In foal ? what to look for...

[chocolatecakeystuff]

One of the ladies at our yard recently bought a mare from a dealer (not safe cobs but similar type)

They were told it was 13 & ex ridingschool. Howvever dentist has guessed its about 8. She's not a bad mare but very green. Was very very underweight on arrival. Covered in rain scald & mud fever to boot.

Annnyway we were having a looksie today & although she's still very thin (all ribs clearly visable) she's looking rather rounded in the belly department, and its almost lop-sided looking.

She's been well wormed, but its still possible I guess it could be worms.

The other thing (and this could just be her nature) is she doesn't like the ither horses anywhere near her. Doesn't intigrate with the herd & shows anything anywhere close her hind legs very quickly.

We've told them to get a vet out to it (for something unrelsted) so hopefully the vet will have a looksie & we'll know. I'm just intrgued anything else we should be looking for hehe?

Been there and yes very thin mare from dealer, dropped surprised foal. Lucky she did as I ended up with great mare after selling on foalie to fab home. Mine was bing fed a little yet weight not going on.

Not getting involved could be to I with being starved so is food aggressive. Mine can be quick with heels.

Get a blood test to confirm . Would then start mare on some mare and foal mix but don't shovel food in otherwise lami or matsitus

This happened to someone near us last year. Spent ages trying to feed up poor looking mare but eventually got vet to look. Vet confirmed pregnancy on tuesday, enormous foal was born following sunday!

I should just add its not my mare. Was just curious.

Vet is out tomorrow at some point so I'm sure we'll find out.

She's not only agressive around food, just other horses in general. Very anti social.

Could be a hay belly I guess, she's not put on as much condition as you'd expect given what she's being fed.

She has half a scoop of baylies to line (I fecking hate that stuff) & a large handfull of hifi, & sbeet. Plus as they're in 2 full hay nets during the day & 2 at night. Which she clears, they've only had her what 2 nearly 3 months but you'd expect to see a fairly big improvemt in a cob in that time.
She's been wormed twice during that time with two different wormers. Although no worm count.

I have first dibs on the foal hahaha x

Its very common. Anything gypsy related is more than likely to be in foal.
IME, in foal they tend to look egg shaped.
It is really the vet you need. Until nearing delivery there arent many outward signs. You can feed her up a lot if she is, PG mares dont tend to come down with laminitis unless they are very overweight in the first place, the foal takes a lot of what they get before the mare does.

The guys that delievered the horse were definatly traveller types. Don't know about the dealers themself as obviously was only there when it arrived.

Vet out for it tomorrow. Have advised the ladies to mention it to the vet ( her answer was I really don't want to know) she got a bit of a strongly worded reply to that... oooops.

She doesnt want to know if its in foal??
So what is she going to do? Fatten it up and jump aboard?
If it is dead thin has been wormed and still has a belly, It could well be near due. My mare is in winter condition and due end of may, and she is hardly showing at all!
It sounds like you are on hand to administer a kick up the bum and get her head out of the sand!

Bless she's a lovely lady. Buuuut one of those that expects us to carry her. Spent the horses first few weeks at the yard doing everything for her as she was terified of it. Have been advising her since she bought it to get a vet to look at it. Personally if id spent 2k on a horse id have had it vetted but that's just me, (never spent more than 300 on a horse)

Its a real shame as she's a cracking little mare.

Guess that's livery yard politics & what you get for shagging the boss for a year or so haha, you're expected to know everything/ look after everyone elses horses. Fine when I'm getting free livery. Not so fine since we broke up & I have to pay the badtard lol x

I'd not spend 2k on a horse from gypsys! But thats just me! Im like you, most of mine were free!

Yup. My big mare was free (sort of) & the deamon pony was £75

To be fair id probably have paid maybe £300 for their mare. She's a cracking little thing. But moody as arse with the other horses, very green (looks like shed only beem used to pop out babies before) skin & bone with some nasty scars on her legs. Terrible manners too but she picks things u quicky enough.

Hehehe I was right. She's definatly expecting :-)

Any idea how far on she is? Do you know what to look for when the time comes?

Well.... the vet gave a guestimate of may/june time. But tbh I don't think she'll go that far. I'm placing my bets on april looking at her.

Looking for her bagging up, & then waxing a few days before? Also muscules around the tail slackening right? That's about as far as my know how goes tbh, working on a hunt yard its not something I've come across recently.

Its not her maiden foal though & know roughly what to look for if she gets into trouble, farmer lives on sight so hopefully someone will be arround if there's any problems.

Biggest concern is she was wormed with paramox in dec... which wasn't ideal really.

Well done for the guess, hope it goes well. Does not sound like owner will cope well, ready mash extra has been fab for my girlie. Also get tin of milk in or know who holds one in area ( Dobson and Horrell) just in case as poor mares and milk.

Thank you. The owner is talking about giving the mare away, in wich case I shall be taking it on. Not that I can really afford another one but no way am I letting it go to the gypsys, so will just have to scrape by, would probably have to bring her on after the foals weened & sell her, but at least she would go to a good home.
The classic today (to the vet) was ' how will I be able to muck her out) had to gently explain that the foal will follow mum if she takes mum out if the stable/ field. Vet suggested gradually intoducing mare & foal mix onto her feed over the next month or so, but not to feed her up too much.

We have a d&h supplier down the road so will have a looksie, already putting together a foaling pack to have at the ready for them.

Don't forget purple or iodine spray for the umbilicus. Very important.
The owner sounds dreadful! But you sound like a good sort. I'm glad the mare has someone to look after her.
A handy hint we've learned from our foals, is to use an adult sized head collar on the foal, like a body harness. Turn the hc upside down, then put the nose part of the HC over the foals head, so that the underneath of the HC, where you clip the rope to, is on top of the foals back. Then do the headpiece of the HC up under the foals tummy. This then gives you the underneath part of the HC on the top of the foals back for a very useful handle when moving mum and baby about. Much nicer than having a wee panicking baby struggling to be lead in a foal slip for the first few days.

Ooh we had a surprise foal at the riding school I used to work at!

Pony must have just been upduffed when we bought her. One of the yard girls went to feed the horses in the field on their day off and came back panting and yelling " OMG there's a foal there's a foal there's a FOAL!!!"

Cue a stampede to the field where mum was grazing happily with a foal suckling away. I don't think any of us spoke for about ten minutes :D

Pony had been very enthusiastically doing X- country fences the day before with absolutely no sign of impending motherhood.

My sec A was in foal planned year before last. She'd been covered one cycle, then taken back to be tried again 3 weeks later. She had happily stood to be covered the second time was gagging for it.
So we calculated a foal 11 months from second cover. 10 months later, having just started planning extra foal watching visits and a move, I drove to the paddock after work to check on her and her mates. As I drove towards my parking space I could see the field, and glanced in to see dmare suckling a tiny foal! I screamed, nearly crashed and dd was "what? WHAT?"
All I could manage was "there's a fucking FOAL IN THERE!"
The bloody slapper of a mare had enjoyed herself so much the first time that she had gone back for a second time for the fun of it!
Wed had a whole new paddock planned without barbed wire, proper stables available, electricity of lighting and a couple of weeks to settle in. Instead we had to do a late night trailer run, with me and the foal in the nose end, and dmare and her 2 mates in together!
We're doing it again this year. Ill be much more on the ball!

Most of the bits are stuff I've already got in my oversized firstaid box to be fair.

Hehehe your section a sounds like mine... a tart! She parades past the boys with hertail in the air 'look at me boys' shame she's such a wild child as I've had a few offerers to breed from her (she's got some nice revel blood lines)

I'm sooooo excited for the mares arrival, was meant to be moving yards but with more horses than sense doesn't look like that's happening now. Whhhhy can't I winthe lottery dammit!