How human intervention much is too much?
When it comes to a mare giving birth to a foal, how much intervention is too much?
Does Mother Nature have a way of looking after all creatures great and small or do we as humans always know what is best for our animals? Even if leaving the task to Mother Nature is the right thing to do- would man trust in this or would pride and the inability to give up control alter our course of action?
The foaling season is at its peak in Wyoming and babies are everywhere. These precious gems are the result of 11 months of pain and heartache for the owners of the mare and yet the mare seems to handle life as usual. Generally speaking there is no morning sickness, no loss of appetite, no lying down from aching backs. No symptoms that we as humans would experience. So why do we feel the need to interfere with our mares when they outwardly show us that life is just dandy? I believe the possibility of manifesting our “humanized” issues onto the pregnant mare, to be quite high.
My own mare is too young to be having babies but I have experienced my partner’s mare’s pregnancy and was awake a couple hours after the birth. She did just fine on her own. We took precautions and read about the birthing process but when it came down to it, we let her be a brood mare and allowed the baby to be a foal. This scenario is the norm. Mummy and baby are just fine, even better off, without human intervention.
I have had friends on the other hand who feel the need to “interfere” at all times and in my mind, play God. Staying up and doing checks every few hours, helping move the foal as it is coming out, wiping the baby down, ect. Do you think that this human control is healthy for the expecting mare? Even though the emotional attachment is strong (and in man’s eyes, a positive one) and the person has the best intentions, I believe it just creates problems.
This is Heath’s mare, BK and her baby Kaybe, the morning she gave birth.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Thank you.
Although I believe that we all have our mares (all our horses, or other pets for that matter) safety in mind, with our intentions pure, it is often those very intentions that we trip over.
June 23rd, 2007 at 7:05 am
This is definitely an interesting perspective to mull over. In general, it’s hard to argue that keeping a horse’s life as “natural” as possible is not a good thing and that allowing the mother-foal bond to develop is not paramount (as it is). On the other hand, the degree of human interference prudent, in my mind, changes depending on the circumstances of the particular mare or operation. It’s simply not tenable to not monitor (unobtrusively) a show mare who in foal to an expensive stud–the investment is too great. If a foal is breach and the mare isn’t able to re-position it naturally, that’s a problem, etc. Further, if the mare is foaling indoors there are a lot more things to worry about that humans can play a role in minimizing. That said, once you know a non-maiden broodmare well in the best scenario you can just keep an eye on her, make sure she’s not in trouble, and let everything go to nature’s plan–which is what I hope for!
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
Even if we tried to keep an eye on our mares, no doubt they would pop their foals out whilst we were making the fourth cup of tea of the night! We just leave them to it, but do completely understand Kate´s point that if you have a significant amount of money invested you may wish to ‘help’.