Hi all, just wondering if anyone else has had this experience. I have a 20 year old maiden who is due 3-27-03. There is good foal movement, and she seems to be slowly making her way to delivery, but she has been acting really weird for the past few days. She has been laying off her feed off and on for the past week. We got a new horse in the barn on Saturday. She seems really interested in meeting him, but when she is out with him she herds the other horse (a 9 month old weanling, not hers) off of him. This morning he was outside with the other horse at the barn while she was in the stall for breakfast. When I fed it was obvious that she had not eaten last nights dinner, and she was not interested at all in breakfast. Whenever he would come to her window, she would squirt and wink just like she was in season, then she would rear up, strike out and then buck. In 3 years I have never seen her do this, much less do it when she is 11 months pregnant! Has anyone else had a mare show a heat this late in pregnancy (she has not done this until now) and have such weird behavior? Udder is still moderately sized. I can express a yellow liquid, but there is no real waxing yet that I can tell. If anyone knows anything like this I would be interested to hear. Thanks. Trisha
Anonymous
Posted on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 06:15 pm:
It is not uncommon for mares near term to go off their feed. Also horse behavior does change when the hormones are raging with pregnancy. My one pregnant mare would make evil faces at a stallion who was across a 30 ft alley if he got near his fence. He listened to her.
Personally, I wouldn't add a new horse to a mare's turn-out this far into the pregnancy. Especially a non-pregnant one. It can stress the mare, expose her to who knows what and it can be dangerous to have a mare foal with a strange horse.
Trisha
Posted on Monday, March 17, 2003 - 07:12 pm:
It is a known horse, and I didn't really have much say in the matter. I spoke with my barn manager, I was wrong, they have never actually been out together. The herding off occured through a stall window. He was in the barn and my mare herded the other horse off of the barn when he would go to talk. The new horse has been brought in to keep the weanling company so that the mare and foal can have a pasture to themselves until an appropriate time to introduce them to the two others. This will be a while since the weanling is large and strong and very playful. I know that they sometimes give shots of prostaglandin to bring a mare into season, and I know that in humans prostaglandin is often used for cervical ripening. My best hypothesis is that she has some funky hormones leading to her delivery, perhaps that being one, and as they work they are creating heat like symptoms in her. I don't know.
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