Stormy

  My palomino mare, Esmeralda, "Esmo" for short, had her beautiful little filly in the middle of a huge thunderstorm in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 18th, 2006. Stormy came with much fanfare.....thunder, lightning, and lots of rain. Just before midnight, I had gone to the barn to check on Esmo, found her pacing up and down the fence drenched with sweat and realized a birth was imminent. When a mare is foaling the only thing you can do is stay out of the way, watch that all goes as it is supposed to go, and hope for the best.  I have been present at probably ten or twelve foal births over the years, so I know the way it ought to go. However, after 45 minutes of trying to spit that little darlin' out, without success, I called the vet, Dr. Tom Meurer from West. Thankfully, Doc is only ten minutes away down I35.  For quite a while, I had been able to see the two front feet and about half of the little head on top of the feet, still in the placenta, protruding from the mare, as supposed to be. But no further progress was being made, as it should have been. I was  getting worried that Esmo could not have the foal without some help. I was praying hard that all would be well. However, having been around Nature all my life and knowing how cruel it can be, I had to be realistic. I could lose both mother and baby, if things did not go right. Doc got there just as the big storm hit. Both of us thought we would get to the stall and find a dead foal and a mare in real trouble. We were relieved and thrilled to see a little reddish-brown foal just born and trying to get up on those long wobbly legs! Doc stayed a while to be sure all was well....and it was. It was raining too hard for him to leave right away anyway.... I stayed in the stall most of the night with the mare and foal, a blaze-faced, stocking-legged filly who looks just like her sire, Mighty. I told Mighty, who was in a stall nearby, that he had a new baby, a girl, and gave all the horses some extra hay. It stormed and rained heavily for three hours. About an hour after the vet had left, the mare caught the hanging placenta on the side of the stall, and it was forcibly removed from her uterus, rather than slowly releasing itself naturally over the next few hours.  Now I had a new worry. The blood ran for a while, then thankfully stopped. It was chilling to realize Esmo could have bled to death right then and there. I also had another big problem. The new filly had not figured out how to nurse her mother.  Esmo's bag was full and tight, and, never having a foal before, the teats were short and hard to get a little baby mouth around.  A new foal MUST have the mare's first milk, the colostrum, within eight hours of birth, when the foal's intestines are able to absorb the antibodies, or it can die within a few days from massive infection.  I milked out the mare's bag a little, then held that new baby up to the mare's side for several hours. As a last resort, I rubbed white Karo syrup on the mare's bag, and the baby finally nursed! I had spent most of that stressful night, about five and a half hours, hoping the mare was going to be okay and that the baby would nurse. My sister Sue said the name for this baby had to be Stormy...and Stormy it is! Baby and mother are both doing fine a few weeks later. The best thing is that Stormy and I bonded after all those hours spent up close and personal. We are friends. She accepts me as a natural part of her life, probably because I was there with her from the beginning. She is very gentle and likes to be petted and scratched. She even nickers at me as if I am another horse! She also tries to kick me as if I were another horse! Oh, the joys of a new baby!