Double or Nothing

During my horse-breeding years, I learned some unpleasant things from the pregnancies of a couple mares. Angel was my best horse at this point. She was expecting her second foal when I competed with her at our first show and her belly was awfully big, but she was a large horse and I didn’t give it a lot of thought.

I remember the day clearly. It was a beautiful Sunday morning. I had been looking out the window enjoying the view, when I realized Angel shouldn’t have been lying on her side. I ran from the house to see what was happening and saw a foal emerging from the mare. She was in her ninth month of pregnancy and pushing out a very tiny foal. A mare’s gestation period is normally eleven months, and yes, it was definitely too early for her to be delivering. I’d had an Arabian colt born at ten months, and he survived, but this was much too early. I rolled up my sleeves, ready to help in this premature birth.

The filly, born quickly and without my help, was small and lifeless; it had hardly any hair and its eyes were tight shut. I could feel a heartbeat, but it was not breathing. I tried to blow in its nostrils, but to no avail. I could not, for the life of me, understand what had happened. There are some diseases that can cause abortions, but Angel had been vaccinated for those. Horses have the deserved reputation for a most difficult time with conceiving, carrying, and delivering their foals; but still, this was a big shock to me.

            With a heavy heart I took Angel into the barn to her large stall and went to get the little filly’s body away from the other horses which by this time were curiously sniffing around her. With that sad deed accomplished, I went in to check on Angel again. There in a small pile in the corner of the stall was another baby. It was about the size of a small dog, had no hair and was definitely dead. Well, at least, that explained that. Many animals can have multiple young born to them and live, but it is extremely rare in the horse. When the uterus gets to a certain size, her body seems to think it is time to expel the baby, ready or not. What usually happens, as in this case, is that one is almost viable and the other way too small. I had only been in the horse business a few years and was quickly getting an education I could have lived without.

In the early 90s, I again experienced this unhappy occurrence. It happened not once, but three times to the same mare. Working to improve my herd, I bought a wonderful young mare named Candledance who I hoped I could show and who would produce those old foundation-type horses for me. When she was only two, she came in from the pasture with a slight swelling in her ankle. I put liniment on it and wrapped it. I could see no injury, not even a scratch. The next day her leg was swelled to her hock and I could find no reason. It was warm and stiff. I called the vet and the diagnosis was lymphangitis. Her leg had gotten an infection of some kind, and even though I found no injury, the lymph channels in the leg were infected. This turned out to be a horrible problem; there was no cure. It not only was big and ugly but broke open and lymph oozed out in various places. As the sores healed they left ugly bumps that would break out periodically. After the first week she did not seem in pain but was stiff on her “stove pipe leg.” She could still be ridden; in fact, exercise was good for it. On one occasion my seven-year-old niece, Gabriella, showed her, winning a blue ribbon. Candledance had a lovely disposition, as well as natural gait, and I decided to breed her to a newly-acquired stallion. She would be the perfect dam for a great foal.

Unhappily, with three months to go in her gestation, she went into labor and produced twin foals with the same results as with Angel. After the loss of her first twin babies, the vet suggested if I wanted to breed her again, I should definitely have her ultra-sounded to check for twins. Believe me, I didn’t need any prompting. I rebred her, and we used the ultrasound which indicated no twins; but she had twins anyway. Same story as before…one larger and one very tiny, and always the larger one teased you into thinking maybe you could save it if you could only get it to breathe. But the lungs at this early stage are simply not developed enough for breathing on their own. The third time we bred her; we had her ultra-sounded not once, but three times at different intervals and still did not see twins. Again she broke my heart. This time was the worst. The larger foal was a filly, had more hair, opened her eyes and was breathing just a little. I knew I wouldn’t be able to save her and sat stroking her until she died peacefully. Candledance had a tougher time also. She retained her placenta, a really bad thing in a mare, as it can cause death if not cared for promptly. She was treated for several days and recovered, but I would never breed her again.

No vet had the reason why Candledance produced twins or the reason why the ultra sound did not show them. Raising horses was much harder than I had anticipated.