Student Blog from Madeleine St Ledger (Australia) and Chloe De Salvador (France)

Madeleine

Week 4 of student life at the Irish National Stud had me working in Strawhall & Kildare yards to start and I finished my week with three nights at the foaling unit in Sun Chariot.

The week started down in Strawhall under the watchful eye of foreman’s Laura & Paul. Strawhall currently has 19 pregnant mares that are due to foal later in the season. The mares get checked over to make sure they are not bagging up, then put out into the fields so they can spend the day grazing outside. Once they are settled in and their boxes are fluffed up, clean and ready for them to come back in at night, we head over to Kildare yard. Kildare yard is where the foals that have been born head over to live. There were 4 mares and foals at the start of the week in this yard and 6 foals by the time I finished on Thursday afternoon. The mares and foals are checked over, then put out into paddocks depending on their age and strength. During the week Laura explained to us the process of the mares with foals at foot and their teasing program. I found it quite helpful to be able to understand how, when and why the mares are teased and vetted to be put back in foal.

Friday night I then headed into Sun Chariot which is our foaling unit where all mares go to have their foals. This rotation I have been looking forward to since starting this course. We started our night by checking over the mares to see how they were progressing, how big their bags of milk are and if they have waxed up. We then check over any newborn foals that are in the unit, taking their temperatures, spraying navels and cleaning them if required. Over the three nights we had a total of 9 foals, 5 colts and 4 fillies. On the second night we had a red bag delivery, and the foal had bad meconium staining. This was very interesting to be apart of as it had been talked about the week prior in our lectures by Dr Kevin Corley.

The lectures are great to have coinciding with our practical work as it makes it much easier to understand what is going on when you are working in a fast-paced environment, like the foaling unit.  We had lectures from Dr Kevin Corely and Ernan O’Donnell this week. The lecture on Monday was from Dr Kevin Corley and he talked about the pregnant mare. Things to look for in palpation scans in the mare and how the foetus progresses in the pregnancy. We then had our stallion shed introduction which was explaining what we had to do in the covering barn and giving everybody the opportunity to see how it all works. Our last lecture from Ernan O’Donnell was a lesson on the practical examination of the horse. He was explaining all the different areas of a horse, how to check heart rate and foot pulses. Also explaining how a horse would be marked up for identification.

Overall, this week has been full of learning opportunities, and I can’t wait for the next 5 months and the things that I will learn along the way.

 

Chloe

This week was our fifth week at the Irish National Stud. The breeding season is slowly taking hold, the teasers are back in action, the stallions are ready, and the foaling unit is getting busy. After watching with sadness as the French team lost by one point to the English in the Six Nations Tournament during the week end, I started my week working with Leona, who manages the Blandford yard and, of course, the Legends. What a pleasure to be surrounded by champions such as Hurricane Fly, Faugheen and the old man Beef or Salmon! I finished my week with Aussie Madeleine on night watch at the Sun Chariot foaling unit with 3 nights on call and I would say it was pretty busy. With an average of three foals each night, we welcomed 9 babies.

 

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