*****Disclaimer*****This Is A Farm Blog*****With Graphic Photos*****

When my older daughter went out to stall Claire for the night…..

…..she called from the pasture to tell me that Claire was in labor…..

…..So…..Game On!…..

…..my younger daughter and I booked it for the barn…..

…..towels flailing…..jackets hanging by one arm…..shoes half on…..

…..(you know……totally prepared)…..

Rhiannon was called…..

…..she came immediately…..

…..she wanted to help Brave’s baby into the world…..

…..she skidded into the barn’s breezeway just in time…..

Claire was moving fast!!!…..

…..the mare was a woman on a mission…..

…..she had her eye on the prize and she wasn’t wasting one bit of time…..

…..at that point…..patience was not in her repertoire…..

We all had headlamps (the barn lighting had been blown down after all the hurricanes in 2004)  *****Charley/Frances/Ivan/Jeanne*****

…..(hmmmmm…..maybe we should get those fixed?)…..

…..Dr. Stevie Wonder was called…..

…..he asked me to do some manual/very personal checks to see where “things” were at that point in time…..

…..I felt wiggling feet…..or was that a nose…..(?)…..

…..and everything was still behind (proximal to?/anterior to?) the ischium…..

…..Dr. Wonder said she probably wouldn’t birth for awhile…..

…..Claire had other plans…..

…..and let’s face it…..she’s probably had a number of babies in the past…..

(btw…..I can run her papers with the Clydesdale Association and find out just how many)

Her son came into this world with wicked fast speed…..

…..worrisomely fast speed…..

With just a little redirection of her son’s front hooves…..

(to avoid potential parturition-related transmural rectal intestinal evisceration)

…..(they were dangerously & quickly being forced towards her rectum)…..

…..(you DON’T want a foal’s hooves to perforate the mom’s rectum)…..

…..her baby arrived in head-spinning/record time…..

…..the umbilical cord remained attached after delivery for a healthy amount of time…..

…..my older daughter broke the birth sac at his head & nose…..

…..and Claire’s son began breathing easily…..

The only “hitch” in the post-delivery was the length of time it took for Claire to pass the placenta…..

…..her son was born at about 11:30PM…..

…..the afterbirth finally detached sometime between 3:30 and 4:45AM…..

…..I had even tied knots along with a wet bath towel in it for the added weight to help it along…..

…..and you DEFINITELY want ALL of a mare’s placenta to come out…..

*****Complications In Foaling*****

So…..Rhiannon, my older daughter, my younger daughter, and I…..

…..waited…..in the dark…..and shivered…..and waited……and played with her baby…..and shivered…..and waited some more…..

 

………….to be continued………….