It's a Boy!

 


At 2:15 AM, we welcomed Elliot, a little stud colt, to the barn. He had an easy birth, stood quickly, nursed, and his mother, May, passed the placenta shortly afterwards. It could not get much easier than that, nor could it be more textbook. May stepped up to help him learn to nurse, too, despite being sore and confused, as she is a maiden mare. She's taking to motherhood without a hitch. It's amazing how quickly most of the mares figure it out. May is a pretty mare, put together well, kind, quiet, and bred well (sire is First Down Dash). This should be a nice colt, even if he is a bit wadded up and crooked right now. That's not terribly unusual.

We checked Elliot's IGG around 2, which came back with inadequate levels. If that happens, we look at the situation and decide whether to immediately do plasma or test again in a few hours. IGG is typically checked around twelve hours of age. The goal is to make sure that the foal received enough colostrum. A low IGG can be dangerous for the foal, thus the reason that we do plasma if the IGG is poor. Because Elliot was busy and eating well all morning, we decided to wait until 4 PM and test again. This time, the test looked great. Sometimes, they simply need a little more time.

On the more mundane side of things, one of our recipient mares appears to be pooling urine in her vagina. If she is, she'll be retired from repro work and left to enjoy her life in the pasture. We'll confirm our suspicions as soon as the speculums arrive.

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