Aborting Mare

[spellcasterminis]

I got a phone call tonight from a friend who is fairly new to minis, but not horses in general. Her mini mare had a foal this past spring and they rebred her to the same stallion for 08. She aborted in September, the mare was pastured with the stallion. Tonight she called saying the mare is acting like she did back in September and she thinks she's aborting AGAIN. To either one of our knowledge this mare hasn't been a problem foaler in the past. The first time she did this we wondered about the weather, fescue, normal things that could cause this. Now I'm wondering about RH fact or something like that. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions I can offer her?

 

[ionafarm]

I would suggest that the mare may have an infection. If she does abort again, have the vet culture her to check for this.

 

[Chilli's Mum]

I would agree with ionafarm, the mare may have an infection or be pooling fluid in her uterus. We had this happen with one of our older mares due to her age and getting a bit "saggy" in the middle. The vet said we could have her flushed and a drain inserted but we decided just to treat the infection and retire her from broodmare duty.

We have one wonderful mare who aborted two foals here but once we moved her to the big farm where she could be out doing her "wild and free" impersonation, she has produced two foals easily and is pregnant with number three. We put it down to stress from being in a busy environment and a smaller area. Maybe if your friend's mare is in a different environment to the time when she produced the first foal she might be a bit stressed?

 

[spellcasterminis]

We have one wonderful mare who aborted two foals here but once we moved her to the big farm where she could be out doing her "wild and free" impersonation, she has produced two foals easily and is pregnant with number three. We put it down to stress from being in a busy environment and a smaller area. Maybe if your friend's mare is in a different environment to the time when she produced the first foal she might be a bit stressed?

I am waiting to hear back from her this morning and see if anything happened. To be honest, I didn't think she even knew the stallion rebred her after she aborted in September. Obviously she knew there was a chance, but she hadn't seen anything. Yes, she'll have the vet out if she did/does abort again. You also have me wondering about the stress idea too. This mare went from being out 24/7 to being stalled and handled a lot more in the past month too. Hmmm so many ideas and things to wonder about.

Will RH cause them to abort thou? I know it can kill the foal if they nurse, but that's about it.

 

[spellcasterminis]

I heard from my friend this morning and she didn't find anything in the stall this morning. Her mare is also back to acting normal. So maybe it was just a mild case of colic or something. Either way you can bet she's going to keep a close eye on her for the next several days.

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions.

 

[Chilli's Mum]

I'll keep my fingers crossed for her! I'm not sure what you mean by RH, I'm guessing that it is a virus. We don't have a lot of viral problems here in Australia apart from Equine Influenza and the Herpes virus, both of which can be vaccinated for (although the area I live in, we are not yet "allowed" to have access to the EI vaccine unless you have racehorses or horses of "economic value"). I would say that the mare would be better off out in a paddock if possible as stabling can stress horses whether they are in foal or not, especially if she isn't used to it.

Before anyone jumps on me for that, I am aware that the weather in the US is much tougher in winter than anything we have here. Maybe something like I've seen in Germany with an open barn, like a big stable or covered yard with enough room for several horses together would help things. We have stables here but they are mostly occupied by a variety of spiders unless the weather is very bad or we are weaning. Most of the time the horses are out in the paddocks with trees for shelter and walk in shelters (that they hardly use). On the big property, they only have trees and they seem very happy there.

When I stabled Chilli the night before the clinic I went to she was quite uptight in the morning so the next night I left her out (and just washed her again in the morning because she's a little grot).