Melody's weird adventure in foaling

This is the strangest foaling I have ever attended. I saw on the foalcam that she was laying near the front of the stall--I could only see part of her, but I thought she was laying flat and then laying on her side, repeatedly. That sent me flying to the farm to check on her. When I got there, feet were sticking out by the front door--delivery had just started.

But Mel was doing nothing. She almost seemed in a daze. She acknowledged me when I arrived, but just laid there. If feet were not sticking out, I would have sworn she was not in labor at all.

I watched a few minutes, called Barry to come over to help, and then decided she was not going to do this on her own. I had to put the camera down to help pull the baby.

Pulling babies is no easy task and you can screw it up in a heartbeat. Their muscles are so freakishly strong that you have to just grab hold of a joint and hold him tight as the contraction recedes, so that baby does not get sucked back in. You cannot really pull one out- not against the muscles of a mare.

This deal was complicated by the fact that she was not really having contractions. Melody did not look exhausted, or panicked--just like she was a little out of it. It scared me. I have pulled babies with Barry's help, and it takes some muscle. Once we were both in the floor with our feet on the mare's butt to brace ourselves--that is how much strength it takes. At first, I thought I screwed up, evening up the baby's legs--it occurred to me that doing that probably put her shoulders even, which would then lodge her in Melody. So I re-positioned her and within a minute or so, I had a baby in my lap. Mel must have been pushing some, or we would still be there, but you could not tell it by me.

About that time, Barry showed up.

All that explains why my pics start where they do, even though I was there for the whole thing. Once again, the foalcam has saved us.

Here she is almost completely born. My favorite part of this photo is something I did not notice at the time---you can see her dun stripe through the bag. Also, there were several hippomanes with this one--that is the brown blob of goo laying on the bag. Those form from extra minerals etc in there that baby does not need or use. They freak me out, but are totally normal. I cannot stop myself from making them jiggle--they have a similar texture as an organ.
In this shot, she has her head out of the bag--I think she did that one on her own. Her feet are still in Melody, which is significant to the story later on. After passing all that, I am sure Mel did not even feel those baby feet in there.
Looks how tubular her little head is. They all look like that at first--like big red cucumbers.
I have never gotten to see this before--I was just in the right place--within seconds of snapping this shot, the cord broke. It was cool to see it happen--you can see how much tension is on it. Normally the cord will break when the mare stands up. You want her to spend as much time as possible down so that everything that needs to pass through does so. Mel took it to extremes though, as she did not get up for nearly an hour.
This photo will probably make Jenna sick, she is weird about blood etc. I thought it was fascinating though to be able to see the filly still connected in such a way.

For the first time ever, the baby got up before the mama did. She was trying to get up here--and her feet were still in Melody. It occurred to me that such a thing might hurt, so I went and got them out. Mel wuffled me when I did it--I do not know if that was a thank you or a disapproval.

Baby girl managed to hustle her way over to the far wall-- after she almost got out of the stall altogether in her attempts to get up. Barry had to turn her around and point her at me. The new baby bottle system worked better for the Seramune, but still not as well as it should. We gave her the e.coli endotox, the seramune, dipped her umbilical stump in chlorhexadine, and left her be for a minute. Baby was shivering, so Barry put this blanket over her. Cracked me right up. Melody was STILL not up. I had one eye on baby and one on Mel the whole time. Mel seemed to not even notice what was going on at all--occasionally she would nicker, and she had snuggle baby some, but normally she is totally on top of things. She is an amazing mother.

The blanket must have pissed her off though, as she seemed distressed by it. I put a halter on her and asked her to get up--she had already passed the entire placenta and afterbirth when she was lying down. That is another weird thing I do not ever remember seeing--usually there are a few pieces.

Once I got Mel up, she seemed to snap to it and got right into her role. Thank goodness, I was wondering what was happening in her to make her act so weird, but there was not excessive blood or anything to suggest she had an injury that would have put her into shock. Shocky is probably the most descriptive word I can come up with for her demeanor--just odd.


Little wiggle is a prodigy. She was up and at 'em really quick. She even passed all the meconium within minutes of being up--unlike baby boy who took almost 11 hours to do it.

This is her first fairly steady stand. Once she was up, she spun round and round in circles. It was cute. She had no control over her legs--it was like she had a rudder stuck or something.Getting that first drink is so funny to watch (unless it is 3 am and you have been at it for hours--in which case, there is nothing funny about it). She missed the tap completely here--look at Mel trying to drive her to the right spot.
I was starting to wonder about that prodigy business here--she licked or sucked on every area of the mama but where she needed to be. That is normal, and always makes me laugh. No taps in the front, baby.
By this time, she has figured out where they are, but is not going about the normal way of getting to them. She is going to be one of those, I guess. Eventually she worked it out, and all was well. She had several tries though where she ended up with a nipple in the nose or the eye --everywhere but where it belonged. Once she got sprayed in her face with milk, and it startled her so much she flew backwards and bounced off the wall--which set Barry off laughing, and that startled her all over again. She had such a look of disgust on her face.
This morning, we took the babies outside for their first play time.
Look at that face. She is a beauty.

This series of shots is her attempt to lay down. The first few days, babies struggle a lot with working the front and back legs in opposite directions to get to the ground--they try real hard, but it takes a while to get the hang of it. Quite often they just flop down, and skip most of the mechanics.



She finally made it!
Then she got up and did it again. Silly baby.



She had a busy 12 hours with getting born and going outside. She bounced off a fence post pretty good and knocked herself silly this morning, but she recovered quickly and went bounding off in a hurry. I need to get video of new baby running, it is pretty funny.

Melody is totally back to normal today. Thank goodness. I have no idea what that was about. It was anxiety inducing for sure, for me if not her, but she is back on her game and being the great mother she usually is.

She did good with this one--I already have a crush on this little girl.

She needs a name though. I do not do people names for animals, and we might be doing a B theme for names this year--not sure though, so if you think of something else good, throw it out there and we will see if it sticks. Names are like that for me--I know it when I hear it.

Bring on the suggestions