transition from nanny to nursemare.
Next post: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
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Post 4--Feb. 16: Resignation, and Back to Work
Exotic Blue never wavered from her decision.
Overnight, we trekked up to the barn every two hours to make sure that the filly was getting nourishment. On the first trip, we had to readminister the tranquilizers (Acepromazine and Dormosedan) in addition to restraining the mare with hobbles and a stall tie. She appeared sedated at first, but when the filly latched on, Blue jumped a foot off the ground and came down with all four legs thrashing. We resorted to using a chain lip twitch to contain her for the duration of the feeding.
On our next few trips to the barn, we were encouraged to find the filly up and nursing on her own—maybe the two had reconciled and the troubles were behind us. Sure, Blue was still sedated and restrained, but she didn't seem to be offering any resistance. Fingers crossed, we left the two alone.
At daylight, we tried a test. We'd stopped administering additional sedatives, so Blue was more lucid than she'd been in 12 hours. As I monitored the mare, Chris led the filly from the stall and out of sight. A protective mom would prance and whinny and generally carry on in this circumstance. Blue never glanced over. A moment later when the filly was brought back into the stall, Blue pinned her ears and tried to kick out with her rear legs. Blue had failed the test.
The two look like they belong together--even if Jo's Magic does look pretty big next to the 15-hand Hermione.
This mare was not only a danger to the foal, but also to any handler when the filly was nearby. After one more consultation with the veterinarian, we made the decision to separate the foal permanently. I led the filly to her small paddock—she still needed exercise to counteract those contracted tendons—and resigned myself to defeat.
Without saying anything, Tabitha walked over to one of the larger pastures, haltered her riding horse, and led her through the barn to the filly's turnout area. Hermione is a 22-year-old Quarter Horse mare who has been a terrific nanny to the farm's weanlings in recent years, and she'd had a couple of foals of her own in the distant past. Maybe she could provide companionship while we try to think what to do with the filly, Tabitha thought.
The two ladies—old Hermione and new Jo's Magic (as Tabitha had started to call her)—nickered a moment and sniffed at each other. Hermione looked mildly perturbed for a total of perhaps three minutes as "Jo" poked and prodded, and then seemed to accept her new charge.
I didn't know it at the time, but Hermione was about to become the most important horse on the farm. At barely over 24 hours old, Jo's Magic had just found her new mommy.
Next post: Orphan Options
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Post 3--Feb. 15: Rejection! (and Sedation)
Dr. Friend administered some sedatives so that Blue would calm down. After the tranquilizers had started to take effect, we guided the filly to her long-overdue first meal. Even sedated, Blue reacted harshly to the filly's presence. I've already mentioned that this mare has a quick-trigger rear kick... well, she put it to use and added some new dents to the stall door. More sedatives, plus securing Blue to the tie-ring in her stall, bought us enough time to satiate the foal's appetite. All that to get a mare to feed her foal--things weren't looking promising.
Exotic Blue's filly at six hours old--she's a big girl! The foal has started to prefer human company, here shown with co-owner Tabitha Dotson.
Blue started to regain her senses about an hour later (all those sedatives had made her kind of loopy) so Chris and I led the mare and foal out to a small grass paddock. We hoped that the new activity would bring the two together. We released them and retreated to give the horses some time alone to bond.
The paddock we used is just a semi-circle with a diameter of 48 feet. Blue made it a point to stay at least 35 or 40 feet away from the foal at all times. Any time the filly approached, Blue would pin her ears, bare her teeth, and hurry off to the opposite end of the enclosure. That went on for a couple of hours, and I thought it was a bad sign. Unfortunately, it got worse. At one point, the foal started towards her dam, and Blue wheeled around and "double barreled" the filly. It wasn't a warning--the kick sent the filly flying 20 feet across the paddock.
Whether out of bravery and perseverance or hardheaded ignorance, the foal hadn't given up yet. She tried again to sidle up towards "Mom" and was rewarded with a savage attack. Blue bit at the foal's back, and then picked her up, shook her vigorously, and threw her to the ground. Fortunately, the cold weather had caused us to blanket the filly, so the mare's teeth had grabbed hold of fabric instead of skin and flesh.
More sedatives followed, with forced, supervised feedings necessary. Even "doped up" to where she could hardly stand, the mare was a danger to her foal. By now, the filly was exhibiting signs of fear. She needed a lot of urging to go anywhere near her dam, and was starting to bond with her human handlers. An uneasy feeling started to settle in: we were dealing with permanent rejection.
Dr. Friend returned later in the evening to intubate the foal and administer colostrum, because IgG test results had confirmed that the filly hadn't taken in sufficient antibodies during her first hours. The veterinarian also located a set of hobbles for us, and we set up the mare in her stall--hobbled, stall-tied, and sedated--so that the foal could feed safely throughout the night.
Tomorrow would be a big day. If Blue wouldn't allow the foal to nurse freely, and if she still exhibited violent behavior towards the filly, we would have to consider our options. And to be frank, the options for a rejected foal usually aren't pretty.
Next post: Resignation, and Back to Work
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Contracted tendons prevented the filly from standing normally.
Post 2--Feb. 15: Signs of Trouble
Two hours later when the foal hadn't yet stood or nursed, I started to worry. The filly's only attempts to stand were hampered by contracted tendons in both rear legs. She couldn't plant her feet squarely, and couldn't manage to steady herself upright. Another two hours later, I had spoken to my veterinarian, Dr. Tom Daugherty of Rood & Riddle in Lexington, Ky., and he had sent a fellow practitioner to evaluate the situation. Dr. Woodrow Friend arrived just as the new filly managed to plant all four feet for the first time.
Dr. Friend urged Chris and Tabitha and me--the co-owners of the mare and foal--to release Blue and her filly in a small grass paddock outside the barn as soon as the foal had nursed. The exercise and motion would help to correct the fetlock contraction. But before that next step, the filly would need to get her first meal.
Now that the foal was up and moving around--albeit shakily, on unsteady legs and walking mostly on the points of her hind hooves--it was becoming clear that Blue's attitude had shifted, and she was looking at the foal less as "my new filly" and more as "that pain-causing stranger." Around hour five of her life, the filly started to search purposefully for her mom's udder, but Blue made a beeline for the other side of the stall as soon as her filly approached. At first it seemed like she was just sensitive and maybe nervous, but then her ears started to flatten each time the foal came near. Blue's body language started to scream "stay away if you know what's good for you."
Next post: Rejection! (and Sedation)
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Post 1--Feb. 14-15: Imminent Arrival
Valentine's Day was another frozen day in an unusually long cold spell in Central Kentucky. My seven-year-old Thoroughbred broodmare, Exotic Blue, looked comically distorted, with a belly that stuck out dramatically on both sides and fell so low that I had to crane my neck just to locate her udder. At 16.2 hands tall and with a rangy build, this pregnancy was the first time I'd ever thought "Blue" looked like a broodmare, even though it would be her third foal.
Exotic Blue seemed to accept the foal at first, but her body language soon indicated a change of heart.
There was no mistaking the situation on that Feb. 14 evening: foaling time wasn't going to be far off. Once I did sight the mare's udder, I could see it had bagged up quite a bit since that morning--and it had already been filling up a lot over the previous two days. She had a large cap of milk crust on each teat. The frigid temperatures had helped to make it obvious that she was waxing up, freezing a layer of the dripping milk over the head of each nipple.
Blue has the type of attitude that gives broodmares a bad name. She is especially sensitive near her flank, and anyone brave enough to reach for her udder will be rewarded with a cow kick that several times has knocked veterinarians to the other side of the stall. I did my best to clean her in preparation for foaling, then led her into the broodmare stall and latched the door for the evening. Even if she did show irritable temperament during examination, Blue was generally a friendly mare and had been a terrific mom to two prior fillies. I was confident that she'd soon have another foal by her side and the months of waiting would be over.
Our in-stall wireless video camera wasn't functioning properly in the cold weather, so every 90 minutes that night, I bundled into several layers of clothing to make the two-minute walk to the barn. Each time, Blue seemed a bit more distressed, and made it obvious that she wanted to be released to her pasture. When I went up to the barn at 6 a.m., I wasn't surprised to hear an additional little whinny coming from Blue's stall. I peered through the barred window down to the straw-covered floor and saw a large bay foal with a big white star on the center of its forehead. Blue had cleaned the foal and the mare's placenta was still hanging: an apparently successful delivery.
Next post - Signs of Trouble
http://www.thehorse.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ID=9048
by: Scot Gillies, Photo/Newsletter Editor
March 08 2007 Article # 9048
Article Tools
This is a test. As you'll find out, it's a test in more ways than one.
For the next several weeks, I would like to share a little bit of my life with you. It's a story that you won't find in a veterinary text, but I think it might help save a few foals' lives. The Story Unfolds...
Post 1: Imminent Arrival
Post 2: Signs of Trouble
Post 3: Rejection! (and Sedation)
Post 4: Resignation, and Back to Work
Post 5: Orphan Options
Post 6: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
Note to the Reader
Your comments are welcome and will let us know if this type of feature is something you find useful. Your questions might help me present better information. I can't respond to every e-mail, but I will read each one. Send your comments to [email protected].
About the Author
Scot Gillies is research editor for digital media at Blood-Horse Publications, and currently serves as interim photo and newsletter editor for The Horse. He owns and breeds a couple of Thoroughbred broodmares, and rides an off-the-track gelding named Dumbledore.
Two weeks ago, the excitement and joy of a newly-arrived foal turned into the heartbreak and struggle of watching the helpless little filly get rejected by her mom. But the story doesn't end there--in fact, that's only the beginning. Have you ever heard of inducing lactation in a mare that doesn't have a foal? The idea seemed sort of crazy to me. Have you ever bottle-raised a baby on milk-replacement formula? Do you know about nurse mares and nannies, and the bond between a mare and her foal?
What you're reading is a little different from the award-winning news and features that you've always found on TheHorse.com. There will be several in-text links to topical articles--if you haven't already done so, get your free registration now for full access to all online articles. I'll be updating this section periodically--about twice per week--for a while, and will let you know how the filly is developing, and how this little test turns out. I can't guarantee a happy ending--success or failure hasn't yet been determined. But I hope that it will be informative and will introduce you to a few new ideas.
JUMP TO THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY:
Post 1: Imminent Arrival
Post 6--Feb. 16: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
So Jo and Blue weren't going to be re-introduced. Deciding to go this route was the easy part, and I think all parties--especially Blue and Jo--were happy with the choice.
But actually following this course, I soon realized, was going to be a challenge. Jo's Magic had stolen her last drink from her dam. Whatever the future held--whether or not we could get Hermione to produce milk--the next couple of weeks would continue to rotate around those every-other-hour trips to the barn. That little filly might be only a couple of days old, but she was going to have an appetite like… well, like a racehorse.
After a trip to the equine pharmacy, we started Hermione's hormone injections that evening. Twice each day to start, I would be giving her an intramuscular (IM) shot of progesterone and estradiol ("P&E"). Additional hormones would be added at a set schedule--the next 10 or 12 days would include a tight timetable of multiple hormone injections, actually, that would force Hermione's body to feign pregnancy, and would theoretically lead to milk production.
We found a lot of options for powdered formula to feed the filly. Based on the feeding chart listed on the formula tubs, it was going to cost about $8 per day to nourish the foal. We picked up all the necessary equipment, and decided on a feeding program.
If anyone ever tells you that a foal's natural instinct is to suckle, and therefore any nipple-like feeding device should work fine--it's a lie. Some rubber-nipple-manufacturing company somewhere thinks this is a great joke.
Attempts to bottle-feed the filly weren't successful. She took to the bucket pretty quickly, though.
Jo would happily suck on my fingers for hours, if I'd let her. She was content to suck on the stall door, the empty feed bin, or (her favorite target) Hermione's equally-empty teats. But she acted insulted when anyone brought in a bottle of formula with a plastic nipple. We tried everything. We squirted a little milk on the bottle tip to let her know what it contained. We held the bottle against her lips, we squeezed it to get the milk flowing. We even got down behind Hermione and held the bottle so that the nipple protruded between her two teats. Jo switched from one dry teat to the other… over, and over, and over. When the rubber nipple got in her way, she shook her head a little and tried to nose it aside.
For the next two feedings, we tried a big two-liter soda bottle, then an infant bottle, and finally a small glass rootbeer bottle, and met with abject failure each time. We used fake nipples with small holes and others with large openings, we offered them cooled and warmed and every other way we could. The filly must have felt hunger pangs, but she never yielded. She got a few ounces of nourishment in her when we half-squirted, half-poured it into her mouth. I was worried that she would aspirate the liquid, but equally concerned that she was going to become dehydrated.
At the midnight feeding, I went through this routine yet again, and had as much success. A boarder at the farm came by to do a late-evening check on her horses, and I told her, with considerable frustration, that I was about ready to pour the bottle into a bucket, leave it in the stall, and hope she figured out how to drink it! Kate went over to her supply closet, pulled out a new rubber pail, and basically told me to give it a shot. Figuring that it couldn't get much worse, I emptied the three cups of formula (by now it was cold--it had been warm when I started 45 minutes earlier!) into the bucket, and held it out to the filly. She lowered her head into the container and started to slurp. Within 90 seconds, Jo was through. She raised her milk-mustachioed face (boy, I wish I had a shot of that for the "Got Milk?" ads!) and went to the corner of the stall to lie down and sleep.
The other middle-of-the-night feedings took about three minutes each. Jo's Magic would whinny excitedly when the barn door opened, would watch the bucket as it was carried through her stall door, and would make short work of its contents. Hermione quickly got used to the interruptions, too--she received a couple of handfuls of sweet feed every time we disturbed the two. She'd need the extra nutrients if she was going to start producing milk….
In the meantime, she and Jo were quickly forgetting that they hadn't started out together. Hermione's opinion was clear: she loved this filly and she was going to be her mom. Jo agreed wholeheartedly.
Coming soon: "Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch…".
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Post 5--Feb. 16: Orphan Options
While Hermione and Jo got to know each other, I talked with Chris and Tabitha about where we were headed—with a day-old filly who needed to eat every other hour, we'd have to come to a decision pretty quickly. Bottle-feeding would be time-prohibitive, since we all work long hours and our schedules wouldn't be conducive to the foal's feeding schedule.
Tabitha made inquiries about obtaining a nurse mare while Chris looked into local organizations that might be set up to provide care to an orphan foal. As luck would have it, my research was easier: I just called my boss. Kim Brown, editor of The Horse, has a lifetime of experience with horse health issues, and I knew she would be able to suggest ideas that I wouldn't find elsewhere.
While Exotic Blue is heavily drugged and restrained, Dr. Woodrow Friend helps to point Jo's Magic towards one of the few meals she'd get from her dam.
In addition to sharing advice on bottle-feeding methods and giving me contact information for a local nurse mare provider, Kim reminded me of a research report that was recently featured in the magazine and on TheHorse.com. The gist of the report is that veterinarians have been successful at getting nonpregnant mares to produce milk. Dr. Steiner (John V. Steiner, DVM, Dipl. ACT, of Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington, Ky.) had significantly modified an earlier experimental procedure (from a study led by Peter F. Daels, DVM, PhD, of the Equine Embryo Transfer Center in Passendale, Belgium) and his new protocol was showing a high success rate. I'd seen the article a month earlier (in fact, I think I proofread the report before we published it), but now I went back and carefully reread the information.
Wow! Within a couple of weeks, it might be possible to take an idle mare out of the pasture and stimulate her to produce enough milk to raise an orphan foal. The idea that this could be done at all--much less with the regularity reported by Dr. Steiner--seemed phenomenal. Thanks to my work connections, I was able to speak directly with Dr. Steiner for a brief consultation, and he reiterated the information in the article. He cautioned that, at 22 years old and five years removed from having her own foal, Hermione was not an ideal candidate for this procedure--but also thought it was promising that the mare had already started to accept the filly.
While we were busy researching our options, Jo was busy getting hungry. Hermione seemed to have forgotten that the filly wasn't really hers, and was even letting Jo suckle. Of course, Hermione had been dry for several years and the foal wasn't going to get any reward, no matter how hard she sucked or how many times she switched from one teat to the other. We decided that we'd give Jo one last meal of "real milk" before switching over to an all-formula diet since Exotic Blue was still sedated from the morning feeding.
While Jo was ushered into Blue's stall and Hermione was led to an adjacent stall to wait for her, the barn rang with whinnies of protest. The filly wasn't too pleased to go from a loving companion to her hateful dam. Normally-sedate and complacent Hermione didn't agree to the separation, either, and she was going to let us know it. In fact, she paced the floor and jostled the stall door for the duration of the eight-minute separation, and she never stopped screaming. Having met the filly only a couple of hours earlier, we were surprised by her degree of possessiveness. But her reaction helped seal the deal on our decision. How could we separate the two now?
We spoke with our veterinarians at Rood & Riddle and made it official: we would play the odds and see if Hermione could make the transition from nanny to nursemare.
Next post: Bottles (and Buckets) for Baby
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Post 4--Feb. 16: Resignation, and Back to Work
Exotic Blue never wavered from her decision.
Overnight, we trekked up to the barn every two hours to make sure that the filly was getting nourishment. On the first trip, we had to readminister the tranquilizers (Acepromazine and Dormosedan) in addition to restraining the mare with hobbles and a stall tie. She appeared sedated at first, but when the filly latched on, Blue jumped a foot off the ground and came down with all four legs thrashing. We resorted to using a chain lip twitch to contain her for the duration of the feeding.
On our next few trips to the barn, we were encouraged to find the filly up and nursing on her own—maybe the two had reconciled and the troubles were behind us. Sure, Blue was still sedated and restrained, but she didn't seem to be offering any resistance. Fingers crossed, we left the two alone.
At daylight, we tried a test. We'd stopped administering additional sedatives, so Blue was more lucid than she'd been in 12 hours. As I monitored the mare, Chris led the filly from the stall and out of sight. A protective mom would prance and whinny and generally carry on in this circumstance. Blue never glanced over. A moment later when the filly was brought back into the stall, Blue pinned her ears and tried to kick out with her rear legs. Blue had failed the test.
The two look like they belong together--even if Jo's Magic does look pretty big next to the 15-hand Hermione.
This mare was not only a danger to the foal, but also to any handler when the filly was nearby. After one more consultation with the veterinarian, we made the decision to separate the foal permanently. I led the filly to her small paddock—she still needed exercise to counteract those contracted tendons—and resigned myself to defeat.
Without saying anything, Tabitha walked over to one of the larger pastures, haltered her riding horse, and led her through the barn to the filly's turnout area. Hermione is a 22-year-old Quarter Horse mare who has been a terrific nanny to the farm's weanlings in recent years, and she'd had a couple of foals of her own in the distant past. Maybe she could provide companionship while we try to think what to do with the filly, Tabitha thought.
The two ladies—old Hermione and new Jo's Magic (as Tabitha had started to call her)—nickered a moment and sniffed at each other. Hermione looked mildly perturbed for a total of perhaps three minutes as "Jo" poked and prodded, and then seemed to accept her new charge.
I didn't know it at the time, but Hermione was about to become the most important horse on the farm. At barely over 24 hours old, Jo's Magic had just found her new mommy.
Next post: Orphan Options
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Post 3--Feb. 15: Rejection! (and Sedation)
Dr. Friend administered some sedatives so that Blue would calm down. After the tranquilizers had started to take effect, we guided the filly to her long-overdue first meal. Even sedated, Blue reacted harshly to the filly's presence. I've already mentioned that this mare has a quick-trigger rear kick... well, she put it to use and added some new dents to the stall door. More sedatives, plus securing Blue to the tie-ring in her stall, bought us enough time to satiate the foal's appetite. All that to get a mare to feed her foal--things weren't looking promising.
Exotic Blue's filly at six hours old--she's a big girl! The foal has started to prefer human company, here shown with co-owner Tabitha Dotson.
Blue started to regain her senses about an hour later (all those sedatives had made her kind of loopy) so Chris and I led the mare and foal out to a small grass paddock. We hoped that the new activity would bring the two together. We released them and retreated to give the horses some time alone to bond.
The paddock we used is just a semi-circle with a diameter of 48 feet. Blue made it a point to stay at least 35 or 40 feet away from the foal at all times. Any time the filly approached, Blue would pin her ears, bare her teeth, and hurry off to the opposite end of the enclosure. That went on for a couple of hours, and I thought it was a bad sign. Unfortunately, it got worse. At one point, the foal started towards her dam, and Blue wheeled around and "double barreled" the filly. It wasn't a warning--the kick sent the filly flying 20 feet across the paddock.
Whether out of bravery and perseverance or hardheaded ignorance, the foal hadn't given up yet. She tried again to sidle up towards "Mom" and was rewarded with a savage attack. Blue bit at the foal's back, and then picked her up, shook her vigorously, and threw her to the ground. Fortunately, the cold weather had caused us to blanket the filly, so the mare's teeth had grabbed hold of fabric instead of skin and flesh.
More sedatives followed, with forced, supervised feedings necessary. Even "doped up" to where she could hardly stand, the mare was a danger to her foal. By now, the filly was exhibiting signs of fear. She needed a lot of urging to go anywhere near her dam, and was starting to bond with her human handlers. An uneasy feeling started to settle in: we were dealing with permanent rejection.
Dr. Friend returned later in the evening to intubate the foal and administer colostrum, because IgG test results had confirmed that the filly hadn't taken in sufficient antibodies during her first hours. The veterinarian also located a set of hobbles for us, and we set up the mare in her stall--hobbled, stall-tied, and sedated--so that the foal could feed safely throughout the night.
Tomorrow would be a big day. If Blue wouldn't allow the foal to nurse freely, and if she still exhibited violent behavior towards the filly, we would have to consider our options. And to be frank, the options for a rejected foal usually aren't pretty.
Next post: Resignation, and Back to Work
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Contracted tendons prevented the filly from standing normally.
Post 2--Feb. 15: Signs of Trouble
Two hours later when the foal hadn't yet stood or nursed, I started to worry. The filly's only attempts to stand were hampered by contracted tendons in both rear legs. She couldn't plant her feet squarely, and couldn't manage to steady herself upright. Another two hours later, I had spoken to my veterinarian, Dr. Tom Daugherty of Rood & Riddle in Lexington, Ky., and he had sent a fellow practitioner to evaluate the situation. Dr. Woodrow Friend arrived just as the new filly managed to plant all four feet for the first time.
Dr. Friend urged Chris and Tabitha and me--the co-owners of the mare and foal--to release Blue and her filly in a small grass paddock outside the barn as soon as the foal had nursed. The exercise and motion would help to correct the fetlock contraction. But before that next step, the filly would need to get her first meal.
Now that the foal was up and moving around--albeit shakily, on unsteady legs and walking mostly on the points of her hind hooves--it was becoming clear that Blue's attitude had shifted, and she was looking at the foal less as "my new filly" and more as "that pain-causing stranger." Around hour five of her life, the filly started to search purposefully for her mom's udder, but Blue made a beeline for the other side of the stall as soon as her filly approached. At first it seemed like she was just sensitive and maybe nervous, but then her ears started to flatten each time the foal came near. Blue's body language started to scream "stay away if you know what's good for you."
Next post: Rejection! (and Sedation)
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Post 1--Feb. 14-15: Imminent Arrival
Valentine's Day was another frozen day in an unusually long cold spell in Central Kentucky. My seven-year-old Thoroughbred broodmare, Exotic Blue, looked comically distorted, with a belly that stuck out dramatically on both sides and fell so low that I had to crane my neck just to locate her udder. At 16.2 hands tall and with a rangy build, this pregnancy was the first time I'd ever thought "Blue" looked like a broodmare, even though it would be her third foal.
Exotic Blue seemed to accept the foal at first, but her body language soon indicated a change of heart.
There was no mistaking the situation on that Feb. 14 evening: foaling time wasn't going to be far off. Once I did sight the mare's udder, I could see it had bagged up quite a bit since that morning--and it had already been filling up a lot over the previous two days. She had a large cap of milk crust on each teat. The frigid temperatures had helped to make it obvious that she was waxing up, freezing a layer of the dripping milk over the head of each nipple.
Blue has the type of attitude that gives broodmares a bad name. She is especially sensitive near her flank, and anyone brave enough to reach for her udder will be rewarded with a cow kick that several times has knocked veterinarians to the other side of the stall. I did my best to clean her in preparation for foaling, then led her into the broodmare stall and latched the door for the evening. Even if she did show irritable temperament during examination, Blue was generally a friendly mare and had been a terrific mom to two prior fillies. I was confident that she'd soon have another foal by her side and the months of waiting would be over.
Our in-stall wireless video camera wasn't functioning properly in the cold weather, so every 90 minutes that night, I bundled into several layers of clothing to make the two-minute walk to the barn. Each time, Blue seemed a bit more distressed, and made it obvious that she wanted to be released to her pasture. When I went up to the barn at 6 a.m., I wasn't surprised to hear an additional little whinny coming from Blue's stall. I peered through the barred window down to the straw-covered floor and saw a large bay foal with a big white star on the center of its forehead. Blue had cleaned the foal and the mare's placenta was still hanging: an apparently successful delivery.
Next post - Signs of Trouble
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