Thursday 2nd March
I arrived at the yard at 5am to find that the foal had only just been born and was led quietly on the hay. After half an hour of trying to stand on it’s own it was worn out and as yet had not suckled from Queenie, so, with the help of a friend we got the foal to its feet and helped it latch on and start suckling. I had initially thought the foal was a filly and so named it Princess…. it wasn’t until later that day that I discovered it was in fact a colt foal and so changed the name to Duke! I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one to have made this mistake but what a mistake to make!
The vet was called to check the foal over and to remove the retained placenta from Queenie. At this point all seemed normal and both were happy and seemed well; Duke was walking, feeding and had passed the all important meconium faeces. The vet gave Duke an enema as he seemed to be straining but this is apparently quite common so nothing was of any concern at this point.
Friday 3rd March
Duke had passed several meconium ‘bullets’ overnight but had not passed anything even vaguely soft and seemed to be quite uncomfortable, straining, lying down then immediately getting back up again and trying to suckle but not managing for longer than a few seconds before collapsing in an uncomfortable heap by his mum. I noticed that when Duke was lying on the hay he was unable to stretch out and each time he tried he seemed to have muscle spasms in his stomach area, I was advised to keep an eye on him and hope that nature would sort itself out and all would come together by the afternoon.
By the evening Duke was sweating, even more uncomfortable and straining so severely that I called the on-call vet immediately; by 11pm the vet had confirmed a raised temperature, scanned the bladder for a tear and was concerned that Duke had impacted colic further up his digestive tract (even though he had passed meconium shortly after birth). Earlier in the evening I’d expressed 500ml milk from Queenie to bottle feed Duke, but this was administered by the vet via nasal tube to rehydrate the little one and hopefully soften the blockage enough that it would push itself through naturally. Duke was given antibiotics, antispasmodics and had bloods taken to rule out anything more sinister and check electrolytes etc. After the vet left Duke was so exhausted he fell asleep stretched out, not hunched up in pain as he had been earlier; a positive sight after seeing him so uncomfortable. I stayed till 1am just watching him snoozing and relaxing.
Saturday 4th March
Back by 6am I was relieved to find a cheeky little face smiling at me over the door. Duke was drinking, running around and urinating but was still slightly sweaty and, as yet still had not passed any faeces. A quick phone call to the vet and he was happy with Duke’s progress. Throughout the morning Duke was bright, bouncy, drinking regularly and urinating, definitely a much happier foal but still the little monkey would not pass any faeces despite the medication given the day before. Another quick call to the vet and told to monitor the foal and report back the next morning.
Sunday 5th March
A bright and cheeky face met me over the stable door first thing and finally a pile of faeces. Never have I been more relieved than I was at that moment. This meant that Duke’s internal organs were all functioning properly and he was hydrated enough to pass faeces as they should be – soft, not hard, dry and bullet like. Safe to say that Waterfall Duke of Diamonds was getting stronger by the hour, his body was fully functioning, he was suckling well, lively, stubborn, full of attitude and sparky as hell.
I had been terrified beyond belief of losing this little fella, had had less than 10 hrs sleep since Wednesday, and had aged literally overnight. I was exhausted. This had been a true labour of love but to see the spark in Duke’s eyes, the naughty swish of his tail and the bounce, bounce, buck of his back end made it all worth while.
The irony of this was that following the success of the medication and Duke learning how to drink from the ‘milk bar’ he then went the opposite way and scoured. He had diarrhoea so badly that we had to give him ‘gut bind’ to bung him back up! Foals!!!
