How long does she have...?

Question

How long before the baby?

I have a mare....

she's lossened up in her rear end and been slightly bagged up for 4 days. Her utters are constantly getting bigger. The liquid coming out of her utters is yellowish, not quite cloudy. It's thin, yet sticky, so I know it's not colostrum, cause it would be thicker, right? Anyway, she has dropped some too. The baby seems to be getting into position. Her due date is July 18th. However, she doesn't look like she'll make it that long and there are lots and lots of thunder storms that are constantly changing the baremetric (spelling?) pressure. I also have a test kit I'm going to try tonight. But what do you think? Besides she is a maiden mare? Please and thanks, sorry if this is confusing.

Answer 1

The mare can leak for a couple of weeks before foaling. When she is very close to her time, her sides will go flat: When viewed from the rear, you would normally see the sides very well. When the foal's ready to come, it will drop so that you can't see it at all from the rear. The hips will drop and be totally soft, you can pick up her tail and it will be so limp you can twist it. She will start a sweat, her v***a will be quite large and soft. She may pace, stop eating and bite at her sides. Maidens are hard to predict as to when they will actually foal. I have never had foals born on a full moon or during stormy weather, but sweating, streaming [not leaky] udders and flat sides have meant there's a foal coming that night. I have also had mares have little sign of impending birth and actually be eating dinner while foaling [caught this on tape!].

Answer 2

I don't know much about foaling (I never bred a mare) but what I do know is that if she's a maiden mare, you really have no idea when she's going to foal. After she has her foal though, you can sort of predict when she will have her next foal. For example, say she foals on July 11th, a week before she was due. The next time you bred her, maybe she would be due on June 20th. You could sort of predict that she would be approximately a week early, or June 13th. Get it? It's confusing, I know. But if she's a maiden mare, there's really no way to tell.

Answer 3

Sounds like she's very close to being ready.  How long has she been leaking milk and how much is she leaking?  I'd be afraid she's losing too much colostrum if it's been a while.  I'd keep a close eye on her, because it sounds like she could foal at any time.

Answer 4

You've got a wait if she's JUST started to bag up.  From PE, my maiden mares have typically run LATE.  My last mare was due the middle of this month, but this was her 5th foal and two days before she decided to do the deed, her now 3 yr old filly got into an accident and I think the stress brought about caused her to foal early (Good thing she did, the filly's HUGE!).

I'd checked her the day before, even took pics and figured we still had a ways.  I was WRONG!!!!!

Bottom line, they have 'em when they have 'em!  ROFLOL  I've only had ONE mare who really wanted people in with her when she foaled.  She was a 17 yr old maiden TB mare.

Answer 5

You are the right track, I can't see anything that you have missed about keeping her checked. Foals are like any other baby. when it's time for your foal to come into the world, it will happen. Did you put on the calender the day your mare was serviced? After 20 days did your mare come back into estrus, If not count back the months from the day she was bred and add 7 days to that ,usually I have missed by one day.  I have a friend who 's dog had pups and she had them on that day that I counted on the calendar for him.