The Birth! (in images)

Labor Delivery (this page) Imprinting On her feet

Here we go! Dot resumes pushing the foal out. The legs are still protruding, but she has to push a but to make the muzzle reemerge into the world.

You can see the torn amnion sac. No harm done. I can already see that is is a dark brown foal, but that was never a surprise, not with both parents a dark brown/bay color.

Feet! It's little hooves! As before, they have the soles of the hooves towards the ground. This is ideal, since the foal is delivered in a diving position, feet first, diving towards the ground (if the mare were standing ... that is, towards the mare's hocks), in a large arc like curve.

Dot pushes and pushes and suddenly ....

POP! The foal comes sliding out in one big movement! Obviously no problems with the position of the foal during delivery, thankfully.

I lift up the amnion sac off of its leg and face and clear the nasal passages.

Look at that star! It's a little head, on a little body on a little foal!

Wow. I am serious impressed. And dumbfounded. And elated. Yeah!

I support the head so that the foal doesn't take in a big breath of straw. That would not be the best way to introduce the lungs to the wide world of oxygen.

I was not certain that the foal was breathing all right at first, since it was moving its mouth in a (as I soon learned) suckling motion. The movements of the rib cage were so rapid and so slight as to be difficult to detect, especially when you are nervous and utter confounded by the living creature now in front of you.

The foal starts moving around a bit, although quite wobbly and disoriented, as would be expected.

The ears are incredibly floppy, it's almost funny. I've heard that is it a reflection of the amount of strength they have. A foal doesn't tend to stand up until the ears are at least slightly perky.

At this point, the foal's back legs are still inside of mom, as they are BOTH taking a break and resting a bit. I did not realize how exhausted Dot was until I watched the tape and realized that it took her a solid 5 minutes before she even turned around to take a look at her foal. She was whinnying on and off the entire time.

I support the head and towel dry some of the foal while getting into position to do some imprinting on the foal.

Jess, ever so nicely, comes over to check the gender of the baby. She picks up the tail and peeks underneath.

It's a Filly!

I did not care what it was, merely that it had finally arrived. Yea though!

Go to the Imprinting page!