2011 FOALING WRAP UP
When the last foal for the year is safely born, an enormous weight evaporates from your shoulders. Finally you get a big part of your life back; you can have a little drink, go out for dinner and have some form of normality in your life, including uninterrupted sleep! But at the same time there is the reflection. Only those that are hands on can truly understand the enormity of the responsibility and emotion attached to being in charge of safely bringing into the world someone else’s foal. Not many are truly privy to these mixed feelings – only the extraordinary night watch persons (Tracie in our case) and people such as Rick & Christie who attend all the deliveries are “in the know”
Every year is different and always there is something new to see and learn.
There were 107 mares that passed through our foaling unit this year – down a little on previous years… but that’s quite ok by us! Not all foals were thoroughbreds. We had the pleasure of foaling some very valuable quarter horse mares and a couple of prized pacers.
This year, the mares did not bag up much at all early in the season even at the point of foaling, but although small in quantity, the quality of colostrum and the IgG levels we were receiving were essentially phenomenal. … And then the milk flowed, and with all the feed, the foals have done very well, almost to a fault. Later in the year the mares had huge udders and large volumes of colostrum displaying text book signs that foaling was eminent with milk dripping very close to actual foaling. The colostrum quality although generally quite good had dropped off through the year as did the IgG readings, but still generally higher than compared most years. This would have to be attributed to such a great season.
Across the thoroughbred mares foaled down this year they averaged 7.33 days over their due date. Given that the due date in the industry is calculated on historical foaling dates, then this was a late year. The group was represented by no less than 40 individual sires.
The stallions with highest representation were Magnus: 17 (and what a magnificent collection of foals they are), Gods’ Own: 10, Statue Of Liberty (usa): 8. Wanted: 7, and Hard Spun: 5 (hearing some great reports on this stallion). Other notable sires include; Bernardini (usa), Flying Spur, Lonhro, High Chaparral (ire) -both colts! Medaglia D'Oro (usa), Sebring, Street Sense (usa), and of course one of our favourites Testa Rossa etc.
The sex break down was closely matched with only 3 less fillies than colts for the season, but demonstrating that there are times when you believe the scales must be tipping on a bias of fillies against colts or visa versa. We had two occasions when we had a straight run of seven foals born of the same sex; seven fillies running earlier in the season and then seven colts running later on rebalancing the overall bias. In fact of 10 foals at one stage, 9 were colts.
The best thing about this foaling season was the very low level of incidence. According to our vet, Ian Douglas, who attends our problem foalings, (along with a few other larger breeding farms), this was a common thread for the season with very few call outs in total. There were a couple of interesting case histories, which will no doubt appear as case histories in our stud notes section when time permits. All in all, a great foaling season.
Now all we have to do is wrap up the breeding season, and at the same time get yearlings ready for sales! Time for reflection is oh so short!
See the complete list of the 2011 Foaling season at Lastest Foals