It is now the beginning of the Chinese New Year; the year of the Green Wooden Horse. What better way to start this new year than with images of the birth of a new horse into this world.
To celebrate the year to come I have decided to share with you the images I took of my Registered Irish Draft mare Silver foaling down her daughter Mystic in 2007. This sequence of images were taken over the 35 minutes that it took Silver to give birth to her filly foal Mystic.
It was about 6am with the smell of rain in the air when I went up the field to see how Silver was doing. Even lying down she seemed restless and colicky so I knew the time had come and she would be giving birth very soon.

Pushing again the foals abdomen comes out, at the same time breaking the placenta from across her nose as she is pushed out along the ground.

The Foal & Mare get a first good look at each other & Mystic makes her first mumbling nickering sound

She grabs mouth fulls of grass between cleaning & stimulating the foal for her own energy, while Mystic struggles to find how wobbly legs work
Sadly at this stage the rain starts pouring down so I must stop taking photographs and try to get foal up and under shelter with the mare.
How lovely, and what a wonderful way to begin the Year of the Horse! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Wonderful photo story, where is Silver now ?
Sadly Silver is with us no more. She had to be put down as she was in loads of pain due to an old injury. It was a very very sad day.