Nurse mare needed!

[SuperEventer]

My mare foaled yesterday morning (I posted on here that it was a filly, but the post has disappeared).....we thought all was well.....

My mare somehow broke her front leg just below the elbow during delivery, and she had so much adrenaline, we didn't know how bad it was. The vet was even stumped. Last night, she was eating, mothering, and okay besides being lame. This morning, not eating, subdued, etc. We couldn't splint the leg, as the break was just too high. She was starting to become toxic from not eating or moving around. We had to put my beautiful girl down at lunchtime today.

My filly is very strong (she was up and nursing 20 min after entering the world). She has handled all of this pretty well. We have a Fell pony mare hanging out with her, but she is not producing milk. The baby is drinking the milk replacement very well, but we'd like to get a nurse mare if possible. If someone could help me out with any leads, that would be great!

Please send jingles and prayers for my little filly, Mia.

[Dressage-ryder]

I can't help we are in CA but we lost a foal last week....I just wanted to say I am so sorry for the loss of your mare. Hugs to you.

[trakehner013]

I am so sorry for your loss:(

[sfstable]

My mare foaled yesterday morning (I posted on here that it was a filly, but the post has disappeared).....we thought all was well.....

You aren't going "crazy". :) Here is the link to your post (#207)http://www.chronicleforums.com/Forum/showthread.php?t=192279&page=11

I remembered reading it because I thought Mia was a very cute barn name. :)

Very sorry to hear about your mare.

[DownYonder]

I am so sorry for the loss of your mare. Godspeed to her, and many jingles for the little one.

[avezan]

I'm so sorry about your mare. She gave her filly a very good start on life, though. I had a foal with barn name Mia last year!

There is a poster on COTH whose id, I believe is Lenny, who runs a nursemare service called Sandy's nursemares. I googled it and came up with this: http://www.whinny.org/nursemares.htm Good luck in the weeks to come.

Godspeed brave mare!

[VirginiaBred]

I'm so sorry for your beautiful mare. Prayers for your little one.

[SuperEventer]

Thank you all for your kind words. This is my first time breeding, and it has been devastating. My mare fought hard and kept herself going long enough to get Mia going, and I thank her for that. She will have the most beautiful memorial spot.

I have taken the nurse mare link! It looks like they're in NY and only go to VA, but maybe they'll make an exception. I was also told that nursemares can be obtained from KY pretty readily, so I'll look into that as well. I'd still appreciate any leads in case nothing pans out.

I can't post pictures on here, but here's the link to a pictures of my beautiful Mia girl... She had a good night last night, so hopefully, things will stay that way. http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=30085455&id=125500147

[alliekat]

I am so sorry for your loss. I don't have a nurse mare but am in the NC area so I will call the few people we have met since being here. I hope something turns up. I am glad to hear your little girl is doing good. You will be in our farm's thoughts.

[LEN]

Sandys Nursmares Have gone down to NC in the past. Its a long haul. Right now Sandy is running ragged. Although all the calls arn't a Go, She has been getting calls every day for the last week and a half. Some days she gets two or three calls. Yesterday, Mon. She had three calls. She went on two of them. Today she has a short run to a TB farm here in NY. So Far. Sandy has been to NY farms all over the state this yr. I think 11. Of all the calls she gets for Nursemares some people can be helped over the phone, some don't need a Nursemare, like if the foal is 3 mos. old, or if a maiden can be given more time. This yr nursemares can be transported cheeper than last yr and her prices are less than some. Sandy will get to you if she is needed. Some people have been giveing Sandy a heads up as to when their rejectors are foaling of if they need a Nursemare for a mare that is going back to work. Some have older mares that don't do well with a foal nurseing them. Some have foundered mares. Some maes have cancer and will be put down after foaling. These are on a waiting list for nursemares. Sandys number is 845-656-3537,845-452-7666.

[foxhavenfarm]

So sorry for your loss and good luck in your search for a nursemare.

[classicsporthorses]

I am so very sorry. I lost a mare with my first breeding and her son, my 7 year old stallion was raised as an orphan just fine. We are now raising our 5th orphan-the others were rescues.

How I wish you were closer b/c my mare who is raising this latest orphan is producing milk! She's not in foal nor has she foaled. She weaned her last foal in Nov. 08. The colt, Opie, while he's on replacer, did suckle with her and well, she started to produce milk all on her own. She's got a heck of a bag on her.

She has in fact nursed 2 foals at once. She did it three years ago with her own colt and another orphan.

Even if you can't find a nurse mare, suffice it to say many babies are raised very successfully as orphans and on replacer. I am more than happy to be a resource as I've been through it a few times.

Best wishes.

[Signature]

We have a wonderful 18 yo SPS Hanoverian mare that has had 6 foals and is the best nanny ever ... we have not been able to get her to keep a pregnancy (gets preggers but loses it at 16 days).... but we've often wondered if she would accept an orphan foal. She seems to want one SO badly when the new babies come. She has gladly let weanlings attempt to nurse on her, of course she has no milk. But I wish we knew for sure and we would offer to take the foal if possible and induce lacation on this mare, etc. But just not totally positive. The last thing I'd want to do was get a baby hurt. Where are you located? We are in NE NC under Norfolk, etc.

So sorry for your loss, that is a terrible first breeding experience. :(

[SuperEventer]

We're about 45 min northwest of Winston-Salem near Mt. Airy, NC.

I'm not sure about sending the filly away. I'm a bit nervous about exposing her to a new environment at this young age. I'm hyper paranoid now that this has happened to me. I've always been wary of breeding, and now that I did, this happens! *sigh*

Luckily, Mia is doing well. She's drinking her replacer happily from a bucket. She is playing and acting normally and happily. She has a Fell mare to keep her company and the dogs think that she's theirs.

I really appreciate everyone's thoughts and prayers. This has been a struggle for me, but I think I'm taking it harder than Mia!

[Penthilisea]

Sandy's Nursemares are the best! I've seen them in action and they know their stuff.

[classicsporthorses]

Hey, SE, you're going to be fine. Two of the orphans we raised we did so without any surrogate mommy. We got a couple of the babies, including the most recent one, when they were less than a week old-one traveled 4+ hours and he was fine.

Opie was less than a week old and he came from 3 hours away.

Keep up the good work.

[SuperEventer]

Ahhh! A friend from college just contacted me...she has a Hano mare that is currently nursing last year's baby that needs to be weaned. She is still producing great amounts of milk, so she said I could come and get her and all she wants in return is a breeding to my stallion! Thank God for answered prayers! Now, let's all just keep praying that the mare takes to my beautiful little Mia.

[Halfhalting]

Best of luck with the mare! I would recommend that you do a search on this forum to get ideas of how to make the introduction process successful. For instance, many folks sedate the mare when introducing a new baby. Or maybe hobble or twitch. Some folks block scents from the mare. There are lots of opinions and options, but the one thing that is certain, you never know what to expect. Good luck - I hope it's a perfect match. I am SOOO sorry about the loss of your mare (especially for a first time breeder). They are just so fragile...

[florida foxhunter]

Just wanted to offer my sympathies too............so sad to loose your mare. Best of luck with your filly!!

[beanie&boomer]

So sorry about your mare! I had one die 6 hours post-delivery with a uterine artery rupture many years ago and raised the filly successfully with replacer in a bucket and a young llama for a companion. (She's now a 16.2 mama herself.) My advisers were the folks at Justaplain Farm in PA and they were wonderful with advice. They provide nurse mares, but also pointed out that they have to raise the foals as well -- and do so on the bucket. Don't despair if you can't find a nurse mare...it will all work out

[LEN]

Ahhh! A friend from college just contacted me...she has a Hano mare that is currently nursing last year's baby that needs to be weaned. She is still producing great amounts of milk, so she said I could come and get her and all she wants in return is a breeding to my stallion! Thank God for answered prayers! Now, let's all just keep praying that the mare takes to my beautiful little Mia.

This is good news. BUT, You need to be able to get the foal on the mare. This is the most important part. Sandy said for you to call her and she will give you instructions as to how to get this done the right way.845-656-3537. She will be waiting for your call.

[LEN]

I should add, that if you don't get the right instructions as to how to get the mare to except the foal, you might end up standing in the stall for days. Or the mare won't except it at all. Or even runin the chances of the mare excepting the foal. Its important to get the right start. Of corse there is a chance the mare won't and will not except the foal anyway. Sandy will get you started in the right direction. Call her. All the best of luck to you.

[Dalemma]

Here is a article from The Horse.com on introducing a nurse mare.

I know this is an older thread but since it is foaling season I thought this article might help from The Horse.com

A medication protocol that can induce lactation in "open" mares has changed the way prominent Kentucky Standardbred nursery, Walnut Hall Ltd., manages its nurse mare herd, while giving more than 20 rescued mares a new
Walnut Hall's vet, Joe Lyman, DVM, based the technique on presentations by Peter Daels, DVM, PhD, and John Steiner DVM, Dipl. ACT. Using their methods, not only can unbred mares that have previously had at least one foal be persuaded with medication to produce milk, but the procedure also seems to stimulate maternal behavior, greatly simplifying the tricky process of getting a nurse mare to adopt an orphan foal. For an operation like Walnut Hall, which uses nurse mares routinely, it was a revolutionary idea.
"We breed to a lot of New York-based stallions," Lyman explained, "and New York state laws prohibit semen being shipped out of state. So we have to ship our mares to them, and that has usually meant leaving the foals behind with nurse mares, rather than putting them through the stress of shipping." Farm owners Alan Leavitt and his wife, Meg Jewett, have always been uncomfortable with the usual method of deliberately breeding mares, then removing their foals to make the dams available as nurse mares, he added, so this protocol presented a new opportunity.


Standardbred Presidential Wall in the stall while bonding was taking place, and after the foal was accepted.

Shortly after his return from the Orlando meeting, Lyman began sourcing mares from adoption and rescue organizations, such as the New Vocations Racehorse Adoption Program in Ohio. "We adopted 22 mares, mostly Standardbreds, with a few Thoroughbreds and a couple of Quarter Horses," he said. "The only real criterion was that they had raised foals previously and were good mothers. Maiden mares don't respond well to this protocol.
"We even used a couple of our own mares whom we'd retired from breeding due to reproductive problems, giving them a job again," he added.
Walnut Hall used a simplified drug protocol based on a once-a-day administration of an oral domperidone gel (a dopamine antagonist which increases milk production in mares and is also used to combat fescue toxicity). "If they're going to lactate, you'll know within three to four days, usually," Lyman said. "They'll start producing watery milk, and you'll see the bag start to fill. Most mares were in decent milk production within 10 days."
Twenty of the 22 mares responded to the lactation protocol. When it came time to introduce the foster foals, Walnut Hall administered a shot of oxytocin and prostaglandin to each mare, along with some mild sedation. This was followed by a vaginal/cervical massage, which Daels had found to be key to stimulating a maternal response.
"It was pretty neat," Lyman said. "Within a couple of minutes of doing the cervical massage, the mares would lower their heads and start nickering to the foal. It's a response called the Ferguson reflex. Sixteen of the 20 mares accepted their foals within half an hour, and the longest (time period) was a day. All 20 mares had accepted their foals within 24 hours. If you've dealt with nurse mares, you know that's an amazing success rate."
Since the induced lactation doesn't stimulate the production of colostrum (a sticky milk, high in protein and antibodies, secreted during the first 24 hours following birth), Walnut Hall found that foals aged seven to eight days were the most likely to thrive under the care of their nurse mares. "At weaning, you couldn't tell the difference. They were all big, robust kids, and their OCD (osteochondrosis dissecans) rates were similar to the foals raised by their own dams," said Lyman.
"This is so much better than breeding nurse mares and ending up with unwanted foals," he added. "And the mares get a good deal out of it--they get a good life on the farm, a much better fate than they might otherwise have had."


Hope this helps someone

Dalemma

[classicsporthorses]

Okay can I just say, I think I have the best mare in the world b/c we did none of what was described in the article.

With our newest orphan(rescue) I introduced our orphan and my mare over the span of a week with supervision and now he's nursing off of her (she has a bag and producing milk) and she's an open mare. We did not plan on him nursing (he was already on replacer and we got him when he was a week old). She weaned her last foal in November 08 and "retired" from being a mom-or so we thought.

Man Miracle's DO happen every day and my mare is proof of that.

Give it time for them to adjust.

[SuperEventer]

Thank you all for the info!

First introduction between mare and my little baby Mia didn't go so well. We tried the things Sandy told us, but it was a no go. The mare's owner thinks she may have been too stressed from the trip, etc. We'll try again tomorrow. Mia is still happily guzzling milk from her bucket. We were given this article to try if the mare doesn't work, so Mia can eat while we're at work!
http://www.shortassets.com/igloo.htm

We may also try the Equindone on my friend's older Belgian broodie....she's been calling and calling to Mia...like she wants her. She's not making any milk, at this point, though.

[Fairview Horse Center]

Here is some information on the igloo cooler, and links to inducing lactation. http://fairviewhorsecenter.com/Orphan_foal.doc

[classicsporthorses]

SE, when my mare (the one who is nursing the current rescued orphan colt) was the surrogate mom for my stallion 7 years ago (when his dam died 10 hours after foaling) we kept him in the replacer the entire time and did not induce lactation.

Even now, while Tango is producing milk we know it's not enough (she did this on her own with Opie sucking on her bag-she's an open mare too) so he still gets his replacer. She is not concerned at all, or even interested when we come with the replacer and feed him.

With Tango, who has raised 3 orphans and she's not a nurse mare she's one of my broodies, it took about a week or so for her to accept a foal. We never pushed the joining up/bonding and I always made a point of keeping them close together (as in ajoining stalls with a board taken out between), rubbing the foal all over and letting Tango smell him, bringing the foal to her (both were haltered and on lead ropes) and letting the mare tell me when it was time.

With Tango and Opie they were also in a double sized stall-super big, so they both had their own space. We have had Opie about 6 weeks and you would not know that Tango did not give birth to him!

If this mare will accept your filly but not necessarily let her nurse then that's okay.