News from New Zealand

[ICS Officers]

7 September 2010

Hi Brenda,

I will type the whole story so far and feel free to edit and put it in
better words for the newsletter. We are expecting more flooding here
later this week. A good deal of the state of Victoria has been
affected by these floods. I believe South Australia has been affected
quite badly too. The weather Bureau has described the weather as '
the most significant weather event in 15 years' After being in
drought for all that time, there is now a full blown La Nina event in
the Pacific Ocean so hopefully the drought has now broken. ( one
silver lining in all this).


One interesting side note, the younger caspians were playing in the
shallows of the flood water all weekend. I hunted them out of it and
onto higher ground a couple of times but the attraction to splash in
puddles proved too strong and they kept going back. The stud has
frontage on a major highway and many people stopped to offer help or
take pics as it was a good place to gauge the extent of flooding along
the Woady Yallock creek. The Woady Yallock Creek runs through the
middle of the stud and there is another smaller creek - the
Caldedonian Creek, that joins it on the bottom half of the land. For
the last few years both creeks have been almost if not completely
dry.

Friday 3rd September the weather warnings were out and the storms were
due to hit around midnight. Flash flood warnings were issued for most
of the state of Victoria. The mare Shady Acres Saba waxed up and was
dripping milk by late that afternoon. I had been watching her pretty
closely for a couple of days as she was due on 29th August. There
were no signs of impending labour through the late afternoon and into
the evening. In saying that, prior to this , my foaling experience has
been with big horses who all got very restless in the few hours before
birth and showed the classic signs of labour.

I knew the flooding would be pretty bad when the neighbours cattle
high tailed it to the highest ground they could find late afternoon.

The last check of Saba that evening (prior to her giving birth) I
stayed for quite some time watching her. She gave no indication she
was in labour, and was avidly eating hay and some goodies i took out
for her. It was raining pretty heavily and i fed all the horses hay to
keep them on the high ground. I went home to grab an hour or so sleep
as the radar showed the first really wild weather would hit around 3
am. The creek was slowly rising and had broken its banks at that
point. John went to check an hour or so later and found Saba very
distressed and calling out. She must have lay down on the hay to give
birth, being the only dry place in the paddock. (I had a yard ready
for her to give birth in but did not want to put her there till last
minute given the conditions that night).
The hay was very close to the fence and from what we can figure, Saba
lay down on the hay to give birth and the foal was born on the fence
line and just outside the paddock, in the laneway. The foal got up
and instead of going back into the paddock to mum, went into the
adjoining paddock. The caspian boys live in that paddock and its the
one that floods the worst. John found the foal laying in shallow
water surrounded by the caspian boys. She was very weak and
hypothermic but was struggling to stand. It was raining heavily. John
worked on her, trying to dry her out, warm her up and get her to stand
and have that first drink. I was attempting to dry mum out who was
just happy to have the foal close by her but seemed to be a little
surprised by it all and in shock a little. This was all done in
torrential rain and wind so i think really we were in a no win
situation there. After a couple of hours a little milk was taken from
the mare, put in a coke bottle, (we were totally unprepared for
milking) and the decision had to be made, let the foal slip away or
do something.

All this time the foal was shivering and her heart rate was very high
and she would collapse exhausted, then try to get up again. Her
breathing became bad and she stopped trying. So we grabbed her and put
her in the car, and rang the vet to say we were bringing a hypothermic
foal in. We stopped briefly at home to get some dry towels and a
couple of rugs to cover her and headed to the vet. We arrived at the
vet clinic at 4 am. The vet has heated stables for their bone scanner,
and horse milk, as the clinic is situated just off the race track in
the middle of thoroughbred country. I imagined the foal would be put
on an IV. Really though I did not think the foal would survive the
trip. Amazingly after about 10-15 minutes in the car with the heater
going, and john rubbing her dry she started struggling again to
stand. The vet clinic was about a 40 minute trip in the storm.

We arrived at the vets and the two young just graduated vets were on
emergency that night. They were a little surprised to see the foal
getting out of the car and had not realised she was a new born when we
rang to say we were coming in. The foal's temp was so low at that
point it did not register on the thermometer. A couple of thermometers
were tried as it was thought they were broken to be not registering
temperatures.
The foal was shivering but standing with help and her heart was still
racing. A thermal blanket was put on her and she was put into the
heated stable, it was so warm! (we were drenched!)
The milk we had was mixed with some of the milk at the vets and given
to the foal. She actually took to the bottle which was great.

You wouldn't believe this but half an hour after arriving at the vet,
a huge storm surge hit Miners Rest and the clinic lost all power. No
lights or heating. John and I started to get pretty concerned about
flooding at home. There was quite a bit of flooding around Miners Rest
already and some of the roads on the way in. So we left the foal with
the two young vet girls. The vet girls spent the next couple of hours
feeding her every 20 minutes in the dark with torches and doing what
they could to get her temperature up without benefit of heating.
Power came back on to the clinic around 5 hours later I think.

We went home to change into dry clothing and head back out to move
horses out of the flood waters and get Saba to her foal. Saba had
stopped calling out to her foal and was getting hypothermic herself
and was quite overwhelmed. By this time it was daylight and early
travellers had stopped at the paddock to offer assistance for the
flooding. We had a float, and had the mare in the yard and had no
choice but to load her on the main highway. The front fences were cut
to get her out. Saba, who has only floated once before in her life
was loaded onto the float with cars going by in quite extraordinarly
circumstances, but she walked up or rather was pushed up without fuss.
By some gift a very experienced horseman stopped at that time along
with a couple of John's mates, just in time to help load Saba in the
float, in the traffic on the road.

At this point the vets rang to say the foal was on her feet and
drinking. Saba arrived to be reunited with her foal 6 hours after the
foal was taken to the vet. Saba was first milked out so that the milk
could be given to the foal in case Saba rejected the foal. Saba heard
the foal call out for its next milk drink as the vet girls who had
been caring for it and feeding it had come out to assess the mare and
milk her when we arrived. Saba and called back to it, which gave hope
that Saba would accept the foal.

The foal was fed, then the mare and foal were reunited. There were 7
people helping with this as it was expected Saba would either reject
or attack the foal. Saba was led into the heated stable. It was her
first time indoors and she had to go through clinic rooms full of vet
gear to get to the heated stable. So lots of stress there on her but
Saba took it all in her stride. Saba took one look at her foal
through the door, and was lead up to it very cautiously but as soon as
she could reach it, started to lick it. The foal was shown the udder
and pretty quickly learnt to drink from her. Saba was very protective
with her first foal and by late yesterday was extremely protective
with this foal.
Watching Mum and foal being reunited was really a Hallmark moment.
The vet girls said that the foal had already developed a little
personality and with every bottle feed through the early hours and
after she had her fill of milk , would lay her ears back at the bottle
and kind of frolic off, in a very wobbly fashion.

It is Tuesday today and the foal has been named Shakira, which means
gift or grateful or thankful in Iranian. The foal has had two plasma
gamma globulin infusions to get her antibodies to an acceptable level.
Foal and mum are both still in the heated stable as i write this but
will be going to a stable in a thoroughbred breeding facility
adjoining the racetrack today. The vet has just phoned to say that
her antibody count is now up over 800 (not sure of the units) and is
at an acceptable level, and they are happy to let her go to the
stables close by.
The stable was very kindly offered to us to house the mare and foal
for the next week or two, the breeding facility also had a
thoroughbred foal born through that storm but unfortunately lost it
due to hypothermia. That was heartbreaking as they tried to
resuscitate the thoroughbred foal for several hours.

Its too wet and cold for the Saba and the foal to be outside just yet
and the paddock is still wet.

The caspian foal's survival is becoming quite a talking point. The
vet has told us that the foal was about half an hour off death when we
brought her in to them and they are amazed that she has recovered so
fast and so well. Given the foal was so ill initially she is a very
healthy and very strong little foal as of this morning.
The vet says the foals dont usually recover like that so well and so
fast after being so ill. Its been an interesting vet case and will
probably be written up in a vet journal.

We were all really happy and amazed also that Saba accepted the foal
straight away and that she is so protective of her now, to the point
that one has to be quite wary when going into the stable. Saba is
doing very well and is the kind of mare who puts everything into her
foal.

Shakira definitely wanted to survive and fought very hard to do so.
And the dedication of the young vets, warming her and feeding her in
the dark, in the power blackout is absolutely amazing.

Shakira is not out of the woods yet as any infection could knock her
over but its been a very hopeful start. I would expect in a day or so
mum will be so protective that no one will be able to get near the
foal! I will send a couple of pics later today.


Regards

Rosemary Mecca

UPDATE

Thank you for such kind words.
We are pretty exhausted at the moment with a brief respite before the
next predicted flooding hits. John is planning a very fast stable
build before the next mare foals. And we will be well prepared with
bottles and a dry place this time. I know now that these little
caspians are likely to foal with very little outward indication of
imminent foaling.

The sire of Shakira is Ningana Khouzam, our senior stallion. He is in
Shepperton at the breakers at present. Shepperton is due to be hit by
flooding tonight so hopefully things will be ok there. Over the course
of the weekend a few people at the vet clinic have asked what these
caspians are used for and if they make good childrens ponies. It is
going to be great to get one out and ridden. Ningana Khouzam is going
to Equitana and will be ridden there quite a bit with any luck,
although very green.

By last night, at the vet clinic, Saba was taking on all comers to her
stable in an effort to protect the foal. I think all the veterinary
procedures on the foal were taking their toll on Saba.
A truce was negotiated between her and a stable hand so the remaining
foal tests could be done. The stable hand whom i shall now call the
trouble shooter took a broom and a hook on a long piece of wire into
the stable. The broom was to guide her backside around so she would
not kick and then the hook was used to reach out and grab her halter.
Once caught she was quite good. Shakira's proteins that help prevent
blood clotting are low but everything else is good. Shakira and Saba
have now been moved to the thoroughbred stables and Shakira is on
antibiotics as a precaution for a few days. Saba visibly relaxed as
soon as she walked into her new stable and has allowed her foal to
have the first antibiotic injection without too much fuss.
And thats the story so far and please feel free to send it to the news
letter. I have attached a couple of photos that are pretty rough and
if needed will try to get some decent ones this week. The photos were
taken shortly after they were reunited. In the first, Shakira is
trying to work out how to lay down. In the second photo, mum is gently
stopping her from moving out of the back corner of the stable. In the
third photo, Shakira is sleeping against the heated wall.

Take care and thanks so much for taking the time to read and be
interested in Shakira's story. Tears come to my eyes whenever I think
how hard she wanted to survive and fought to do so.

Rosie
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