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  Discussion on Dystocia- both hind feet advancing with front legs & body
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Posted on Saturday, Apr 28, 2001 - 1:31 pm:

Well, I just came in from the barn for some support after an entire morning in the barn picking up the pieces of a horrible scene. My husband was watching our mares on the monitor in our barn last night and at 3:50 am came to tell me that this one mare's water had broke. I said I'll be out to make sure everything was going o.k. as this was her first foal and I am paranoid about dystocias. When I got out there in 3 minutes, the mare was up and the forelegs were protruding. I slipped a sterile-gloved hand in to check for a nose and sure enough all was well or so it seemed. We let the mare have some contractions and nothing was progressing so I slipped my hand in and by now the sac was off the nose and the nose was protruding. There was a horrible looking large bunch of tissue which appeared to be coming out of the foals mouth. It looked like a pinky-brown brain-like clump of tissue the size of a mans fist. That was enough to convince me that there may be something wrong as the labour was not progressing. We got the mare up and walked her and I quickly called our vet and said that we have a problem and could he come asap. I called my neighbours( more seasoned at foaling) and told them we needed a hand. They arrived in 10 minutes and the vet in 20 minutes. It was discovered that there was at least 1 hind foot advancing with the foals body. The mare was so large that no one's hand could reach around to find the other hind foot. Anyway, with the one hind foot forward it was going to be near to impossible to get it around. Our neighbours lost their own foal almost a month earlier to this uncommon dystocia!! We tried with all our might with my husband trying to free the jammed hind foot but with the mare trying to go down and straining so bad, it was futile. The vet found the other hind foot was forward as well but for almost an hour we had made no progress except the mare was at the point of falling over. All of a sudden the mare fell down in the alleyway on to her side and the vet said oh no look at the swelling, and all of a sudden her intestines spilled out onto the floor! This is WELL over an hour and a half after her water broke,an hour after the vet arrived and we couldn't free the legs. We knew that this was the end of the mare so we were going tho euthanize her in the stall but my hubby said that we wouldnt be able to get her out when the deadstock came so we opened the barn door and let her out. I said I dont care, I dont want her to die in the cold and the dark bring her in the stall. So to make a long story short, as the vet was preparing the needle my hubby was looking at the foals nose when he said to the vet that the foal was breathing! He thought that my hubby was crazy! After all, the vet had been REALLY pulling with all of his might and the foal never moved and felt cold. After much debate whether it was breathing or the mares reflexes, we anesthetized the mare and cut the foal out. It was alive!!! We euthanized the mare after we milked all the colostrum we could. The foal is doing very well considering this ordeal and we have picked up a kind nurse mare that likes him so far and have fed him 51 ounces of colostrum and have fed three 9 oz. bottles of the nurse mares milk. We are trying to teach him where the udder is. I can't believe the foal survived such trauma!! I am amazed at his resilience. Oh I forgot to say that the vet said that the growth on his muzzle was like a sarcoid or a tumour and we cut that off and gave him two stitches and he is as handsome as ever. He is the only bright point in this whole ordeal. The owner of the mare was not impressed even after the vet explained that this was a horribly difficult birthing. We also had a breech for the same owner this year where the foal was born dead by the time we the vet could get it out. We have never had a dystocia, except for a minor fixable one or foerelegs crossed before this year and these two deaths have totally freaked me out. The owner is a very large client for us and he is not understanding that we have had our vet out asap both times and these types of dystocias do not often have great outcomes. Does anyone else have any experiences like this at all where you have to explain why their horse has died and even though it is an accident or blameless, you ultimately are considered responsible?

Anyway, after the commotion died down around here, we christened him Louie, short for "Louie the Lip"!!! He thinks that I am mom and whenever I speak he whinnies. Just had to share my story,

Katherine

Posted on Saturday, Apr 28, 2001 - 2:42 pm:

Just had to say what an awful experience for you, and my sympathies are with you.

My mare rejected her foal and beat him up with a vengence - he was fostered onto another mare when he was aged four days. He will be 4 years old on the 30th, and every time I look at him I wonder how he managed to live through such a horrible experence and be such a lovely horse.

From my experience, breeding always incorporates some 'risk'. Those that have mare and foal both doing fine are VERY lucky. The owner should be grateful that your husband was so observant in such a stressful situation. Hopefully the owner will realise that he has a healthy foal, lucky enough to find a nurse mare (which is a feat in itself!).

Once again, my thoughts are with you. I'm sure you will, in time, be as I am - every time I look at my 'boy' I think it's a miracle he fought to live.... but thank 'god' that he did!

Posted on Sunday, Apr 29, 2001 - 10:38 am:

An incredible story Katherine and you all should be commended on the job you did and my deepest condolences.

If I had to guess, rupture of the uterus much earlier than the presentation of the intestines through the vagina resulted in the uterus stopping its normal rapid contraction. This is a pretty well described phenomena. In turn this prevented the early release of the placenta allowing the foal to go getting oxygen through the umbilical cord.
DrO
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