Getting Back on the Horse

Well. I knew it had been a while since I shared a blog post on the site but I didn't realize it had been quite this long... my apologies for the 6 week break! It's been a busy and often stressful month and a half and I'm just finally getting to the point where I'm ready to stop and reflect on it.

Most significantly, shortly after doing our foaling recap and celebrating the joys of a successful year of foaling we were hit with one of the big lows of farming when we had to make the call to put a foal down. Not just any foal, but our sweet Thumper who we had nursed through all kinds of issues following his premature birth. We never expected his story to end with a call that what looked like a simple pasture bump and a limp was actually a serious injury with poor long term outlook. I'll be honest- that one hit hard. I know that it was the right call to make but losing a baby that has taken up so much of our time and our hearts was devastating. It kind of threw a fog over the usual late-summer activities which is finally starting to clear and let us enjoy the wins in farm life again.

Along with the sadness of losing Thumper, we were faced with more medical challenges when we had two young foals put on stall rest. Their issues were easily treatable, although requiring time to fully resolve, but with our recent loss it felt extra nerve-wracking trying to nurse them through the treatment process. And as if constant medications and hand walking weren't enough, we ran out of space in the barn and had to build another! I'm so grateful for Dehan's skills and drive as it took just a week to go from an idea to a functional pavilion-style barn.

Those feel like the major projects of the last six weeks, but plenty of other things were on the list as well. Second cut hay is nearly wrapped up, with the final fields drying now. We had family in town for a visit and got to show off the joys of farm life to a very enthusiastic little girl. Breeding season wrapped up with successful pregnancy checks on all but one of the mares we had planned to breed. Weaning has begun for the first round of foals and baby boot camp is soon to follow. And now that I have a few spare moments I've been enjoying doing some short refresher rides on a mare that will be for sale later this fall. I've missed my saddle time a lot with all the chaos of keeping a farm running so that is an exciting addition to my schedule.

There have been a lot of joys mixed in with the challenges of the summer and it's good to stop and think about those as well. As the old saying goes, when you fall off the horse you have to get right back on... and so here we are, plugging away and hoping for a few months of a rocking-horse instead of a bronco!

2021 Foaling Review

It's official... as of 4:06 am on July 28, our foaling season here at All the King's Horses is complete. We are thankful for the safe arrival of our final Brabant x Percheron colt as well as all his older friends and siblings. Here's a quick summary of how our 2021 foal crop shook out:

- We had 14 foals out of the 15 mares that were bred for 2021. One mare slipped her pregnancy around Christmas which was unfortunate, but is part of breeding horses

- 7 colts, 7 fillies

- 4 Gypsy Vanner foals, 10 Brabant or Brabant cross foals

Brabant foals:

- 8 foals sired by Chris uit den Blommendaal, 2 bred at Tolman Farms and sired by Luka van de Waaienberg

- 5 colts, 5 fillies

- 2 foals out of imported mares, 4 mid to high percentage American Brabant foals, and 4 50% Brabant foals out of approved grade or Percheron mares

- 4 bay roans, 2 blue roans, 2 solid bays, 1 black, 1 grey

- 2 keeper fillies! One out of imported mare Hannekke van de Priemsteeg and one out of Dehan's very first horse, Percheron mare AKH Sequoia

Gypsy foals:

- All sired by FHF Shot o Whiskey

- 2 colts, 2 fillies

- 3 black/white tobianos, 1 solid black with stockings

- 1 keeper filly out of my first Gypsy mare, Aurora Acres Saoirse

In the end, we are simply grateful that the foals arrived safely and for the most part have been growing happy and healthy. There are always a handful of issues along the way, some more serious than others, but to successfully raise and wean our largest group of foals to date is a big deal for us. We are humbled by God's goodness to us in such a crazy season and look forward to finishing up the breeding season and anticipating more fun youngsters in 2022.

Help! My Foal Won't Nurse!

The arrival of a new foal is a miracle. First, you have the cost and anxiety of getting the mare bred. Then it's 11 months of waiting and preparing. The big moment arrives and you're full of nervous anticipation as you watch the birth progress and make sure that everything goes smoothly. At long last you have a beautiful baby on the ground and a tired but content mother. And then the real work begins... within the first couple of hours of life that little foal needs to learn how to stand up and nurse from it's mother to get the valuable first milk (colostrum) full of antibodies that will keep it healthy and strong through the first months of life.

Watching a foal learn to stand and nurse is honestly one of the most frustrating parts of the process, at least for me. It is remarkable that they can master these skills so quickly but watching the fumbling attempts and trying not to intervene any more than is necessary so that they learn on their own is a challenge. At times, the foal needs assistance in figuring things out and we try to get involved quickly in these cases as the clock is ticking on the foal's need to get colostrum into them. I am far from an expert at teaching a foal to nurse- Dehan is the one with the patience of a saint- but we've had our fair share of practice and often get asked about the process from new breeders who are struggling so here are a few tips that we've learned along the way.

- We always start by gently pointing the foal at the udder to see if they will figure out the suckling on their own. At times, a simple prod in the right direction is all it takes. If not, we then move to putting our fingers in the foal's mouth to trigger the suckling reflex and then moving our hand down next to the udder and transitioning the foal from our fingers to the teat. This approach works best with at least two people, as often you need someone standing behind to foal to keep them in position and a second person doing the finger-to-udder transition underneath the mare.

- A little bit of something sweet on the teat (or bottle, if you end up going that route) can be a lifesaver for encouraging the foal to suckle and then get milk in their mouth. The easiest route is to milk a little bit of colostrum onto your fingers and then spread it on the teat. If that's not exciting enough you can also use Karo syrup or honey. The foals generally love the taste and want to get as much of it as possible, which leads them to suckling. As an added bonus, the sugar give them a quick energy boost.

- In some cases we find that the size of the foal presents challenges for nursing well. If the foal is tall and the mare is short it can be awkward to get into the correct position. At times we have helped the process by putting the mare in our trimming stocks or standing her uphill from the foal to give her a few extra inches of height.

- If the foal can't master nursing on the mare's udder you can offer a bottle to try and get the colostrum in the foal. I can't stress enough that nursing is very time sensitive so while we may leave the pair alone for an hour or two if the foal is making an effort, by the end of a couple of hours if the process is not figured out we are moving on to plan B. In the end, the foal always prefers the udder to a bottle so we're not overly concerned about ending up with a long term bottle baby. But in the short term the important part is getting that colostrum in the foal quickly so we will milk a few ounces of colostrum into the bottle and offer it to the foal. It's important not to milk out all of the colostrum at once when attempting a bottle, as if the foal refuses the bottle you have no way to get it back into the mare! We have had the best luck with a simple baby bottle with the nipple cut a little wider to allow faster milk flow. Others use a lamb or kid bottle for foals. It generally comes down to what the individual foal will take and we have a few different styles on hand to try if needed.

- Some foals are born as 'dummy foals' and have a poor interest in or ability to suckle. In these cases, foals can be helped by a technique called the Madigan Squeeze. The procedure uses a system of ropes to squeeze the foal and simulate the pressure of the birth canal in an attempt to 'reset' the system and initiate a suckling reflex. I can't explain the process terribly well but there are many videos and articles explaining it and being aware of this option is the first step to tracking them down if you need it.

- When all else fails, if the foal cannot nurse the udder and won't accept a bottle or has no suckling reflex at all it's important to get a vet involved and they will put a tube down the nose and into the stomach and administer the colostrum that way. This is not the ideal scenario but it is essential if the foal will not nurse on their own.

- Regardless of the method used to get the colostrum in the foal we always follow up with a test of the foal's antibody levels (an IgG test) at 12-24 hours after birth. This shows how well the antibodies were absorbed by the foal and gives and early indicator if the foal will need additional immunity in the form of plasma or additional colostrum supplementation.

As I shared, nursing training is not my favorite part of the foaling process but it is incredibly important for getting foals off to a good start. Draft foals seem to have a higher than average incidence of nursing challenges but the good news is that they are generally short lived. Once the foal gets a taste of mom's milk and figures out how to make it flow there's no stopping them! I'm thankful for the help of my husband and horsey friends as we work through the process and grateful for every single foal that makes it through and moves on to being a champion eater without my assistance.

Dehan starts a Gypsy foal off with a bottle full of colostrum. In this case, the mare is older and her udder was so large that he couldn't get his mouth on the teats well. We had to continue milking out the mare and offering colostrum in the bottle until her teats were small and soft enough for the colt to latch on without our assistance.