When do i know when my mare will foal for the fist time ?

Question

she is large ut her milk bag is empty. She has a yellow liguid coming out when shes milked. We dont know when she mated but we think it was near october.

Answer 1

she will be due in september it is 11 months for a horse

Answer 2

When her milk is whitish, it's REALLY soon. Get the vet out, s/he should be able to tell you when she's due. You still have a few months.

Bobbi-he's not milking the mare excessively. Youre SUPPOSED to milk your mare just a little bit when she's pregnant. As it gradually turns white, she's getting closer.

Answer 3

Why would you be milking her at all?  Count back to when she was bred...and add approx 11 months...and stop milking this mare..

EDIT******I'm not attempting to transform this forum into a chat room, but something that someone else said reminded me of something that I wanted to share:  Firstly, you know that this mare is at least 2 mos away, if she is pregnant at all (yes, you can get milk from a mare that is not pregnant) and the only reason that milking a mare when pregnant is to determine foal date, (this is a little early to be testing her milk anyway) and there are several tests that you can personally do with the milk to do this..you only need a few drops to do the testing.  Now, there is a down side to "milking" a pregnant mare.

When you milk a mare, what happens is that you will trigger Prolactin to produce more milk. IN this process, Progesterone decreases, Estrogen increases, which starts uterine contractions. Also, oxytocin begins to be produced during the late phases of pregnancy, which helps bring on the Braxton Hicks Contractions. (practice contractions). As Progesterone decreases, oxytocin increases (usually proportional to each other) and WHAM, you have full onset of labor.

You basically start the labor process by milking because the body starts getting confused, thinking that the baby has already been born. Which messes EVERYTHING up. Plus, if you start milking, the body will trigger the colostrum to be finished being made, which is ONLY made once!!! Which means, no colostrum for when the baby is ACTUALLY born!

If you have EVER breast fed a child, you would TOTALLY understand the process. As the baby feeds, you literally start cramping down in the uterus because of the harmones kicking into gear. This happens through the WHOLE time of breast feeding. You will feel your abdomen tighten up.    If you will watch a mare's belly while her colt is nursing, you will also notice the same thing happening to the mare.  I hope that this explains why I mentioned not to milk the mare...they only make colostrum once, and if you trigger them into making it early, you have screwed up the whole process.  If you are talking about a maiden mare that just needs to be desensitized around her udder so that she won't be as protective of her udder when the colt tries to nurse, that's one thing...milking her is quite another.