Like all good horse owners, we keep close eyes on the weight of our horses. Clearly no one wants to see skinny horses, but a horse that’s overweight can face health problems too. Every SAFE horses has its meals tailored to its weight and health, and we make adjustments as needed to maintain proper weight. 

So a few weeks ago, we started to notice that Asha was looking a little round in the belly. We’d recently started to put our horses out on grass for part of the day, so we figured we just needed to make an adjustment to the amount of hay or grain she was getting. But the odd part was that she didn’t really seem fat…in fact, she seemed pretty svelte, every place but her belly. Could she be pregnant? We consulted with Animal Control to see if Asha had been out with a stallion prior to being seized, and they told us they didn’t think she had been. But she seemed to have changed shape practically overnight. So we decided to have her checked for a possible pregnancy.

Dr. Fleck came out and palpated her, and sure enough…there’s a baby in there! Based on her size and how the fetus felt, he guessed that she’s in the last trimester of her pregnancy. Probably around the 8 month mark, give or take. This was confirmed today by Dr Lewis, who performed an ultrasound on our mama-to-be. She told us that we can probably expect her to foal in September. 

We have not had a baby born at SAFE since 2008, and now we have three pregnant mares all at once! Luna and Mina are probably due a month or more after Asha. We have no idea when any of these mares were bred, so we may be in for a surprise or two. It’s challenging, because we’d like to be able to vaccinate these mares at the right times so that they can pass as much immune protection to their foals in their colostrum as possible. We will work with our vets to make the best decisions we possibly can and hopefully we will be welcoming three healthy youngsters to the world this fall.