Promise Foaled

Hard to say when, probably at about 6 am, Promise foaled a healthy mule foal! I think it's a jenny filly but I'm not 100% positive, when I was close enough to see I was too busy touching that cute face. She/he keeps that little tail tucked tight.

Promise ate dinner last night and was not waxing As the sun came up I dropped Hunter at school and was on my way to feed when Huey called that there was an extra set of legs out there. Had to lighten the photo a lot, but this is what I pulled up to pre-dawn.

Promise foaled in the hay scatterings of the roundbale. It was a very convenient place, made it easy to locate and move the afterbirth to the lawn for the vet to inspect. I started pulling up feed for everyone and it was kind of chaotic.

I didn't try and touch her, just touched Promise. That made the foal super curious and she came over to me, lipping my pants and I was able to pet her soft coat for a little while. You can see in the photos that she's still damp.

I had snapped Promise's lead rope on, thinking it would be good if I could get her to the enclosure and see if she would tolerated it. This would keep Whisper away and make the vet check easier. By the time Promise was done eating, Whisper was too and was all over us. Promise began to get obviously upset and was working herself into a panic, wanting to be free to keep the foal away from Whisper. I set her loose.

I walked down and put the lead on Promise again and again Whisper came in stressing Promise so badly she couldn't walk with me or worry about anything except getting her baby away from Whisper. The more I tried and fix the problem, the more I made. Time to just hang out, take some pics, and try not to worry Promise.

All in all they were getting along. The main problem that repeated was Whisper needing to be right where they were, and the foal coming to inspect Whisper. Whisper would squeal, and once kicked, the investigating foal. It also made Promise work extra hard feeling the need to be vigilant at all times against Whisper. I was really wishing we had a barn on the property that we could use to stall horses.

The vet arrived and inspected the afterbirth, completely intact, Promise had passed everything on her own and there were no abnormalities hinting to a problem with the foal. This was all good news, especially since the vet never got to actually examine Promise or the foal. Whisper was nuts and had to be sedated before we could even try. I couldn't tie her, I couldn't even walk her up to the enclosure let alone put her in it. This was our only option.

Then we worked on calmly getting Promise. She would take treats from me but was OVER being hassled. Neither she or Beauty would come even when we offered food in their normal feeding locations. The vet was able to see the foal nurse well and confirmed it was so far, a very healthy mule.