So...Arwen had a beautiful baby boy on 5/30/2014 at 9 am in the morning. Totally normal, non eventful pregnancy, textbook birth/labor. She was contracting the night before, I milk tested her around 12 am (low pH but her calcium was not super high) and I thought she had at least another night so I went home. Got the call the next morning as soon as I arrived at work that OMG ARWEN IS IN LABOR!! so I rushed down to the barn. Of course, Arwen pushed the little sucker out in like five minutes so I totally missed it. Pretty much the ENTIRE barn got to see it though since she was quite thoughtful and gave birth at such a reasonable hour on a Friday. According to people that were there, everything progressed as I read it should progress. I was thanking my lucky stars that my dependable, unshakeable girl made it through the birthing process a-ok.
Well, turned out that after being so "textbook", her baby was not able to stand upon birth. Totally healthy otherwise, gorgeous bay with four white socks and a tiny star. But, all that didn't matter with his pretty contracted fronts and laxity in back. This resulted in us rushing him over to the vet to try and get him straightened out, and to get him the all important colostrum. He is a BIG foal-not only super long legged, but long in body. Its believed that being so big in the womb can contribute to the issues with the tendons, since the baby cannot move around as much and stretch out. It is also believed that weight of the mare, nutrition, and genetics can all play a roll as well. However, there is no definite or common answer out there for these issues. Most foals are born with *some* degree of these issues, so it is not uncommon to encounter.
It was also clear that Arwen has been a mom before because she is EXCELLENT. Very nuturing, stands stock still when baby wants to eat, protective when she needs to be but lets people fuss over the baby because I think she knows we're just trying to help. Going through all of this with her makes me so proud to be her owner. She may not have been the best riding horse, but she is definitely the best mom and I do not regret my decision to breed her because I do think that is something she loves and excels at.
However, this whole experience has definitely taken off my rose colored glasses when it comes to breeding, stomped on them, ground them into the dust, maybe stomped on them again, and then thrown them into an incinerator to make sure they're REALLY destroyed! Breeding puts on your radar a lot of other people who are expecting babies-and just like in humans, you encounter a lot of good stories, but also some of the unsuccessful/bad ones.
For example-the lax back tendons. When I first saw Baby J had those, my heart just sank. Someone I'm aware of through an online forum had just been through those with her baby, and ended up having to put the baby down as the tendons were not improving after a month. Her case and situation was completely different from mine, but it still stuck in my mind.
Another example-local trainer bred her mare, and now the mare is in ICU. Baby is healthy and fine, but her poor mare may not make it. Not sure why, but again its just another thing that can go wrong with a breeding.
For those two bad stories though, there are two great ones. Two acquaintances had a healthy, happy babies and a healthy happy mommas. No issues, with the exception of one of the baby's having slightly contracted back tendons (another WB, actually. Its believed to be very common in WB's where the genetics issue could come into play).
So while Baby J is now doing much better, what I originally thought was going to be a fairly inexpensive endeavor is becoming much more expensive. Its also a crap shoot on how he is going to turn out-right now he is a very tolerant, sweet, fiesty and curious little guy. But who knows what kind of talent, saleability, ridability, etc he is going to have!
Do I still plan on breeding again? Yes. I would like to continue trying to breed because my ultimate goal is to get a horse out of Arwen I could keep for myself. However I will definitely go into my next breeding with all these stories/experiences in the back of my mind.
