The Foal Kit

What to keep close in the weeks before your mare foals

Foaling season begins quietly.

The kit sits on a shelf, cleaned, restocked, and ready to go. Coffee brews at odd hours. The barn grows quiet. Every few minutes, another glance toward the stall. The foal alert monitor waits, and we wait with it.

Every item in our kit earned its place through experience. Some were added after a routine foaling. Others after a difficult night that reminded us how quickly ordinary can become urgent. Every tool is there because, at one point, we reached for it.

We share this list because preparation is a form of respect for the horses that we love.

A well built foaling kit doesn't guarantee an easy birth. It simply means that when your mare asks something of you, your hands already know where to go. You aren't searching through drawers while precious moments pass.

A note on medications: Banamine, Oxytocin, and Lutalyse are prescription medications. Work with your veterinarian to build the right pharmacy for your farm long before your mare begins to show signs of delivery. Your relationship with your veterinarian is the foundation of every well prepared foaling season. Everything else follows from it.

If this is your first foaling season, read every label before you need it. Practice drawing up a syringe using a bottle of water. Keep your veterinarian’s number somewhere you can reach without thinking.

Then trust your mare.

Stay close.

She has been preparing for this far longer than you have.