As a relative newcomer to miniature ponies, 1998 was my first year breeding, although I have gained experience in the two previous foaling seasons thanks to Yvonne Young of Beltona Stud.

I was expecting two foals, by Catala Little Edition, from my foundation mare, Erinvista Meadow Torvil, and by Catala Peters Boy (with the Australia Palouse Pony Association, Paleface Peters Boy A/FC 2334) from Shangrila Sweet Charity.

As the foals were due only days apart in mid December, I scheduled my annual leave to suit, hoping to be around when they were born, then set about preparing everything, including finishing off my stable, and building my foaling alarms, fortunately with time to spare.

That's when thing stopped "going by the book". One of the mares, Erinvista Meadow Torvil, or "Moonlight" as I call her looked like she was ready to foal late September, well over two months early by our estimation, so I put the foaling alarm on her, and had my mother over to keep an eye on her while I was at work.

Five weeks later, on the Friday my mother had to go home, I was woken at 5:30 in the morning by the foaling alarm. Finding nothing, I returned to bed, to be woken again fifteen minutes later, this time to find the mare rolling. We walked the mare and phoned the vet, but even as the vet was on the phone, the mare went into labour, giving birth to the tiniest palomino colt.

Being premature, he was very weak, unable to stand for long, or to suckle, though he did try briefly. The vet came over and checked him out. The foal was given shots for suspected swelling around the brain, and antibiotics, as well as having colostrum tubed into his stomach.

By mid afternoon, not much had changed. The foal kept passing out when I tried to feed him. The vet visited again, tubing more milk into his stomach, and giving him more shots. The prognosis was not good: suspected brain damage, no sucking reflex and not expected to live through the night.

To give the little fellow the best chance, the vet had me take the foal around to the clinic, around 7pm and tubed more milk into his stomach, as well as putting him onto a glucose intravenous drip.

By evening I had found that the foal would attempt suckle for a few seconds after being woken, and the only thing he would suckle from was a syringe.

Prepared to do what I could, I put them in the stable and went to bed, setting the alarm to give me around an hour of sleep. Being woken by the alarm, I would go out, milk the mare, put the milk in a syringe, wake the foal, getting the milk into him in the brief period before he would pass out or lose interest again. This went on all night, and half way through the next day. He was gaining a little strength, now able to follow Moonlight around the front yard.

Returning from a short visit to a friend's place around midday, I was delighted to find the little fellow had learned how to suckle from his mother! This was quite an achievement for him, because on all previous attempts, being as small as he was, he would walk right under the mare and out the other side.

From there, things were only better. With lots of TLC, Ilinga Florian, as I named him, improved substantially, and now shows no signs of his somewhat shaky start, other than being just as inclined to follow me as he is his mother.

Three weeks after Florian's birth, to the day, and two weeks before I was expecting the next foal, I returned home from work, to find my black mare Charity was waxed up. Figuring she would foal within 24 hours, I put the alarm on her.

Before heading to bed, around 9:30, I went out to check on her again, as I had seen mares wait until dark to foal before. Finding she wasn't waiting up near the stable as she had been on previous nights, I grabbed my torch and went for a walk around the paddock, finding her in the early stages of giving birth. The foal was born with no problems. Another colt. Oh well. As Charity's parents were a black and a black palouse, I was rather surprised to see the new foal was a chestnut palouse with a white blanket!

Charity and the foal, Ilinga Mister Red, were moved to the stable, and Moonlight and Florian were moved into the front yard. As I was carrying him, I noticed Mister Red weighed more and was stronger at birth than Florian was at three weeks old.

Two hours later, Mister Red hadn't worked out where to suckle, despite trying almost everything including the stable wall! He gave up only millimetres from his mother's teat so many times. So following recommendations from my books on foaling, I gave him a syringe full of his mother's colostrum to give him a taste for it, as well as get some into him to keep his strength up, then headed to bed. Checking back two hours later, I found all was well, the foal now suckling properly.

Over five months have passed since then and I have two wonderful colts, each with their own advantages, and both of which I plan to keep, despite my earlier plans to sell any colts!

Ilinga Florian is still very small, as well as extremely pretty, and Ilinga Mister Red could only be described as elegant, and an excellent mover.

So that's how the first Ilinga foaling season went: successful, if somewhat adventurous.

Ken Stone
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