Visitor Lexi Meyers meets foal Caden at Color Your Dream Farm in Gettysburg, PA. Credit Lois Syzmanski
Green pastures glisten with morning dew. Mares graze alongside foals that grow tall as summer rolls on. It’s a familiar backdrop for those with breeding mares.
In nature, most mares foal in the spring and summer when grass is plentiful and milk production is high. It’s an exciting time for breeders - whether expecting one foal or hundreds – but it can also be stressful.
Greenmount Farm
At Greenmount Farm in Upperco, Maryland, Sabrina Moore breeds Thoroughbreds, including Knicks Go, winner of the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and the $3 million Pegasus World Cup Invitational.
“We usually have between 20 and 30 foals, but this year I took a breather,” she said. “We only had seven.”
While her mares usually foal in the barn at night, Moore said she likes when they’re born outside in daylight hours.
“I think I prefer that,” she said. “The foals seem to get up more quickly.”
During the gestation period, broodmares here are on a strict vaccine regimen to avoid natural abortion. They are vaccinated with a killed type of rhinopneumonitis vaccine during the fifth, seventh and ninth month of pregnancy to prevent abortion, and there are periodic vet checks.
“A little before they foal, we bring them to the barn and barn pastures,” Moore said.
That’s when she moves into a camper beside the barn, always listening for a beep from the Foal Alert.
“The Foal Alert is connected to the mare’s vulva with two small stitches. It’s a little magnet that sends a signal to alert if the water breaks. It has definitely revolutionized foaling. I call the foal alert one of my employees!” she said.
Moore said sleep is a luxury.
“This year, one was born at 302 days (320 to 380 days is normal). Luckily, she had a lot of will to live, but we were still getting up to feed her and get her on her feet every two hours. Then, another mare hemorrhaged. There’s not much sleep.”
Moore’s reward is watching the mares and foals interact and hearing those first nickers, “but seeing them race and win is also extremely rewarding,” she added.
Recently, she acquired a horse that she’d bred and foaled eight years prior.
“After I sold him, he went out to California, then came back to the east coast where one of his former owners claimed him and gave him back to me,” she recalled. “It’s cool to have foaled him, sent him off, watched him race, and then for him to come home again. It’s a full circle thing.”
Destiny Hill Farm
Tricia Albrecht breeds Norwegian Fjords at her Destiny Hill Farm in Goodwin, Pennsylvania, producing two to four foals annually.
“The mares and foals are regularly vet checked and vaccinated and we also have an emergency kit ready,” she said, noting that many things can go wrong. “Foals can be mal positioned, could have a red bag delivery [premature separation of the placenta prior to or during foaling], the mare could colic, the foal could have low immunoglobulin [which they get from the mare’s first milk - colostrum] or contracted tendons [a condition where they are unable to fully extend limbs].”
Albrecht stressed the importance of being prepared. If the birth sac is still covering the foal’s head, it should be removed within less than a minute of birth. A healthy foal should breathe at a rate of about 60-80 breaths-per-minute and have a strong heartbeat. Always clear the airway of any mucus or substance sticking to their nostrils.
As a mare’s due date draws near, Albrecht looks for the mare’s bag to fill, for teats to wax over, for her belly to drop and for the area around her tail to soften.
“I think it is important to breed to improve, not just because,” she said. “The ultimate goal should be to make a better specimen. Be realistic about your mare or stallion's strengths and weaknesses.”
This year, Albrecht got the filly she’d hoped for.
“The first foal of 2023 was a surprise after a thunderstorm,” she said. “I was really hoping for a filly to retain for our breeding program. I had purchased her dam PF Sonja last year in foal to the late phenomenal stallion, Corgi Hill Luteson. I am thrilled to have this filly to keep!”
Hanover Shoe Farm
Hanover Shoe Farm in Hanover, Pennsylvania has bred champion Standardbred harness racing horses since 1926. The 3,000-acre farm is home to more than 1,000 horses. According to Syndicate Administrator, Gunjan Patel, about 300 are born there annually, with 229 foals so far this year.
“We start with the desired pedigrees when breeding mares and stallions. We look for perfect conformation in foals,” Patel said, noting that they must monitor the mare’s cycle closely, as they sometimes ovulate before semen arrives from another farm.
“We are looking to produce champions,” Patel said.
With three on-staff veterinarians, pregnant mares are monitored around the clock, then moved to the main farm about a month before foaling. Patel said their on-staff vet is about a three-minute walk from the foaling barn.
Occasionally, there are losses. When a mare is lost, a retired mare sometimes steps out of retirement and back into motherhood. One mare, named Lilting Laughter, stepped in as a nurse mare five different years after she retired.
Color Your Dream and Coolest Miniatures
Carla DuRand of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania owns Color Your Dream Farm, with quarter horses, and Coolest Miniatures, with miniature horses and Shetland ponies. Between them, she has five to 10 foals annually. DuRand said she increases her pregnant mares’ feed in the last trimester, to be sure they are getting 14% protein.
“You start to keep track of their habits about a month away,” she said, “keeping an eye on the udder to see how it’s developing and that they’re bagging up. Thirty days prior to that they get the flu, tetanus and encephalitis shot.”
Sleepless nights follow, as DuRand waits.
“I use barn cams, watching from my cell phone,” she said. “I have two other people who help me keep watch. They let me know when they go to bed and then I’m on duty.”
Durand said losing a foal is always the hardest and miniature horses have more problems with foaling.
According to the USDA, the foal mortality rate among domestic horses is 5.8 percent within the first month of life, but miniature horses see a higher rate of loss.
Several children visit the foals to help Durand desensitize her foals, an important step.
“I love watching them grow,” she said, but then added another favorite thing.
“It’s awesome when your best friend calls and says, ‘Austin just won World Champion Halter Horse at Palomino World,’ and you bred that foal. That is why I breed.”