First the bad news. The Blackbird chicks got out of the box that their nest was in, earlier today, we managed to find one of them, no sooner than we put it back into the nest it got out. This time we were unable to find it. The chicks were to young to have fledged, and we can only assume the worse. Up date. On looking around the barn with the camera we found one of the chicks. The adults are feeding it, it just flew off. Looking out of our window that overlooks the Farm Yard I can see it sitting on a gate post. So maybe not to young to fledged.
At last Lady has Foaled. Our alarm cock went off at about 2.15pm, I could see that she was in a little discomfort and went straight to Lady’s stable. It was obvious that she was about to foal. Feeling inside her I could initially only feel one leg. After more feeling about, I found the other leg, a little bit back, but it was easy to bring forward. It did not take very long for the legs and head to show. I am all for natural births, but I am not prepared not to help. Most times when I see the head and front legs of the foal I will put a rope on both feet, when the Mare pushes we will pull. We did last night with Lady, she gave birth with our help within ten minutes of us helping her. At one time I did think that we would need help to pull the foal off. I could tell by the size of the foals head and legs that it was going to be a big foal, and expected a Colt foal.
At 2.35am Lady gave birth to a Filly foal. As you can see the Filly is big, those extra three weeks in the womb didn’t do any harm. Lady was quickly to her feet and encouraging the Foal to get up on its legs. We could see that the Foal would not take long to be on her legs and taking her first feed of colostrum. Very often we will stay with the Mare and Foal until the Foal is suckling. It was not going to be necessary at this birth. We returned to bed, checking Lady and the Foal on the Monitor in our bedroom every hour.
If the weather is good tomorrow we shall let Lady and the Filly out into the field. There is nothing better than spring grass to produce milk in nursing Horses, helping the Foal to grow strong.
I did check Lady a couple of hours before she foaled. There where no signs that she would have had the Foal in two hours time. By reading the forum it seems that only the Ladies in the USA saw the birth. I am sorry that all you very patient people, watching for the past weeks missed the birth. But after seeing the Filly I am sure that you are not to disappointed, and thank you all for you good wished that you have put on the forum.
We shall now be thinking about a stable name for the Filly. There are a few obvious ones, I am sure that you have some that you can suggest. We wont promise to use any of the suggestions, but it will be good fun.
Breeze and Arnie were a let down when we tuned them out this afternoon. It didn’t happen as it normally does, but I promise it will be better when we turn Bliss and Misty out with Breeze and Arnie. I was asked do we leave them out for the summer. If the weather is good we try to, bringing them in if it is too hot or prolonged rain.