Spring has officially sprung!

This time of year is synonymous with foals and foaling, to anyone remotely connected to the breeding side of equine life. Any time you check your socials, you’re nearly guaranteed to see at least one cute offering for “Tongue Out Tuesday” or “Foal Friday”. 

Eleven months, give or take, of gestation can simultaneously fly by and drag out, particularly the last month or so. 

Once your plans have become reality, and your mare is safely in foal, you have many months to anticipate the joy and excitement of welcoming your own dose of cute. 

However, there is a side to breeding that we don’t always want to think about. What happens if??? What’s the worst-case scenario???

There is one decision no one ever wants to make, and one I would not wish on anyone. The impossible choice…

What if the wheels fall off during foaling, and you’re caught in a catastrophe? If your vet asks you in the heat of the moment, “mare or foal?”, could you answer? 

There are so many scenarios where you might not have a good outcome, and some of them have very clear cut weight to one side of the scales or the other. 

In any emergency, you have to take the advise of the attending veterinarian, because no two situations are ever identical. An experienced vet can give you their best shot at answering questions about prognosis etc. at the time.

But if you ever have to make the choice to save only one, which would you choose? 

It may sound morbid or pessimistic to even contemplate it, and some would go as far as saying it is tempting fate. However, I would rather have already had the debate with myself, and any other parties with a vested interest, should this situation arise. 

The mares and foals I work with are not my own, so maybe that gives me a different perspective, but for me, if I ever had to be the one making that call, given a vet’s educated guesstimate on prognosis etc., and the need to make that decision, I would choose to save the mare. 

You might have planned and anticipated this foal for a lot longer than eleven months, but, in most cases, you’ve had your mare for longer. Barring disaster, you can try again for a foal from the same mating, but you cannot replace your mare. 

I hate losing any of the horses under my care, and losing a neonatal foal can seem especially cruel and unfair. But I would always rather lose a neonate than have to say goodbye to a mare I know well, care for and love. 

It is a tough decision to have to even contemplate, never mind face in reality, but I would rather have had it cross my mind, than to be hit with the choice out of the blue in the middle of a crisis…

On that sad reality check, here’s hoping for nothing but successful foalings for the rest of the season!