Home » Plants & Animals » Horses » The Joys of Spring

The Joys of Spring

© Marta Towne

I love spring! All the fresh air, flowers, new life happening all over. Babies, squirrel, rabbit, birds, cows, goats, sheep......HORSES! We have three pregnant mares this year, none of which are really mine, but I try to always help out. Anyway, I digress. By some stroke of genius (NOT!), two of the mares were due on the same day, and the third a week later. Well to make a long story short, for the last 72 hours, we have gotten about 10 hours sleep.

After two days of checking every hour, one of the mares finally gave birth to a wonderful little filly! SR Phyre Lyte! The other mare, I think, has decided that she is going to totally skip the birth part! She is huge, overdue and squirts milk with every step!, but will she give in a give birth? NOPE!, not her, no way! So, every hour, on the hour one of us goes out and checks on her, makes for a long night!

What is it about a horse? They can not give birth during the day? When we have to be up anyway? What is it about them that makes them seem to enjoy seeing us stagger out to the paddock at 3 o'clock in the morning and falling face first in a pile of manure? Do they enjoy our discomfort? Sometimes I think so! Especially at the aforementioned 3 o'clock AM! Now, maybe I am getting paranoid from lack of sleep, but it occurs to me that they are doing this just to snicker behind their hooves. They had no intention of having the foal then, but they want us to think they will just to watch us stagger around in the pitch dark in order to check on them! Am I giving them too much credit? I think not! Of course, just because lack of sleep is making me paranoid, does not mean they are not out to laugh at me!

Ahh, SPRING, gotta love it!

The copyright of the article The Joys of Spring in Horses is owned by Marta Towne. Permission to republish The Joys of Spring in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.