Colt foal born 1950hrs 16/06/07

Penny has had her foal! A stunning bay colt, by Utopian Opposition. After nearly a fortnight of keeping a vigil at the stables, Penny had her foal in the early evening and I missed the birth!

Mark and my dad went up to the stable to fix the camera that we were using to watch Penny in her stable. Meanwhile I was at home getting the dinner ready, planning to return to the stables at about 2200 hrs. When I had fed Penny at 1800 she showed no signs whatsoever of foaling. The only notable thing that day would be that she was behaving strangely when I turned her out in the morning - she was rearing and bucking which I have not seen her do for a long while.

Anyway, I digress. There I am putting the food into the oven and setting my egg timer when Mark rings me; "Julia get up here now Penny is foaling and I'm not joking". With that, a mad panic ensues! In a moment of unusual clarity, I turned the oven off and shouted to mum and my friend Kirsty who was visiting, "Penny is foaling, quick we have to go!"

So we charged out of the house with the dog charging with us, leaving all of the lights on and the tv playing. I jumped in the car and the dog dived into the boot, poor Kirsty had a parcel shelf hit her in the back of the head as we were in Mark's car, which does not normally have the dog in! I drove like Stirling Moss (frightening my poor mum) up to the stables and did it in 4 minutes which is pretty impressive as it normally takes about double that!

On my arrival I find that Mark is in the stable with Kim (who's horse, Lily foaled last week) and Penny has given birth to a sweet looking foal with a bendy ear. Both were lying down and nickering at each other.

I checked the foal and he had quite a bit of fluid in his nose but looked really good apart from that. I sprayed his stump or 'belly button' with blue spray and checked the sex. Shortly afterwards Penny stood up, so I tied the afterbirth up so that she didn't stand on it.

As I did so, Kim relayed her story. She had been hanging around because she was due to have dinner early with friends. Kim had walked past Penny's stable and heard her get down and groan. Kim thought that this was unusual and so went to check her, only to find a pair of forelegs emerging! With this she ran to where Mark and dad were setting up the camera "Bloody hell Penny is foaling call Twig quick!"

Poor Kim was having a bit of a panic and Mark ran with her to the stable. With Kim's guidance (crash course last week with Lily) Mark pulled as Penny pushed and delivered the foal! Mark saw to the foal, breaking the sac and clearing it's mouth and making sure it was safe from Penny's back legs. And this is about where I arrived! I checked the afterbirth which looked fine and put it in a sack ready for the vet in the morning.

Poor Mark has only just come to terms recently with stroking Penny on the cheek, let alone helping her give birth! What a super star! I'm so glad that he, dad and Kim were there else we would have all missed it. I think the foal would have been ok if on it's own, but it's always best to be there.

The foal was weak on his legs and couldn't stand for a while. Therefor I drew some milk from Penny into a baby bottle with a teat and gave him a drink of that. He sucked straight away so he definitely had the right idea! He had a good 150ml of his mum's milk. As Penny was so good with him and cautious around his legs (ie not looking to stand on him), I deemed it safe to leave them for a while so that we could have our dinner.

An hour later we returned and gave the foal some more milk. With our help he got to his feet and then remained upright unaided. Slowly he made his way to Penny's udder, she was encouraging him all the way. Finally after 4 hours of existence out side of his mum's womb he drank. And after that you couldn't stop him!

As such after a while we left them. I decided to stay one last night in the caravan so that I could be sure that both mare and foal were ok. Mark stayed with me.

In the morning I found the foal drinking and trying to have a poo. The vet came at 8am (Mike not Chris) and saw to both. They were both looking well. The foals eyes and ears were good along with his heart rate. He then had a couple of injections and an enema to help him pass his meconium (first poo). Penny was re-stitched and we left them to it for a bit.

I turned Penny and the foal out in the school for a leg stretch. the foal had a little trot and canter before finding it all too exhausting and lay down. Penny took the opportunity to have a big roll.

I have decided to call the foal 'Pentopian' this is derived from Penny and Utopian. His stable name is Percy. So there we are, Percy is now with us!