2009 Foaling Season

Miniature Horse Talk Forums

Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Joanne

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
2,401
Reaction score
34
Location
California
I know this is ahead of time, but as I am winding down from the 2008 foaling season and pulling all the gear out and cleaning all the foaling stalls, I am wondering what everyone does to prepare for the 2009 foaling season??

Can you please share how you get ready???
 
We have a relatively small barn with 6 large stalls in it, a feed room, and a small insulated room (we call it the closet) used for medical and grooming supplies.

Because of the size of our herd (50+), the barn is primarily used for foaling, a horse who is ill or injured, farrier work/grooming, or the occasional show horse.

About a month to six weeks before our first foal is due to be born, we disinfect all of the stalls and buckets. Larry prefers using a pressure washer with either bleach water or nolvasan.

At the same time I inventory our Foaling Kit and make sure we have plenty of Wormer, Banamine, Selenium/E, Gentle Iodine, mineral oil (for an enema) etc........ I make sure that all of our supplies are back in the kit or on the shelf next to it, so we know where things are.......During foaling season, some things do get moved around in our little medical "closet room". I also make sure the enema applicators, and feeding syringes are clean, etc......

This is also a good time to track down a colostrum source, if you weren't able to collect and freeze any the season before. (The vet usually helps there.) Oh, and this is when we throw out the old stuff, including the old Milk Test Strips and distilled water from the previous year and buy new!

And finally, I inventory our foal blankets, plus the barn towels and sheets.....making sure they are laundered and put in their rubbermaid chests that we use for storage.

That's just what WE do........Hope that helps?
 
We only use our stalls for foaling, so after we're all done we strip them and Nolvasan them from top to bottom. Take down the Equipage and throw out all batteries in the transmittors and pagers. Wash halters and pouches. Re-stock the foaling kit and medicine kit. I throw out test strips and distilled water.

Now early in 2009 I will stock up on shavings. Get the towels washed and bagged and put in the barn. Get the camera back up and running. I waited till late this year to check it and of course I had problems with it.
default_wacko.png
I'm not waiting to the last minute ever again.

I also stock up on batteries for the Equipage.
 
All of these are great ideas. How do you store your items in the barn?

You mentioned Rubbermade chests??
 
Joanne, You know the big rubber/plastic containers with lids? Some people use them for "show/tack boxes" too. You can find them at Home Depot, Lowe's......places like that. They are great for keeping the barn dust out.

We store sheets and towels in one.......foal blankets in another.......

We also have simple shelved cabinets in our "closet room", which have doors. We store all of our medical supplies in one and our grooming bottles/jars in another. The cabinets were purchased at either Home Depot or Lowe's and come as a kit that you need to assemble.
 
I'm excited about the next foaling season, not just for the expected foals, but we'll have a brand spankin' new mare barn to foal in!
default_biggrin.png
default_yes.gif
default_aktion033.gif


The mares will each have their own stalls over the winter as well as the 3 young fillies we have, so come about 6 weeks before due dates, we'll be breaking down the individual stalls into our foaling stalls (divider walls in the individuals are going to removable so we can combine the smaller stalls to make bigger foaling stalls) Will have 5 foaling stalls this way so each of our mares will have their own foaling stall, so don't have to worry about disinfecting after one birth to bring in another mare, that mare will stay in the same stall from foaling to weaning
default_smile.png
We'll give the stalls a good cleaning/scrubbing and disinfecting as well as buckets, feeders etc.. , then we'll bed deep with shavings until the mares get close we'll add straw over the shavings.. I also go through my foaling kit making sure I have all I need and hooking up our cam..
 
My husband got this Black and Decker scubber that I used last year on the stall walls to clean them. It beats my "elbow grease"!

I have a bucket of Clorox Clean up and dip the brush in, turn on the motor and presto the walls are scrubbed! It has a recharable battery, so no cords.

I take out all the batteries from my Breeder Alert and put each unit and each pager in its own plastic bag and seal it to keep the moisture out. These are stores in plastic totes in the barn to keep the dust out.

The foaling kit is restocked. Nothing like going to get something when you are foaling and it is not there. It seems like each year new things are added to the kit.

We keep a hair dryer in the blanket box and blow dry the foals after they are born once we have toweled them off.

I have just power washed for the first time this year. Finally got the PW out of my husband's hands. What a difference in cleaning time!
 

Latest posts

Back
Top