Witholding Cuteness, or, A Tale of Two Fillies

 Wheeee!  Twine's filly celebrates her first week of life.

I feel like I should start this blog post like you're supposed to start certain phone calls.

"Everyone's fine, but...."

I know I've written this in my head a bunch of times, but it just seemed too long, so I never sat down at the computer.  Then I'd think about everything else going on in the lives of others, and in the world, and think, meh, my recent stresses are nothing, and everyone's fine, so I'll just keep it to myself.  Add to that borderline burnout, and you get....internet silence.  Only a couple of people seemed to notice my absence, which kind of fed the cycle.  And I admit it was kind of nice to lay low, and selfishly keep to myself the ridiculous cuteness bouncing around in my stalls!  Some things, however, are far too cute to keep to myself, and knowing you can't really experience the full force of such cuteness unless you are face to face with it, well, you'll still be largely deprived!

 

Twine and Jubie, planning foaling strategy.

 

 Sunday, April 14, a routine check of Twine's udder revealed she was waxing.  While she was in the "safe" zone in that the foal would be viable, and not even premature, Twine is pretty textbook, and had always foaled at 338-345 days.  This was two weeks early.  I was a little concerned, especially given her less-than-ideal history.  I texted my vet to see if he'd received the results of the NI test yet, and hoped she'd at least hold off long enough to get that info, for my own peace of mind!  Either way, I wasn't going to be getting much sleep until the baby came.

Tuesday night at around 10pm, it was show time.  I wrapped her tail and stood by, and shortly saw we could have some trouble, due to what in layman's terms is called a red bag delivery (placenta previa, for the initiated).  While I had never had one before, I knew the deal - the foal had to come out as quickly as possible.  Fortunately Twine got to work and in literally five minutes, between her and I, we had the baby out - the foal was breathing and responsive, though not strong.  In time she rallied, and with my help got to her feet, and figured out now to nurse like a pro - you have no idea how much of a relief that was.  As it turned out she needed help getting to her feet for the first day, so I kept a pretty close watch on he to make sure she nursed at least once an hour.

So guess what happened Wednesday night at 10pm?  I'd gone out to do late feed, and Jubie starts pawing!  I check her, grab a tail bandage and wrap her tail, and then run around trying to get the others fed while I wait for her to proceed!  Twenty-four hours less five minutes, Jubie delivered a big, strong, healthy foal.  I was sure it was a colt, but I was wrong.  As I was attending to her, I heard Twine's filly get up on her own!  Yeah!  I was looking forward to some sleep!

Jubie '13 had other plans for me, though.  I guess those long, long baby legs were hard to sort out, because it took her just as long to get to her feet as it had Twine's filly, and I had to help her!  She had the opposite problem - she was very straight behind, her tendons a bit contracted.  And while she knew what was next on the agenda, she was too tall to easily figure out where to get that first meal.  She pushed the limits of my comfort, but figured it out.  And then it became apparent she wasn't able to get to her feet on her own.  So much for sleep!

Jubie really, really wanted to roll when she finally got outside....but she didn't want to take her eyes off her baby for that long, so this is as far as it went!

It was no surprise when Twine's filly's IgG was low, and she needed a plasma transfusion, which was taken care of at a nearby clinic.  It was a surprise when Jubie's filly - twenty-four hours later - needed the same!  Just one of those weeks for me, apparently. Both fillies got five days of antibiotics after that.

 

Jubie's filly.

 So, now, a week and a bit later, things seem much quieter.  I'm still keeping a very close watch on both, especially Twine's little girl.  Big filly is not impressed with me at all, taking all the fussing and needle-jabbing personally.  Little filly, on the other hand, is a Twine baby through and through, so happy and friendly I just want to bring her in the house and let her sleep on my bed.  She's so tiny, but then again, big (half) sister Gracie was almost that small when she was born, and well, she grew!

 I'm sure she'd fit just nicely on the end of my bed.

Sorry for the long post - believe me, it could have been much longer.  I admit I'm feeling somewhat melancholy this year, because my client isn't breeding any mares this year, thanks to the uncertainty in the Ontario Racing Industry, so these may be the last foals born on my farm.  I'm trying to forget last week's stress and enjoy these new kids.  It's true what they say about babies - they grow up too fast.