Sometimes, life on the farm just.... sucks.
Today is my middle son's birthday. Sadly, it is ALSO the day Cheyenne, our female horse, gave premature birth to a little filly.
Cheyenne is a fat horse. She rarely shows she's pregnant until just before birth. And we thought we'd done a great job of keeping the weight on the horses over the winter (NOT an easy task with the brutal cold, er, global warming, this winter brought. The incredible heat of 2 weeks at a time of -20 nights and +3 days makes it hard as hell to keep weight on grazing animals. We literally went through twice as much hay as usual, but none of the horses dropped weight, and we were proud. Tonight, at dusk, Annette saw Chey (pronounced "shy")lying down in an isolated corner of the field. NOT a common sight. So she grabbed a lead line, went to Chey, and led her to the barn. Getting there, she checked her over and found that while she wasn't bagged up (meaning her teats were not full of milk) her vulva was showing the signs on incipient birth. Unfortunately, Marie, our 9 yr old, was still awake when Annette told us. So we all tossed on jackets and mud boots and headed to the barn. Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Cheyenne gave birth. To an unbreathing filly. Well, we stripped the amniotic sack from the baby, rubbed her down with hay, and Annette began compressions and rescue breaths, while Marie clung to me and cried. Despite Annette's heroic efforts, the filly never took a breath. She was very small (less than 45 pounds, or less than half the size Chey's last baby was at birth), her hooves were not developed, and odds are she was "delivered" because she was already dead, and the body got rid of waste material.
Marie is crying, Annette is depressed, and to be quite blunt, I'm not in a good mood myself. But shared joy is doubled, and shared pain is halved, as my friend Spider Robinson says. So I'm sharing pain with my friends tonight.
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Sorry to hear this Neale. It is always so sad when we lose one of our companions.
Thanks, Kav.
That had to be heartbreaking for the younger ones in your family. Nope, this kind of thing is always hard on us, no matter how we try to make sense of it. Sorry to hear this, Neale.
it is hard. but we';; get by
Will do, Gunny!
So sorry to read this, Neale.
It is very painful to watch your child learn such a hard lesson, and lets face it, it is sad for us to see. Tell Marie that the babe colt went over the rainbow bridge....
On the plus side Cheyenne is still with you . Horses are fairly hearty animals ...
That does suck Neale, especially for Marie. She will indeed need lots of extra hugs, so please give her a couple more from Barb and I, and then a couple more for the pup she lost, and some more just for being such a brave girl. I hope that Cheyenne is doing all right and that the new dog is happy and healthy.
Love that statement.
Love your Chey.
That's a very sad story Neale, and I'm sorry for you and your family, and for Cheyenne as well. I guess that in order to really enjoy the good times we must also bear some bad ones. My mother's first child was still-born. I'm glad that didn't cause my parents to give up.
Neale, I'm very sad for your loss and for poor Cheyenne's loss, as well. The loss of a baby is just awful! All that hope and joy...
You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers.