After years of walking around my place in the dark of night, checking mares every two hours intermittently until the last one of the season foaled, I finally did it. I bought a camera to connect to my phone to film their foaling pens.
First, yes, I know baby horses are born every day without human involvement, and I should sleep when I can. But I’m countering that with the fact that I have had plenty of things go wacky and haywire with both mother and baby, and I feel it’s my duty as a breeder and ambassador for the species to do my best to be ready, educated and available to intervene if needed.
I like my mares to have a bit of room to have their foals, in a place where they can see their other (turned out) matronly friends, so they don’t get too stressed or lonely when they are getting really close, so I have some small well-lit traps that I usually use. I’m pretty dialed into my mares’ patterns, and I had one that was lying to me for about a week. She showed all the signs that a baby was coming, but night after night — no baby.
I would wake and check, wake and check, night after night, thinking it couldn’t possibly go any longer, but it did. (I’m not the kind of person who can just fall right back asleep after waking up, mind you). She was tired of seeing me in my joggers and glasses, and I was tired of looking at her giant belly. Her baby was like a secret hostage in there with no end in sight, so I finally got to the point where a camera sounded almost necessary for all parties involved. My puffy eyes and I read about 842 reviews and finally landed on an economical version with two-day shipping.
The box was daunting, the instructions were in four languages and downloading the app took longer than expected. Then came the usernames, passwords, linking things together, etc. I finally reached the point where I could install the camera in my pen, and I realized that there was no Wi-Fi there. Ah, the devil is in the details! My foaling pen was simply not going to work. So, I rethought my plan and decided to set it up in my barn. I don’t love stalls, and I especially don’t love separating my mares like that, but I value my desire for sleep and peace of mind over my level of those two dislikes.
All other productivity that afternoon went out the window. I prepped a stall with fluffy bedding, fresh water and good feed. I got my little camera up in the corner and linked it to the app on my phone. I could almost feel my luxurious Pendleton bedding wrapped around my groggy self later that night as my alarm sounded, and I simply tapped my screen to see my mares. It was going to be great.
The only thing missing was the horse. After I put my ladder away and placed my phone on the charger, I double-checked the cords and completed all the necessary tasks before bringing her in for the night. Then, I walked out to her large trap to catch her.
As usual, when she saw me, she came walking up in greeting, ears up, seemingly just as excited as I was about this whole camera stall thing and the prospect of some real rest — with a new foal in tow.
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