Incompatable to life

DISCLAIMER: This is a tough one. No images of the issue will be shared. 12 months on and I'm still shocked at what happened and foaling is my job! This is a reality of life. Not everything survives.

I am full of bad stories this year. I promise it is not always like this. Really. There are more foals born healthy and fine. Even in this difficult season of 2024. I just experienced a bad season and I am sharing them to show you that not all foings are ok.

Don't stress. They are not common. When you think about the amount of foals born every year, way more are born fine. The majority of these sad oucomes are beyong anyones control.

If they happen to you, please don't beat yourself up. There was nothing you could have done diffrently.

Learn form it.

The main lesson to learn is for you. To face the sadness, the loss, and grief for the potential you were going to have together. That is normal.

Don't let anyone tell you to "get over it, it was just a horse".

I lost my mare and foal back in 2019. I still feel very sad at times for loosing my heart mare. Ive even given up riding because of that loss. I have ridden occasionally, but its not the same. Anyhoo, that topic is another discussion we need to have.

This is a tale of another incompatable to life foaling.

Only a few week before, on Facebook, one of the foaling groups, they were discussing that their foal was born with the intestines outide off the body.

Curious, I said to myself. I wonder what that would have looked like?

I found out.

Mumma went throgh her pregnancy just fine. No issues of placentitis or such. No 'whoopsies" I was aware of. Just normal.

Sstage 1 labour went normal.

Stage 2 progresing as normal - two toes and a nose.

Then when the hips finally slipped out, I saw something VERY WRONG.

Intestines.

FK! had this herniated badly during labour?

FKKKKKKKKKKK!!

Called Dr Vet ASAP. Maybe it can be helped before he tried to stand and damage them?

Unfortunatly, he passed away within 5 minutes of being born.

WTF? what happend.

It was a congenital deformity incompatable with life.

In humans, when this is recognised, they do miricals and fix it beofe they are born or delivered early to fix. Point is, it does happen to any species.

What are the chances of this happening to her again? very slim. It is just one of thes abnormalites tha randomly happen.

He was alive in utero, he was born alive, but quickly passed.

While in utero, everything developed. It was most likeley the midline of his abdomen, near the umbilicus didn't close while he was groiwng, the intestines were safely contained in a sterile environment that was moist, and he continued to develop like normal(ish).

Boss and Dr Vet had never seen it before. Dr Vet had heard about it, but never experienced one. Even if this was recognised earlier, the outcome would have been the same.

What was the lesson? Life will throw you a doozy to remember.

The only positive outcome, was Mare became a foster mare two days later, at another stud. She accepted her new foal well and raised him with love and loads of milk.

In 2025, Mare had a healthy colt and both are doing just fine. Her foster foal/yearling is also going great.

Healthy colt in 2025

This was challenge number 4 for 2024.

One relatable incident, sometimes a foals intestines will hearniate out the umbilical cord stump. This is another congenital deformity that is often incompatable to life. There is a chance it could be fixed, but like all colic/ abdominal surgeries in horses, ther are very high risks of complications. In this instance I heard about, they decided to not proceed and he/she is at peace. Sometimes we try from ourt heart, but reality of the head thinking, we do the right thing. Thank you OtherStud for sharing this. We are here for you and we understand loss.