A Leopard With No Name

When last we spoke, I was sitting up all night with Jetta, waiting for her to foal. That was on May 6th, she finally foaled that next morning at 9:30, after keeping me up all night.

We turned her out of the foaling stall that morning, so I had to go outside and around the barn to see her. I had just checked her at 9:00 and nothing seemed to be happening, so I went back into the house. For some reason I felt that I should check her again five minutes later.

When I went out she was down, her water had broken and she was in hard labor. I came back in the house, called my DH at work and told him how worried I was that she might have twins and if she didn't have twins, it was going to be a really big foal. He said that he would come home. So, I hung up and grabbed my foaling kit.

I had been watching her the whole time that I was on the phone and she didn't seem to be making any progress. There was no white sack visible and that made me more nervous. When I got into the pen with her, I looked inside and saw the white sack, so I was somewhat relieved.

Finally a leg appeared but just one, not just a foot but a leg. I was relieved once more because it was a huge leg and I knew that it wasn't going to be twins. Jetta kept getting up and trying to reposition things but it wasn't working.

I tried pushing the leg back in but couldn't get it done, so I went in and found the other foot. I pulled on it and it pull back, I pulled again and it resisted, just like a horse! Finally, I just kept pressure on it without pulling hard and with Jetta's next contraction, it popped out.

At this point, I had both legs and the nose had presented itself, so I started pulling. This was a big foal and Jetta was going to have to have help. She did great! She didn't quit pushing and I didn't quit pulling. Finally, his shoulders slid out and his hips followed. If you have never delivered a foal or seen one born, then you might think that is a funny statement. Normally the hips do follow the shoulders but sometimes a foal will get stuck at the hips and that is no fun.

I pulled open the sack and removed it from his head, then towel dried his face and went to find a place to sit down to wait for my Husband to get home to finish the job. I was exhausted but not as exhausted as Jetta, she didn't even look at the baby or talk to him. She just lay there and rested, totally dazed.

When my DH got home, he got the big boy up and rubbed him all over with towels and put iodine on his navel. Jetta came out of her stupor and
started talking to the boy. I knew he was a colt without looking. Fillies just have a more delicate look about them and they aren't as obnoxious.

I still have not named him, he was born on one of my Granddaughter's sixth birthday, so he will be named for her on his registration papers but I don't know what to call him yet.

Here are pictures of Sissy and Jetta before they foaled, this is why I feared Jetta would have twins.

 

Here is Jetta's Leopard Colt. Name suggestions would be appreciated!

Foal Watch

I'm sitting up watching Jetta, our ApHC Black Broodmare. Her milk has turned white and tasted sweet this evening. She should foal tonight, she is pacing in her stall. I'm hoping that she goes early so that I can go to bed at a decent hour.

It's a Filly!

I had a plan, was looking forward to working the plan but Jetta didn't want to cooperate. I stayed up with her all night on Tuesday night. I had the new Mary Higgins Clark book, so I sat in my lounge chair out in the barn with my headlamp on, reading. She was anxious and nervous all night. This is just not her character, so I thought that she might be in early labor. We had tasted her milk, it had turned white and was just slightly sweet, so it was possible.

She had calmed down by morning and by around 10:00 a.m., she had waxed.When my DH got home from work he put her back out in the dry lot, so he could clean out her stall. I decided to take a nap to prepare myself for a long night. Before I laid down I took her picture eating some hay.While I was napping, my DH came in to get something to eat and the next thing that I know he is waking me up saying that it is a filly and she is already dry. I jumped up feeling cheated and mad. I wait all year for this and then miss it because I take a little nap!

If this had been twins we would not have been there to get the second one out quickly and since we knew this one was going to be really big, she probably could have used a little help. It helps to get the baby out as quickly as possible because they just get up faster and learn to nurse easier. With slow, hard labors the foals can have dumb foal syndrome and just have a little more of a struggle in the beginning.

This is what I found when I arrived on the scene...I named this filly "Sky" on the spot because of her unusual eyes that were the first things that I noticed about her. She is very large and didn't want to nurse as quickly as we would have liked but with my Husband's great skill at getting a newborn foal to nurse, she was nursing within a couple of hours.

She is a dark brown or bay with roan mare and tail, blanket with black spots and she has partial blue eyes. This is the first blue eyes that we have ever had here at Pintura Springs other than Grandkids.The above photo was taken as she first found her feet.



There will be no running under Mommy's belly to hide from danger with this big filly.
And last but not least a Family Picture that includes Sky's sire who came to look her over and pass out cigars.
It is dark and rainy here today, so Sky and her Mother are still in the stall and it is too dark to get any new pictures unless the weather changes.

Calf Bloat Update

Welcome To Wilmoth Farms posted on her blog some tips and a link in my comments about Angus' bloat and I am sorry that I haven't left you a comment, well actually I tried but it just wouldn't work.

I am so happy that you got DSL, some of us are going to be on Dial-up forever it seems.

Angus hasn't had another episode of bloat, just those three times, I doctored him like I would a goat with bloat which was baking soda, veg. oil and bouncing his belly.

I talked to a neighbor who raises around a 100 bottle calves a year and he said that he has a chronic bloating calf right now that he put a plastic valve in. He said that she was the first chronic bloater that he has ever had. He has only had to tube a few on rare occasions in the past.

I am not sure what caused this in Angus but he is over it now, he may have just gotten too much green grass because we were in the process of weaning him. He may have gotten into the goat mineral also.

I am not too happy with him, he nearly killed me yesterday trying to get me to give him a bottle. He is too big to punch and butt me. I couldn't get away from him, he kept circling me and spinning me around. I got so tired and dizzy that I thought that I would go down.

I am on foal watch with Jetta right now, she is waxed and ready to go. I set up with her last night and hopefully she will go early this evening or early tonight.

Due Dates

Everyone is having babies and I am getting a little jealous. At this time last year We already had one set of twin kids and a set of twin foals. I checked my due dates again just to make sure I was clear on when to expect some action and was surprised to find out that somehow I had my dates mixed up on when Calico got loose with Cooter.

After referring back in my blog archives, I realized that she got out with him in December instead of November. So her due date is May 10th instead of April 10th. Now that is even more disappointing. She is getting so big that I fear she might have triplets.

I checked our mare's foaling dates also and it looks like Jetta will be the first to foal. She is due on May 4th and is huge.

This is Dandee last year on the day before she foaled twins on her actual due date.

And this is Jetta last week. This picture really doesn't show how big she really is. But she sure looks bigger than Dandee did to me. She also looks like she is going to foal earlier than her foal date. Her hips are already hollowed out and her tailbone is pronounced. She isn't strutted yet but has a good start on a full udder.

The possibility of having another set of twins after having twin foals last year is nearly impossible to imagine and it is scaring me to death. My DH says not to worry that when the first one is born he will know whether it is a twin or not by its size and will try to get the next one out as quickly as possible, to avoid the problems of last year.

If this is a single foal, I am afraid that it will be a very large foal and that could also cause problems. Below is another picture of Jetta after we cleaned her up today.

For those who have goats and want to calculate due dates, if you will look at the bottom of the side bar on this page you will find a Goat Gestation or a Doe Due Date Calculator. All you have to do is put the last date your doe was bred in the first text box then click the Calculate button for the due date to appear.

Our First Casualty of 2008

We have only 5 mares bred this year and the first one due to foal was Jetta, our black ApHC mare. She was due to foal at the end of February or the first of March. Yesterday was January 19th and we certainly were not expecting any mares to foal on the coldest night of 2008 so far. I think it got down to 4°F here.

My husband went out to find a dead black leopard colt this morning, it was out of the sack and was clean, we don't know for sure what happened but assume that it was just premature and not viable. It was small and the mare had just started making an udder. By the look of it's feet, it never got up.

This may be the result of the quality of hay that we are feeding, a result of the drought this past summer, normally we would have had the mares separated and on good alfalfa before now but we just didn't have enough good hay to put them up as early as usual.

We are very disappointed because we have never gotten a black leopard from any of our own mares before. This mare has always had bays in the past.