Nicole Schnell

Hey guys...lots of exciting stuff happening.  We've got two more foals at the farm.  One was born Wednesday morning, she's a big filly and was born with contracted tendons in her front legs.  What this means is that her tendons are tight and sort of scrunched up, so it causes her knees to bow forward and she has to walk around on her toes.  This is something that can often be seen with foals that are really big if they're forced to fit into a small space in the mom.  We're expecting her legs to straighten out soon, it will just take some time and a little bit of treatment.  There's actually an antibiotic that the vet can give where one of the side effects is that it relaxes the tendons.  So she has been started on this and she's already starting to show improvement.  She was having a hard time getting up in the begining, so we had to bottle feed her some and she's had a couple enemas to help her out as well.  One of the things I've already learned about foals is, it only takes one problem, and from that problem there seems to be a domino effect.  Because she wasn't able to get up and walk around on her own, she couldn't nurse, so we had to be sure she was getting all the milk and colostrum she needed.  Also because she wasn't getting up we had to be sure she was using the bathroom enough and didn't develop colic.  But she's doing really well now, and actually made it outside today for the first time for a few minutes! 

The fourth foal came Thursday night about 8:00.  We actually made it out to the farm in time to watch the whole thing which was really exciting!  We got to help position the baby and do a little bit of pulling as the mom gave birth.  That was probably the neatest thing I've ever done!  I felt like a proud mom when everything was done and over with.  I've got a few pictures added from the foaling, my manager took some of us during the delivery so I'll get those from him and post them as soon as I can.  This foal's a colt, the mare is actually 21 years old!  So it was really lucky everything went so well.

Other than that, it snowed here yesterday about 3 inches.  Today was 12 degrees when I got up to go to work, and the wind chill was even colder!   I think it's only supposed to get colder as the weekend wraps up.  OH, and if anyone's into racing, one of our broodmares has a 4 year old running at Santa Anita tonight.  The horse's dam, Candytuft, is actually a broodmare at our farm right now.  So if you're keeping up with racing at all be sure to cheer for Midnight Lute tonight!  It's the grade II stakes race, The Strub Stakes.   

Be sure to check out the new pictures!