May 2000
Down on the Farm
by Leigh Ann Howard
It's May and it's already dry. It seems like only yesterday we were enduring the rain and
mud. Now we are checking the sprinklers and watering our pastures.
It also seems like only yesterday we were all saying "there's no reason to breed the mare on her foal heat - we have plenty of time".
Now we have mare owners who feel that an April foal is "getting too late"! I think there is a statistic somewhere that shows more Kentucky Derby winners are born in May than in any other month of the year. Of course, there are more foals born in May than in other months anyway, so it would follow that more of everything occurs in May!
We have not been as successful with our foal heat breedings this year as we were last year. Last year about eighty percent of our foal heat breedings resulted in a viable pregnancy. This year we are not even at fifty percent. Hindsight now shows that we should have skipped the foal heat and short cycled the mares for mare owners wanting earlier foals. Other breeding farms are reporting the same experience. Maybe it's time to re-evaluate our parameters.
Another breeding problem that seems to be occurring more often than not in the past few years is the anestrus lactating mare. So if you have a mare with her foal at a breeding farm and the farm tells you the mare is not cycling, don't be too tough on the farm.
With the regular use of the ultra-sound machine we can actually see that these mares are doing absolutely nothing in the way of cycling. In these cases, there is no follicular activity on the ovaries, many have small inactive ovaries, the uterus is flaccid and the cervix is classed as "medium". These mares have "shut down" completely.
The use of GnRH on a daily basis sometimes stimulates activity and some people have used Domperidone to 'jump start' these mares. Prostaglandin is not effective on these mares because it acts on luteal tissue. Luteal tissue does not seem to be present in these anestrus lactating mares.
Remember, the income to the breeding farms comes
from the live foals produced by their stallions. They want your mare to fall pregnant as
much as you do, and they are equally as frustrated as you are when your mare does not get
in foal. The larger farms often tend to be aggressive in their approach. This often
results in larger veterinary bills, but it should also result in a shorter stay for your
mare at the breeding farm.
Umbilical hernias:
 Top photo: (before) Hernia Repair. Bottom photo: (after) Hernia Repair Elastrator Method. |
Last month we were asked how umbilical hernias are handled on most California farms. So here is some helpful information on this, our main subject of the month. Umbilical hernias are a fairly common occurrence in Thoroughbred foals. The first sign of this problem is a lump on the foal's belly located at the umbilical stump. On closer inspection you will find that the lump is very soft and the abdominal muscles have a very round opening at the base of the navel stump. This opening can be any size, but most are somewhere between nickel size to two inches across. When the hole in the abdominal wall is larger than three inches, you are getting into an area that will probably require surgical intervention. |
The smaller hernias can almost always be handled on the farm, either by the farm personnel or by the veterinarian, depending on the situation.
If you were able to handle the foal during the "imprinting" days, then you should not have any trouble with the umbilical hernia.
The material hanging down through the hole in the abdominal wall is either the peritoneal tissue surrounding the intestine, or sometimes it is an actual loop of intestine, depending on the size of the hole.
Most of the holes in the abdominal wall do not close very quickly without assistance and some even don't close at all without help. But you should not ignore any hernia because it is always possible for a piece of intestine to become entrapped in the hole. Then you DO have an emergency situation.
And we are all aware of the fact that emergency situations almost always happen at night, on a Sunday or when we are planning to leave the farm for a few hours…
So what can we do about these umbilical hernias "down on the farm"?
Basically what you have to do is figure out a way to ensure the tissue stays up in the abdominal cavity. This seems to encourage the hole to close.
My first experience with repairing these umbilical hernias was working for an equine veterinarian who used the "clamp" method. He would tranquilize the foal out in a grassy area then roll him upside down so that he was lying on his back. With a little manipulation and gravity the intestinal tissue fell back into the abdominal cavity. After carefully shaving and washing the whole area with surgical scrub soap, he then applied the clamp, which looked like a broom handle that had been cut in half lengthwise. It was made out of some sort of very smooth hardwood, was about six inches long and had a hole drilled, perpendicular to the length-wise cut, through each end about an inch from the ends. Through these holes were two long screws with a wing nut at one end. The screws were loosened to allow the cut side of the two pieces of wood to be separated. This clamp was placed on the hernia by pulling the excess skin over the hernia through the space between the two pieces of wood. Then the clamp was pulled snug up against the belly and the two wing nuts were tightened. When it was as tight as it could be and very snug against the foal's belly, the veterinarian would then wrap and tie umbilical tape (woven cloth) tightly around both ends of the clamp and remove the screws and wing nuts. This process took about seven to ten minutes, about the same amount of time it takes to do a simple "down in the grass" periosteal stripping.
Normally, in about four to six weeks the hole in the abdominal wall had closed and the excess skin had dried up and fallen off with the clamp.
Since then I have used and heard about several other non-surgical methods of handling this umbilical hernia problem. In fact, there seem to be several variations of the clamp method mentioned above.
It should always be remembered that the navel is an entry point for infection and thus should not be handled or irritated until ALL chance of infection has passed. This means that NO HERNIA REPAIR SHOULD BE ATTEMPTED BEFORE THE UMBILICAL STUMP HAS COMPLETELY HEALED.
My first attempt at handling the problem by myself was relatively successful. I cut a small circle out of a quarter inch of plywood and covered it with Elasticon tape to eliminate splinters and sharp edges. Then I pushed the tissue back inside the abdominal cavity, immediately placed the plywood pad over the hole and taped it in place by wrapping Elasticon tape around the foal's body. This was done easily enough without the use of a tranquilizer or having to roll the foal over onto his back.
A friend in the Standardbred business liked my idea and made a further adaptation by taping a hard plastic disk in place, which worked just as well.
I say this method was "relatively successful" because, although the hernias healed, it turned out to be quite expensive. That was because it obviously took longer to close if the hernia was fairly significant, which meant more tape. Have you purchased any Elasticon tape lately?
Turns out my veterinarian has an even better way that, which actually costs about the same or sometimes less, depending on how much tape you have to use!
He uses an
Elastrator with those special round rubber bands that are used to dock the tails on lambs.
Based on the same theory as above, it forces the intestinal material to stay inside, by
tightening the skin to a point that the material cannot drop down through the hole. The
hole then closes in about four to eight weeks and the little "pig tail" falls
off.
Another non-surgical method I have heard about involves injecting an internal blister solution into the skin around the hernia.
I have also had caretakers tell me that all they ever did was push the lump of tissue up inside the hole several times a day. After three weeks of this manipulation it eventually stayed inside and the hole went away. The foal was either very well imprinted or completely untouchable by the time the hole closed.
Certainly there must be other "down on the farm" methods used to keep the internal tissue up inside the opening in the abdominal wall until the hole closes. Whatever method you choose though, should be discussed with your regular veterinarian. He is going to have to take over if your method fails so they need to know what you are doing!
The biggest mistake you can make with an umbilical
hernia is to do nothing at all. Then it is almost guaranteed that the foal will end up in
a crisis situation. And as I said before, this crisis will probably then either be on a
Sunday, in the middle of the night or as you are driving out for a few hours away from the
farm.
Del Mar inspections:
Once again we have survived the Del Mar Yearling inspections. As always, we get inspected
during the first few days of the six week long inspection tour. 
It seems that no matter when the inspectors arrive, our yearlings have not been up in separate pens long enough. Being separated into small pens, away from their buddies in the ten acre pasture, is almost more than they can stand. They suddenly forget how to lead and their normally nice coats stand on end and look terribly rough. The farrier trims them two days before the inspection and they all walk with little mincy tender footed steps.
It is amazing that these non-farm fellows can see past most of these temporary problems and pick out the best yearlings!
Several hundred nomination forms have been received
by the CTBA for the sale in August, but only about two hundred yearlings will ultimately
be selling at the Del Mar Horse Park. This means that the other yearling sales around the
state will also be able to offer much better stock this year. I would have liked more of
my yearlings to have been accepted for the Del Mar Select Yearling Sale, but I know that
these "almost select" yearlings will still do well at the other California
yearling sales this year.