Nicole Schnell

A lot more baby pictures added!  I got a chance to walk around during lunch one afternoon and get some good shots of the foals out playing in the field.  They love being outside, and they are so much fun to watch trying to play together and get into trouble.  Over the weekend we had one foal escape outside the paddock fence, and we had to catch him and lead him back in before the mare got too freaked out.  My manager and I were out checking fields and noticed something a little out of the ordinary when we saw a big black fence between a mare and foal.  We think the baby must have fallen asleep next to the fence, and in some spots, the fences are actually high enough that the smaller foals can roll over to get up and end up rolling out of the paddocks!  He cooperated pretty well though and let us catch him and take him back to his mom. 

I was called out to a foaling last week one night, and by the time I got to the barn we had two mares both in the process of delivering!  So that was pretty exciting to get to see.  I've added pictures of those new babies also.  One of the mares is on restricted turn out right now, her foal was born with really weak tendons in the back legs so they can't go out in a paddock yet until the foal gets a little stronger and can stand better.  We have to bandage the foal?s legs because her fetlocks hang really close to the ground, and this way she doesn't get any cuts or scratch the ground with her skin.  One of our mares who foaled Monday night is known to give her foals jaundice, so we've had to muzzle the baby and bottle feed him.  This mare is known for causing neonatal isoerythrolysis in her foals (aka jaundice) and what happens is her body makes antibodies against the baby once she becomes pregnant.  The mare's colostrum is full of her antibodies, and the foal is supposed to drink this within the first few hours of birth, but with a jaundice foal, if the baby drinks the colostrum it will cause the red blood cells to break down and the foal can essentially die within 48 hours if not treated.  So, since we know this mare has been known to do this, as soon as any of her foals are born they are monitored and bottle fed colostrum that we have stored at the farm.  They aren?t allowed to nurse her.  We also have to milk out the mare for the first few days to make sure all her colostrum is gone before the baby is allowed to nurse from her.

I also got to go on another breeding shed run Monday.  This time I went to Hill 'n' Dale Farm, but this breeding wasn't too successful.  We teased our mare that morning before we sent her to the shed, but when we got to the farm and she was teased there she didn't break down so the stallion manager wanted her to be jumped before the actual breeding.  When they "jump" a mare it means to get her ready and then let the teaser stallion mount her to make sure she will stand for him.  It's just a precaution for the stallion so if the mare isn't in heat and decided to act bad the million dollar stallion isn't the one getting hurt.  (Poor teaser guys huh?!)  So they tried to jump our mare, and the first time she swished her tail and ran out from under him, so they tried again.  The second time she gave him a good kick in the gut, and when they tried it once more, she bucked up and kicked him with both hind feet!  So needless to say, we didn't get to breed our mare that morning.  We took her back to the farm and had the vet palp her.  She still had a follicle, so she should have been showing heat, but the vet said the structure of her cervix wasn't consistent.  Still being early in the breeding season a lot of mares are still transitioning and it's harder to catch them always on the first time, or make sure that everything is working together.  The natural mating requires a lot of timing between the mare and stallion owners, sometimes it still amazes me that they can time everything just right and are so successful.  We've also started ultra sounding a couple of the mares that were sent to the breeding shed in the previous weeks.  We've got 2 that I know of, confirmed in foal so far, but there are a lot more still to go. 

Last week class was at the Jockey Club office.  We learned all about how to register thoroughbreds and the naming process and rules and restrictions and that sort of thing.  It was pretty interesting to learn about, and I actually got to go through with one of our managers just the other day at our farm and look over the paper work for some of our yearlings that were recently registered and are going to sale in the fall.  Last night was another Thoroughbred Farm Manager's Club meeting.  This week's topic of discussion was pastures and how to get the best quality pasture for horses on the area farms.  I never realized there was so much involved in growing grass! But there is, trust me!  And these guys knew all about it!  It was pretty interesting though.  They talked some about the endophyte infected fescue and how to manage it, and when it's ok and not ok to let mares graze on pastures with this fescue.  So that was neat to learn about.  Next week's class is out at my farm!  I'm pretty excited about that!  We're going to be talking about conformation in foals and limb deformaties that are commonly seen.  

I've loaded most of the new pictures I have.  Keep checking the webshots page, sometimes I get a chance to add photos and don't get the time to write a blog, but I try to at least up date one or the other every few days so I don't leave you guys hanging too long.  Enjoy the pics! I'll post again soon.