It all started innocently enough. Dropped M off at school, went to the office and took care of a few things. Broke away for a brown bag lunch with M at 11, followed by a couple of afternoon appointments.
One of which was a pregnancy check on the dam of the hypothermic foal born on February 13.Wrapped up things at work and got home about 5:45. Mel and the neighbors had planned a fantastic BBQ dinner. Had a great time visiting and enjoying steaks, chops and burgers off the grill!
Got the kids cleaned up and headed for bed when the first call came in-it was about 8 pm. A 2-year old filly I had been working with for about a week, finally succumbed to her disease-the farm just wanted to let me know.
The second call came about 30 minutes later, a dystocia. For those unfamiliar with dystocia, it is probably the single biggest hurry up and get there emergency calls there is. Once a mare's water breaks, the fetus has about 20-30 minutes to be delivered or it will not survive. The fetus in this case was in dorso-pubic orientation with both front legs flexed at the carpus and the head back. In order to straighten the legs, pull the head forward and rotate the fetus to sterno-pubic orientation, I had to place the mare under general anesthesia and elevate her hind quarters with a loader. Repositioning went smoothly, and the fetus was delivered without damaging the mare, but it was too late to save the foal. The mare recovered from anesthesia in about 30 minutes, I left treatment and examination instructions and got home about midnight.
A third call came about 4 am-another dystocia! Fortunately, the owner was able to assist the delivery before I got to the farm. Unfortunately, the fetus was dead. He called and let me know I didn't need to come so I turned around and went back home.
Usually when I get called out after 3 am, I have great difficulty falling back to sleep. This time I had no difficulty. It probably comes as not suprise that I did have great difficulty getting up at 7:00 to go into work this morning. Luckily, things were pretty calm today.
