Boarders' mare appears pregnant - milk dripping...?

I can tell you from personal experience, a mare does NOT have to be pregnant to act like that. My mom's mare is one of my broodmares, and it doesn't matter if she is in foal or not, she plays the part of wetnurse. She always has a semi full bag of milk, and it comes and goes.

It is possible she is, see if the owner will do a urine test for pregnancy. Or you can do it, it's a pretty discreet test. Just google them and you should be able to find them, and they're relatively cheap. I've heard that some vets stock them too.

May the force be with you if she is!

It sounds like the mare's owner is not very responsible and has not made good choices for this mare in the past to have allowed it to be cared for by idiots who didn't know for sure if a horse was gelded or not. It's pretty obvious whether a horse is a stud or gelding.

I would suggest, if possible, for your own safety that you have the mare checked for pregnancy - from what you are saying, it sounds definite that she is.

The vet should be able to look at your place and tell you any adjustments to make to prepare for the birth of the foal. Basically, she needs a clean stall with straw bedding, not sawdust or any other type of bedding (it causes infections and bacteria to make the foal sick.). The mare and foal only need clean straw bedding for about a week or two at most. Once the baby is dry, has taken the colostrum milk (first milk) and has passed a healthy week or two it can be on whatever bedding you usually use.

protrusions from the stalls should be removed or minimized as much as possible, anything a foal can run into or get a foot caught in through rolling or anything. Stall doors or gates and the like should be flush with the floor allowing no little hooves to get caught under - even if a gate or door is 10" off the ground a sleeping foal can get wedged under it and die in moments.

The pasture should be horse-safe fencing of board or woven wire for horses, not hot tape, high tensile or anything like that - they'll get under it somehow and you'll have a mess on your hands. Anything sharp should be protected as well- those swimming noodles work good to zip tie on things as bumpers. They can't see the fence, no matter how dense it is. I turned mine out in welded wire with wood planks across the top and bottom - she couldn't see the fence and didn't know what a fence was and ran into it like a chicken in a net. I put bumpers on all the steel fenceposts on the corners that she could hurt herself on, then wove that cheap, bright plastic marking tape through the permimeter of the fence. Then she could see that stripe. I also tied pieces on the fence - the tails flapping and snapping caught her attention so she could see, this is a common practice now with all new horses in all new pastures at out place.

It doesn't matter what the owner knows or doesn't know. You now have an unwanted situation on your hands that you can chose to handle correctly or not. The mare will drop a foal whether you want it or not, it's up to you what you do to ensure it's safety or not.

I would suggest that if you have not got a contract for board between you and this person, you better get one now. And outline all expectations in it including who's responsible for the care of the mare and foal, and the improvements that must be made to the place in order to prepare for it. the idea isn't to hogtie the person into paying you every last cent for these expenses (although that's hopefully an outcome) it should be to ensure you are not taken advantage of by this ignorant person and ensure the responsible care for both mare and foal. What if the person suddenly bounces the mare to another unsuspecting individual or worse, takes the mare away and leaves the foal when it's weaning time leaving you stuck with a foal. the foal likely won't be registerable if the mare's a registered mare without acceptance of the supposed stallion owner, if you can even get in contact with that person, it'll likely take a DNA test to prove which is expensive and likely won't happen. So the foal is going to be 'grade' and unless both mare and stallion are well blooded might be worth little in the way of selling for recompense.

Good luck! I feel sorry for you. Foals, if using common sense, are not horrible things to deal with - if you try, you can get good information about them and possibly ensure a good start for it.

It sounds like she's in foal, and if she's leaking milk then she's probably pretty close to foaling. Are the muscles around her tail head saggy, and has her belly seemed to drop downwards from where it usually is?

Her owner needs to have a vet out ASAP to check this mare. I would tell your boarder to do this, rather than ask her to do it, since you're not set up for foals and never agreed to board a mom and baby in the first place. It could be safe and unhealthy for both mare and foal if she goes into labor and delivers in an unsuitable environment.

The easiest way to know for sure would be to explain to the boarder that you have concerns, that you are not set up to foal out a mare, and that you want her checked due to your suspicions. Of course, I could see a certain sense of resentment on the owner's part if they pay for a vet call and the mare turns out open....But still, it's your facility, and I suppose you could present it that you just aren't comfortable having the mare there if she is pregnant, and since you aren't willing to take the risk, they will have to move her out if they refuse to have her tested. Also that if she is found to be in foal that she will have to be relocated, since you don't have adequate facilities. A simple palpation is not all that expensive. As for the above poster's recommendation about a CVI, it's a nice idea, but unless a palpation is specifically requested, pregnancy status is not a typical part of a routine veterinary exam. Pulse, temp, respirations....coggins status, vaccination status if the veterinarian doing the exam did in fact administer them....no obvious signs of illnss...that's pretty much the limit of exam for the health certs I've seen, and I know that's about all we do at the office I work at. Most people know their mare's pregnancy status, and certainly wouldn't want to pay the additional $$ to have a mare sleeved just to put that piece of information on a CVI.

Pool attempt strips do not degree calcium content textile. A acquaintances mare dripped for 17 days. of direction each and all of the colostrum became lost and the foal became purely saved by skill of intravenous iGg. My mare added interior of an hour of squirting milk. If she drips very long, the colostrum ought to be lost. frequently dripping skill impending foaling.

I take it that you are the owner/manager of the stables? Why not speak to the owner of the mare, as you are doing here? If nothing else, ask for a vet cert, she should have provided one anyway, before bringing the mare on the place, When examined for a health cert/vacc/etc...the pregnancy, if there is one, will be apparent and on the certificate. That would be my approach.

You can be sure when she drops that baby any day now. You can have a vet come out and check her, but if all you say is true, she is bagging up and ready to drop a foal. I would say move her to a large box stall or paddock where she can be by herself. Good luck.