victoria
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- Nov 30, 2002
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We have had a sucky start to 2007 and lost both a mare and foal 2 nights ago with a horrendous foaling. We have lost our matriarch and are completely wreaked over it, and feel like bad horse mummys even though we know we did everything, we still feel like it wasn't enough...
On talking a few things though we keep coming to back to fescue and the possiblity that it could be contributing, we are not looking to blame anyone just wanted to prevent this again in the future if possible and would like others thoughts. Info on fesue over here is often disregarded here, the story is the mare had been off our property since early Novemeber and had 2 foaling dates one due for early december and one for early January (however the second breeding was a bit of a joke and the stallion did not really want to breed the mare and she was not screaming in season, but he did so very half heartedly and only twice, as I was getting married this is the only mare we didn't scan as I said well you will know by the beginning of next year if she is not in foal and re-bred her then as it was late anyway)- the mare uddered up and looked like she would foal in early December - she was setting the pager off and looked all systems go - things suddenly stopped, udder disappeared and she carried on until Wednesday night (being early Jan) when things all went bad. Firstly it was a red bag - this is the 3rd red bag we have had in 2 years and only breed 2 or 3 mares a year. The strange thing is the mares that have had the red bags are those that have been off our property the longest and have been slow and had rough uddering up patterns and in 2 of the red bags the foals have been mispresented and with prolonged gestation. We have been breeding for about 10 years and have only in the last two years had any issue with red bags which roughly coincides with them being introduced to this outside pasture in the later part of their gestation. The other thing is this foal seemed enormous like it had just kept growing and growing and growing and this is not normal for either sire or dam who are both proven an noted for producing nice fine bone. We authorised a c-section but your vet advised the mare was not a viable candiate as they have intervened too much already and enuthenaisa was the kindest option as the mare was in a very bad way. Our vet is totally gutted as she has never not been able to get a foal out so it is a whole bunch of firsts for everyone involved. Fescue has been discussed here in NZ but it seems may refuse to acknowledge that it could contibute to problems.
Does this sound like its an avenue worth pesuring or do you think it was just a one off things went wrong thing?
On talking a few things though we keep coming to back to fescue and the possiblity that it could be contributing, we are not looking to blame anyone just wanted to prevent this again in the future if possible and would like others thoughts. Info on fesue over here is often disregarded here, the story is the mare had been off our property since early Novemeber and had 2 foaling dates one due for early december and one for early January (however the second breeding was a bit of a joke and the stallion did not really want to breed the mare and she was not screaming in season, but he did so very half heartedly and only twice, as I was getting married this is the only mare we didn't scan as I said well you will know by the beginning of next year if she is not in foal and re-bred her then as it was late anyway)- the mare uddered up and looked like she would foal in early December - she was setting the pager off and looked all systems go - things suddenly stopped, udder disappeared and she carried on until Wednesday night (being early Jan) when things all went bad. Firstly it was a red bag - this is the 3rd red bag we have had in 2 years and only breed 2 or 3 mares a year. The strange thing is the mares that have had the red bags are those that have been off our property the longest and have been slow and had rough uddering up patterns and in 2 of the red bags the foals have been mispresented and with prolonged gestation. We have been breeding for about 10 years and have only in the last two years had any issue with red bags which roughly coincides with them being introduced to this outside pasture in the later part of their gestation. The other thing is this foal seemed enormous like it had just kept growing and growing and growing and this is not normal for either sire or dam who are both proven an noted for producing nice fine bone. We authorised a c-section but your vet advised the mare was not a viable candiate as they have intervened too much already and enuthenaisa was the kindest option as the mare was in a very bad way. Our vet is totally gutted as she has never not been able to get a foal out so it is a whole bunch of firsts for everyone involved. Fescue has been discussed here in NZ but it seems may refuse to acknowledge that it could contibute to problems.
Does this sound like its an avenue worth pesuring or do you think it was just a one off things went wrong thing?