2016 Miniature Horse WORLD Issues April/May 2016 - Volume 32, Number 2 | Page 24

Foaling
S

Revisited

ome years ago while researching articles, a friend and I stumbled upon
a one-of-a-kind foaling cam website.
Thus began an addiction to MareStare, one
that has plagued me for many seasons. And
evidently I am not alone. It allows any viewer the opportunity to share in the beautiful
foaling process and the agony of waiting
hours for “something” to happen.
My quick search of foal cams reveals open access to a small farm in central North Carolina,
Brookhaven Miniatures. Owner Merry Black
has been raising AMHA horses since 1998
and foaled out a handful of regular size horses before that- around 80 foals total. So you
might say she has a good bit of experience!
Merry has refined her foaling technique, but
she is the first to tell you mini foaling is not
for the faint of heart. Her advice is to first
be educated; reading all information and
guidance you can glean from other breeders,
and then use every resource available.
Merry relies on several tools as predictors
to help decide when her mares will domino.
One device she uses is a refractometer. While
it isn’t generally advertised as a foaling
predictor, mare owners can predict foaling
within 12-24 hours. The procedure is to
strip just a drop or two of mare’s milk, place
the sample on the screen of the refractomer
and then watch for a quick jump on the
scale. The refractometer is convenient, using
such a small sample and no mixing. It cost
around $80.
Merry has also used milk test strips distributed as hard water test strips, and these are
also a pretty good indicator of impending
parturition, but these also are not fool proof.
This year Merry used the Maybe Baby test
strips for the first time. The strips are convenient with no mixing and are typically easy
to use. Her limited experience with them last
year was due to user error (she ordered them
last year and after testing once, immediately
dropped them in the water bucket!). The
instructions included indicate when the pH
reaches 6.0 foaling SHOULD occur in 1224 hours. Testing on Merry’s mare this year
proved otherwise when after six days, foaling
was obviously not immediate- even though
the refractometer reading was off the chart.

22 Miniature Horse World

A P R I L / M AY 2016

Good news for the resulting foal (*passive
transfer/IgG), but not the ending Merry
had hoped for.
*In order to check passive transfer you have
to do a blood test, IgG on the foal. However,
since the milk itself is testing good to very
good, and the foal is nursing well, one could
assume it is getting the colostrums, but an
IgG test performed by your vet is recommended.

An Equine
Colostrum
Refractometer
A refractometer must be calibrated to
evaluate mare colostrum. The test is rapid
(less than one minute), repeatable, and uses
a small volume of colostrum (1-3 drops).
The steps involved are:
1. A
 small amount of colostrum (i.e. 1 ml) is
collected from the mare’s udder.
2. O
 ne to two drops of colostrum is applied
to the prism surface of the refractometer.

3. The daylight plate is closed, effectively
spreading the colostrum across the
surface of the prism.
4. View through the
eyepiece while holding
the refractometer in the
direction of a light source.
5. N
 ote the level or location
of the color (blue) on
the scale. The scale
contains graduations
(%) and a quality assessment score for accurate
interpretation.
An increase in percentage may indicate
foaling within 12-24 hours.

By Melissa Powell
with Merry Black
Within the last eight years, Merry has also
incorporated the surveillance abilities of
MareStare into her repertoire. As she foals
the mares out single-handedly, she admittedly couldn’t do without it, as it’s impossible
to watch every mare 24/7. Merry shares,
“There are very knowledgeable folks on
MareStare, who know what signs to look for
and will call at any time, from anywhere and
let you know your mare is in labor. Because
MareStare is “worldwide” there are “eyes”
watching from every time zone to cover
times when one needs to get some rest. I
have even had a woman from Sweden call me
- only it was a false alarm. But I would much
rather have a false alarm than something goes
wrong and no one call.”
Merry’s system consists of several wired cameras and a quad processor so she can watch
four mares at once or switch to a single cam
as needed.
Previous to using MareStare, Merry tried
the halter attached baby buzzer or foaling
alarms. They work great for other breeders, but for her use it didn’t work well as her
mares seemed always to lie flat out to sleep,
sounding the (false) alarm way too often.
The sew-in type alarms work very well for
some farms as well, but another breeder had
warned her one mare did rub the sensor out,
causing her to miss a foaling when the alarm
didn’t go off.
Merry is most comfortable using the “all
eyes on” method of the watch and wait procedure of foaling. With a mini mare, there
are so many things that can go wrong and all
in a short amount of time.
If hard labor starts AND the water has broken and the foal doesn’t come within 15
minutes you have a problem. Merry says, “I
don’t time it, but after a few minutes I will
check and see if I feel two feet and a nose. If
not, I will try to locate them and reposition
if necessary. I have had to find a foot before
but have been fortunate that that was all I
had to find. Like I said, mini foaling is not
for the faint of heart.”
Although our MareStare with Merry and her
mare, Rosie, started on February 5th