The Last Foal

This past Thursday after a long wait our last foal of the season was born “Brewski“.  It was a very hard foaling and extremely long night with a foal that couldn't nurse, but after much perseverance daylight brought relief to this situation and all is well now. 

As the unexpected new circumstances in our lives present themselves it may actually be the last time I mid-wife a foaling, I’m not sure if I feel good or bad about this. I’ve spent many, many nights huddled with mares patiently awaiting new life to emerge, sitting and waiting, waiting and waiting for that magical process that is both nerve wracking and joyful at the same time to occur, some of those nights were good, some were bad, very, very bad, strange how tragedy stays in ones mind, but on the whole the good vastly outweighs the bad.

It all started why back in the early 80s I think, not by any particular love-affair with horses or birthing, no, I was working on a feed-lot in Sutton at the time, fattening heifers for market, 160 of them at a time would arrive and spend some months with me getting to there optimum weight, then one day the cattle trucks would appear and they were all gone, only emptiness was left. I grew tired of that, as soon as I got friendly with any of them they would be gone, there was no joy in it compared to my childhood on dairy farms were you got to know the animals very well, even giving them pet names !!, bonds were formed, life was shared. The feed-lot eventually got to me, so one day I just quit and decided to take the first agricultural job I could find, it just happened to be with horses, it has became a career that in general has been very good to me over the years.

After working with them for a while I did fall in love with them !, of all the different facets of work on a horse farm it always amazed me showing up in the morning to find a brand new foal in the barn. I inquired about the night job, but I didn't have experience, lived far away at the time so the answer was always no, until one day the Farm Manager who was a friend of mine talked me into going to Ireland to foal mares on a big Stud Farm. With limited practical knowledge but lots of theoretical knowledge off I went to the green isle and spent a wonderful five years during which with my partner we would foal 80+ mares a season. Upon returning to Canada I continued participating in the foaling on most of the farms I worked on and have been doing it here for the last 21 years, a rough calculation would be that I have been present to something between 500 to 700 births, watched that first breath of air taken, the first wobbly steps attempted, that quick transformation from a helpless newborn to a little horse able to gallop alongside it’s mother within just a few short hours of being born, ah, I loved it then !!!, but over the last few years the late nights and cold weather have gotten to me and I don't enjoy it as much. So if the plans go ahead for all the horses to be sold there will be no more foaling, no more wondrous feeling of new life arriving, and I think I am ready for that, it’s sad but live goes on and we move on with it , the future will bring new challenges and I will tackle them as they come.

 Just a few minutes old here

Brewski, at 9 hours of age