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by Kathy Parrish The majority of mares foal anywhere from 332 to 352 days from her last breeding with the average being 342-343 days. If the mare has foaled before then you can use that gestation as a guide since most mares usually carry for about the same number of days from one foal to the next. I, like many of you have spent untold hours waiting for my mare to give birth. My first experience was in 1998. I spent several days watching my mare intently. Everything in my life stopped, I took several days of vacation and I was getting up around the clock to check on her. The joke was that my mare had not read the book saying how many days she should carry a foal or what signs she should produce when ready and she was determined that no one would be watching her when she finally foaled. Some mares are like that. Over the years I have found several things that make life during the spring a lot easier. The first thing I recommend getting is a camera. Mine has saved me many trips to the barn. I started out getting a cheap infrared camera that transmitted a short distance to a receiver. I had to put the receiver in my bathroom (the closest spot in the house to the barn) and run a cable into my bedroom to a small TV. I found that it did not take much though to disrupt the signal and the camera died after one year. Still it had proven itself invaluable. I could wake up in the middle of the night, roll over in bed and use the remote to the TV to check on my mares. If all was quite I could then go back to sleep. No more having to put on shoes and a robe to trek out to the barn to check. I decided for the next camera to spend a little more money (still less then $100) and get one that was of higher quality. Those however expect you to put in a real installation, so I had to run cable from the barn to the house. I have the camera mounted so I can watch one of two areas, but I have to go out to the barn to swivel it. Next, you need to get a few inexpensive supplies. The second year that I had foals I made the mistake of getting one of the expensive foal prediction kits. For about $65 they provide you with 12 small test tubes, 12 small plastic stoppers for the tubes, 12 small syringes, a plastic container with a lid, 12 test strips and a bottle of magic formula. Each test strip has 4 or 5 test squares. You get a little milk from the mare into the plastic container, put the lid on and carry it to the house. Then using one of the syringes you pull out some of the milk. There is a little plastic coated card that also came with the kit that shows the outline of a test tube with two lines. You fill the tube up to the first line with the magic solution and then add some of the milk until the fluid level in the test tube comes up to the second line. Put a plastic stopper in the tube, shake the tube to mix and then pull the stopper out. Then all you do is dip one of the test strips into the fluid so that all the squares are covered and then pull it back out. Set it to the side and wait about a minute. Based on how many squares turn color tells you how close the mare is likely to be to having the foal. Then you throw away the test tube, stopper, syringe and test strip. Turns out that the test strips are just water hardness test strips. The magic formula is distilled water. You can order the test strips in a pack of 100, but keep them refrigerated in a sealed bag to make them last longer (or better yet go in with a friend). I use strips that test for between 40 and 230 ppm. Milk the mare in a clean plastic container (don’t use glass it might break since not all mares are friendly to being milked). Get a 3cc syringe and pull 3cc of DISTILLED water into it (do not use tap water). Get a 1cc syringe and pull 0.5 cc into the syringe. Now empty the contents of both syringes into a container. A small test tube works great for this, and that is what the expensive kits use, but you can use a small CLEAN container. Now dip one of the test strips into the mixture so all the test squares get wet, pull it back out and wait about a minute to read it. If only one or two pads turn green then go to sleep, nothing will happen. If three pads turn green then start watching. If 4 pads turn green then the experts say the mare will foal within 24 hours, but my mares did not read the book. I’ve been told that maiden mares many times won’t show ready to foal by this test until after they have already foaled! I have several mares that will top out the test strips with days to go until foaling. That is when I found my next test. It turns out that the pH of a mare’s milk decreases just before foaling. I get pH test strips that measure between 6.0 and 8.1 pH. They come in packs of 200. Be sure to keep them in a sealed bag or they will not work correctly (or share liberally with your friends). Just take the mixture that was made for the calcium test (with the water hardness test strips) and dip the pH strip in. The strips I get have a color scale on the strip with the test area in the middle. I usually just pour some of the mixture across the test area. It will turn pretty quickly. If the pH is above 7 then don’t worry about a foal no matter what the other test said. I’ve found that at least for my mares they foal between 6.8 and 6.4 pH (the lower the reading the more likely). If you get a 6.6 or 6.4 then expect it that night. I’ve used the above tests for the last few years and found they were pretty accurate. Even when all the other signs said the mare would foal, if the tests did not indicate it then there was no foal the next morning. With all the milking I had done, I started noticing something. I would usually end up with some milk on my hands (I’m not the best shot with a mare moving around, so not all the milk got in the container). Once I had my milk, I would just use my other hand to rub the milk dry off my other hand. What I started to notice was that if the mare was close to foaling then when I rubbed my hand dry it was sticky. I started to deliberately put a couple drops of milk on my index finger and then rub my thumb and index finger together until they were either dry or sticky (can take a minute or so of rubbing). If sticky then it was one more indication of the readiness of the mare. That made me start looking for some way of measuring the sugar content of the milk. I soon found that some of the reproductive specialists had noticed the same thing. The stickiness turns out to be colostrum. It can be checked using a refractometer. The test is really easy. Just take some milk from the mare and drop two drops on the prism (a small pipette works best for this), close the cover, put it up to your eye and read the number. If the reading is >23 then the mare has enough colostrum to give the foal good passive transfer of immunity. Not all mares will produce colostrum before the foal is born, but you can check about an hour after the birth and definitely know if the mare is producing enough or if you need to find a different source. There are other factors that can cause the failure of passive transfer, but the mare not producing enough colostrum is the normal cause. The good thing about checking is that you know while the foal is still able to get the colostrum fed to it instead of having to have it given by IV. You can pay a lot for a refractometer (the equine repro places I’ve seen wanted about $75-100) or you can get less expensive ones that don’t have the makings specifically for colostrum. You need a refractometer that measures between 0 and 30 BRIX. You will find that this is the range used in checking fruit and wine for sugar content. You should always calibrate a refractometer with distilled water (will read exactly 0 BRIX). Most models have a screw adjustment to align the scale during the calibration step. Some models have automatic temperature compensation which allows more accurate measurements over a fairly large range of temperatures. This would be useful if you will subject the refractometer to temperature swings between the calibration step and getting the reading on the milk. A refractometer looks like a tube 6-9 inch tube. One one end is an eyepiece that you look through. On the other end is a slanted window that is covered with a hinged transparent cover. You simply lift the cover, put 2-3 drops of milk on the window and then replace the cover. The cover will spread the milk into a thin layer across the window (there should not be air bubbles and it needs to cover most of the window). The window is actually the top of a prism that is specially designed to bend light just the right amount. Now point the window toward a light source and look through the eyepiece. If the scale is out of focus then turn the eyepiece until you can see it clearly. There should be a line where everything above is darker and everything below is lit up. Simply read the number where the line crosses the scale. Once in a while you need to calibrate the refractometer by using distilled water instead of milk. The line should cross the scale at 0. If it does not then there is a little screw on the top of most hand held refractometers that will move the scale up and down until it lines up. Never immerse a refractometer into water. It would ruin it. There is a rubber seal around the prism window to keep most moisture out but it is not meant to be submerged. Wipe the window and cover plate clean with a damp CLEAN cloth after each reading.
Note: Due to questions I've gotten from this article I've decided to start selling the test strips, test tubes and refractometers mentioned in this article. Click here to order supplies. I suggest that you buy enough test tubes and collection cups for the number of mares that you will have up at any one time ready to foal. That way you can stick tape on each cup with the name of the mare. Just take the collection cups down to the barn. After you have some milk from each mare, go back up to the comfort of your house to run the tests. During foaling season, my back bathroom takes on the look of a laboratory! You need at least enough 1 ml syringes for the number of mares you will run tests for that night, but only need one 3 ml syringe since all you ever put in that is distilled water. If you are going to use the refractometer then you will also need a pipette for each test. After you have completed your testing for the night you can rinse the test tube, test tub top, collection cup and its top, pipette and 1 ml syringe out with tap water. Then use the 3 ml syringe with distilled water to flush everything with distilled water (remember we are testing with water hardness test strips, so we don't need to be testing the residue left by your tap water). Lay everything upside down on paper towels so they are dry and be ready to use for the next night's testing. The only things that have to be throw away with each test are the test strips. |
