The Delivery Room – by Pat Lox

Originally Published in

The Journal

Official Publication of the Missouri Fox Trotter Horse Breeders Association

April, 2004

It has been a wonderful three days of welcome rain in parched West Texas. The steady rainfall has turned the recently plowed fields from sandy red dust to narrow stripes of shimmering water between the now blackened earth. The horses are in the barn where their breath appears as small clouds against the misty air.

One mare moves a bit slower than the rest the past few weeks. She tends to waddle with her growing belly - and is very interested in the activities in the box stall at the far end of the barn. My husband and I have been moving items that were stacked in this stall for storage. We have been scrubbing the walls, tilling and leveling the dirt floor, and washing away the sand and dust from the past year's accumulation.

We are preparing for the first foal at our ranch. The mare seems to sense that the stall preparations are for her. She watches us as she enjoys another ration of hay, looks to the mare in the next stall and backs her ears as if to say "They are doing all this for me, not for you!" And she is right. We have a Missouri Fox Trotter on the way!

We have prepared a secluded and comfortable location for the mare, now nick-named "Equus Rotundus", more properly known as Reid's Princess. Princess seems to know her time for foaling is coming soon and also appears to appreciate our efforts to provide her a foaling location. Her walks from the pasture to her normal stall in the barn now include a saunter to the far end, near the box stall, as if she is checking on our progress.

Another week has gone by and her belly is getting larger and her shape is changing from a round circle to an oval. As her belly shifts, her teat bag is starting to form and seems to get heavier each day. The steps between the round bale feeder, the grassy pasture, and the water trough are slow and measured. When the other horses alert to a rider going by and run to the edge to greet the visitor, she now just raises her head and rotates her ears. Chasing along with the herd seems to be much too much work. Besides, the grass needs more trimming and the round bale is just within reach.

Our work on the "delivery room" has progressed. We have layered the floor with wood shavings, followed by feet of wheat straw, carefully banking the straw even higher around the walls. The extra bales are stacked in the next stall, ready as replacement of, hopefully, soon to be soiled bedding.

In the evening Princess surveys our progress on the stall. She stops and lowers her head, touching the straw with her nose. She seems to be taking in the soft mixed smells of straw and pine. She raises her head a foot or two, eyes the stall and sighs, probably thinking she should just take a good nap, but wanders on down the walkway of the barn to her "normal" stall. Princess carefully walks through the gate, turns slowly, and then stares back toward the box stall. She appears to be thinking, "A few more days."

Another week passes by and we have fallen into a routine of leading all the mares into the barn each evening, letting Princess in the box stall to eat a ration of oats, then letting her wander out again, down the walkway to her "normal" stall. For the entire week, my husband rises before sunrise each morning to feed Princess a book of alfalfa hay and then starts his other chores, stopping to share a cup of coffee with me before I leave for work. "She seems more restless today. I think tonight after work you should wrap her tail." he tells me. I smile as I sip my coffee and hope that tonight is the night. The vision of seeing Princess and a newborn foal in the straw filled stall makes the drive into town fly by.

At 11:00 a.m. my cell phone rings in the midst of my meeting. It is my husband with news - he was out on the tractor and came in the barn about 10 a.m. to let the mares back in the pasture and found Princess happily munching on hay with a wet foal laying just underneath her. She had the foal in her normal stall with all the other mares watching from their stalls in the barn. My husband briskly toweled off the foal and carried the newborn to the box stall. Princess followed him along and entered the stall, stopping in the doorway as if to say, "About time you got us here".

The new foal and Princess are both doing fine, and my husband and I still chuckle when we think of the time and effort spent on the "delivery room" that has instead become a wonderful nursery.