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Topic: Birth and adventure! (Read 1649 times)
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Joy
ata
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Posts: 1,270
I love Trakehners!
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Congratulations to Deb Hall of Missouri! She just emailed me with news of a beautiful bay colt by Paramoure out of her Vincent mare, Freedom's Fire. This little guy came into the world with a bang on May 14th! With Deb's permission, I'm posting her account here:
"YIKES!!!! What a two hours!
I sensed last night that this was the big night for Freedom to foal. She just seemed different, and she was totally full of milk with a little milk drop, even. I checked her several times throughout the night, and nothing. She was a bit restless, but we had pounding rain all night, too. Cleared off nicely this morning.
So I got up at 6:00 to check the mare in daylight. Nope, nothing. False instincts, I thought. I fed horses, and she pitched in as always. So I left her in the front pasture, Missy in the back pasture, went back in, took a bath, and computed for a bit. Loaded the car, and as I was about to leave, I looked over, and there was a foal, already up on his feet. She slipped him in on me. BIG problem, though, was that the foal was on the other side of the fence, in back with Missy. Freedom was on this side, pacing frantically. The divider fence between is electric wire on insulator posts, and how the sam hill he got under that, I don't know. From where I found the placenta later, she foaled right next to the fence, and I guess the foal squirmed under in his efforts to stand. I wouldn't have thought there was room, but he had to go under somehow.
Anyway, Missy the Mustang was there, licking the foal, and he was trying to nurse Missy, who had nothing to offer him. Missy knew it wasn't her foal; she's just a hyperresponsible worrier, much like me, and she knew something was wrong. She was trying to help as much as she could.
So I dropped everything and raced to the pasture. Missy was glad to turn over the problem to me, and she backed off a few steps and just stayed watching with interest. To her, I'm the boss mare. She'd always back off if I told her to.
That left me with the colt. He is a colt, by the way. Dark bay, no socks, one adorable star. He is balanced and tightly built, like a cat. Utterly fearless, no foal timidity at all, even in his less than ideal circumstances. I introduced myself, and he was fine with that and didn't mind being handled in the least, although he was disappointed that he couldn't get anything by nursing my fingers. Obviously, my first goal was to get him to the mare to nurse, then deal with the fence, so I started herding him toward the gate, one arm around his rump, one on his shoulder. We were herding fine until we got up to the gate, and I had to let go of him to open the gate. He stood pretty well, but the minute I had the gate open, Freedom crashed through like an entire regiment of the Army. She didn't want the colt right then; she wanted to kill Missy. She was LIVID. She thought Missy had stolen her colt. I've never seen a horse fight to match it, although Missy was trying to back down, since she never had thought it was her colt. Several war wounds for both Missy and Freedom. I didn't even try to get in the middle of that; I would have been hurt myself, but I herded the colt up to the edges (safely beyond hooves) and tried talking to Freedom, getting her attention, trying to get her to focus on him. She finally started to notice him and start that mother whicker. She gave Missy one final hard kick as she turned away and came over to sniff the colt.
When Freedom kicked Missy, Missy was knocked back, although she didn't totally go off her feet. They had fought to the very edge of the fence (the REAL fence, the boundary fence, not my electric fence pasture divider), and Missy crashed into it at what I guess was a weak point. The wires snapped, and down it went.
So at this point, Freedom was still frantic, even though she was with the colt. She was so busy sniffing him and trying to herd him away from the big bad Mustang that she wouldn't even stand to let him nurse. I decided that I would have to get Missy out of there and go tie her at a distance before Freedom would calm down. I called Missy back through the gap, propped the fence, and tried to lead Missy by her mane back up to the barn. She wasn't having any. She knew something was still wrong, and she was worried. So I bolted up to the barn for her halter and rope (and Freedom's, while I was at it) and came back down to find the fence down again, Missy in the pasture still, and Freedom and colt on the far side. I haltered Missy, led her up, and tied her. Then, I went back down to the gap. Freedom let me halter her (and the colt already knew me), but Missy whinnied just as I buckled the halter, and Freedom flipped into protective mode again. She ran back, nearly ran over the colt, and was now snorting at me like I was the danger. I now had a halter on her but couldn't get close enough to catch her. I finally went around behind them and herded them from behind by flapping my arms until they went back through the gap. Then, I fixed the fence thoroughly (I'd picked up wire cutters and pliers, too, when I went up for halters). All the time, I was watching Freedom, who had stopped about 25 feet away, and she was settling down, finally letting the colt nurse. I saw him poop, too, so all systems seem to be working, although the poor little guy sure had a rough first morning.
So then, I added a few extra strands on the bottom of the divider fence to try to make it un-roll-under-able for him. Then I went back to Freedom, and this time, she seemed like herself. She has several cuts and nicks from the horse fight, but nothing looks serious. She seemed quite attached to her colt and was licking him and letting him nurse. He came back up to me to have his star scratched, too. This one is totally fearless. After things were nice and calm, I put them back where they should be and untied Missy, who had now been tied for an hour and a half and stood nicely for it. She's banged up, too, but not badly. I did watch to make sure Freedom wouldn't try to resume the war, even with an electric fence between them, but she's totally wrapped up in the colt. He's getting sleepy at this point. He's swaying on his feet, and the mare will prop him up, but he doesn't want to lie down and miss anything.
I came in to give them a break, and then I'll go back out and take pictures. Somehow, I hadn't gotten down to that yet. I do need to leave and get on with my day, because the grain store closes at noon, but everything seems stable now.
Thank God I was here. On a weekday morning, I wouldn't have been at that hour.
Deb"
Photos to follow!
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fuzzy
Guest
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OMG!!!! Yes, you are very lucky to have been there - and that the mustang was agood "aunt" to the baby. Some horses would have killed him then and there. So glad it worked out. 
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Joy
ata
Old Hand
Offline
Posts: 1,270
I love Trakehners!
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Here are first photos of Freemont, aka Monty. (Freemont for the intrepid explorer John Freemont). Deb reports that his Mom has a hard time keeping up with him. He WILL explore!
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Joy
ata
Old Hand
Offline
Posts: 1,270
I love Trakehners!
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Updated photo of Monty at 5-1/2 weeks. He's fascinated by Deb's cats... 
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