An unresponsive baby horse and an exhausted mother isn’t exactly the best combo to have but these guys, using their vast knowledge, were able to help both in this amazing video.
Taxi the mare was about to give birth but for some reason was having a difficult time so Michael Lares of Flying L Ranch stepped in to give her a hand.
What follows next is a heart pounding moment for all involved.
Taxi the mare almost died a week before this actual birth.
Michael considers themselves lucky to have even gotten this far.
For the safety of both the mare and foal, he decided to help with the birth. Michael didn’t want to lose the mother and her baby so he reaches and pulls the foal out.
That act did not allow the foal proper time of constriction and stimulation to its nervous systém in the mare’s birth canal so he came out almost lifeless.
Michael gets down with the foal and stimulates it by rubbing every part of its body until it starts breathing and moving on its own.
Once it does, he stands it up, and you could almost hear Taxi snort a sigh of relief for Axel, her foal.
Here’s a viewer who understands and helped explain what happened. He says,
“Folks…this is called a “dummy foal” and often happens when born breech or for other reasons they don’t get “squeezed” properly in the birth canal. Essentially it’s like they don’t know they have been born, so their brains don’t tell them to stand and nurse. The way you fix this is by squeezing them tightly around the rib cage for several minutes. You will see them suddenly “wake up” and act normal. It’s a strange phenomenon with horses.”
Strange indeed. It’s called neonatal maladjustment syndrome (NMS).
Foals will appear healthy when they are born, but will exhibit neurological abnormalities shortly after.
They will seem detached, disoriented, unresponsive, confused, and even have trouble nursing so a good rancher and his staff should know how to deal with the phenomena.
Axel is super lucky to have Michael right there.
It was such an amazing moment that resulted in life for all.
“This is so amazing! Everything about it. The setting is beautiful, the horses are beautiful, & despite the fact that it was a little scary touch and go situation there. It ended up being this perfect picturesque kind of postcard beauty!” says another happy viewer.
Normal mares have a broad range of gestation, meaning they can carry a fetus for 320 to 380 days.
So an average of 330 days or 11 months is the most usual gestation length.
It would have been a shame if they lost Taxi, because that would mean losing Axel as well.
Michael’s quick thinking and know-how saved both mare and foal, in a clip that gave viewers incredible footage of a strange phenomenon.
Watch this heart pounding moment in the video below!
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