Yalla's birth revisited

As I was thinking about my yearling, Yalla!, and looking at past photos of her, I wanted to share some with you. If you want to, you can go here to revisit her birth. Lisa at LaughingOrcaRanch also has some wonderful posts and thanks to her, I got lots of birth photos. We had quite the adventure, sleeping in the barn every night for a week, to witness the birth. I can't find any search button on her blog but she took wrote some incredible posts about it.

My lights weren't working out in the barn at that time so we watched it all by hand held flashlight. Annie chose to lay down right where we had a perfect view. We worried when we noticed the bag didn't break away from the foal's head but rather at the hind feet so I went over to help. The foal was struggling and snuffling like it was trying to breathe but there was a lot of fluid sloshing around in the bag down by it's nose. I worked hard at the sac to break it open as quickly as I could. It was like a vinyl glove: elastic, wet, and cold. Then I fished around until I found the head and lifted it out of the sac. I was there for the first breaths, holding the warm, wet head. There's nothing like a newborn!

What an experience!

I am also reminded that the winner of my contest to pick the time of birth, sex, and color was Andrea. She's never emailed me her address for her prize. So how about it? Are you still out there, visiting my site once in a while? I still have your prize. Email me!