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Our Surprise Baby
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On Sunday, April 20, 2008 Flash Dancer (stud colt) was born to our mare, Sky Dancer. We didn't even think Sky was pregnant.
We were aware that the mare had been bred, but she had shown no signs of being pregnant. She never gained any noticable size or weight. We gave up on her being pregnant after 6 or 7 months or so of no change. I (Byron) essentially dismissed the possiblity of her being pregnant from my mind. Her due date (March 20th) came and went, but no signs. A couple weeks after her due date, the vet came to give shots and a quick health and teeth check to all our horses. Of course, I wasn't even thinking of the possibility that she might be pregnant to ask him to check her for that, but he didn't notice anything either. (And, he was the vet we called for new-foal care about two weeks later when Flash was born. We all had a great laugh over it.)
Then, Sunday April 20th came. A year to the day after Sky Dancer's long forgotten breed date. I went out to feed in the evening and Sky was laying down out away from the feeding stalls and did not immediately come over. I thought, "That's not good." but she got up belatedly and chased out one of the other horses to get to a full feeder. I relaxed a little and continued feeding the rest of the horses.
However, when I got done feeding and came to check on her, she was back laying down away from the feeders. In fact she was rolling some. As I went into the corral, she got up and I could see she had a significant discharge. It was then that I first thought, Oh my word, this mare was bred last year. And went running for a halter to move her to the all-pipe panel pen with the 3 sided windbreak.
Half an hour later we had a new, wet, flashily marked little stud colt!.
