Zircon

I took care of things at the neighbors this morning, then went home to find Quizzy just walking to the back of the dry lot that she was in. I thought that might be a good sign. So I went into the house and did a few things, then came out to see what she was up to, she was just laying down. I went back into the house, called my Husband's cell phone and told him that things were in progress. I grabbed some towels and headed for the back of the lot.

By the time that I got to her I could see two perfectly positioned front feet with a nose resting on them, so far, so good. She gave a push and more of the legs and nose presented themselves. Then she got up, turned around and laid back down with her tail end right against the electric fence, I don't understand why mares always do this.

She had another contraction but made no more progress, then she rolled half way over and I decided to give her a hand. So I squeezed in between her and the fence that was turned off and grabbed the legs as high up as I could get and pulled with her next contraction. We gained a few inches and I grabbed up above the foals knees and pulled again, this time the foal's head popped out and I stopped pulling. She went ahead without me to push out the foal's shoulders and then quickly pushed out the hips, while I tore open the sack, so the foal could get his first breath.

There were a lot of fluids pooled under his head, so I just spread the towels down under him so that he wouldn't inhale any liquid. It was hot and breezy enough that he didn't need to be dried off anyway. With his legs still inside, and after checking under his tail, I left them to go call my DH with the news. Her first colt, she has always given us fillies before. We always like to leave the feet in as long as possible to keep the mare from getting up too soon. This way she will rest and not be as prone to colic. We also like to leave them alone during this time.

The problem was that he was under the fence, so I knew I had to be there when he started to seriously try to get to his feet. When Quizzy finally got up and the umbilical cord broke, he bled more than what I am used to and when the blood finally stopped dripping, I dipped his navel in iodine.

For around the next three hours I tried to teach him to stand on his own four feet. Once he started trying to get up I realized that he was nearly walking on his hind fetlocks and actually does at times. This made it very hard for him to stand and walk on his own. Finally he mastered it by leaning and bracing himself on me. After he was walking, then my next concern was getting some colostrum in him and that was not going to happen. He just couldn't balance himself enough to get in the right position to nurse.

He got very tired after falling so often and having to regain his feet, the sun was also too hot for the work that he was doing. So I had to get him into the barn stall. That was lots of fun for me by myself but I managed to get it done with only some nasty bruises on my lower legs. We even tumbled down a little embankment together once. When we finally made it, we both crashed in the straw for a rest.

After we both somewhat recovered, I went to fill his mother's water bucket and he searched for milk. I was thrilled when he finally found it. That was one less thing to worry about. Next he passed his meconium and I felt that I could go milk my poor goat who was long overdue for milking.

Well he isn't the most beautiful thing that you have ever seen but he is here and his name is Zircon.