New foal coming any day now
Cori’s foal by Heinse 354 is due May 13, one week from today. But that mare is just about ready to foal. Last night I was watching the monitor and ran down to the barn at 2am, sure the baby was on its way. But, false alarm. Cori is staring to shuffle her back feet and move around as the baby positions itself. Must feel really awkward. So when will it happen? Not sure, but I have to believe the next night or so.
Meanwhile, setting up a camera in the new barn has been an adventure. My neighbor and ISP provider Edwin kindly came down and set up a radio that wirelessly gets a radio signal from the house. 
This brings the internet to the barn. He also set up an internet network camera for the foaling stall. One little problem though – the camera does not work in low light conditions and since the foal will be most likely born at night, this has been problematic.
Last night I tried something a bit different. I bought a little laptop webcam, but a really good one in low light – the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. Hooked that up to a teeny netbook computer and put it all up in the barn, taking my new internet connection and plugging it into the netbook. The netbook is perched on a shelf above the wash stall and the webcam is leaning over the top of the wash stall, peering down into the foaling stall. Pictures below. Click for a larger image.
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The Logitech webcam is simply incredible. I cannot believe the quality of the image even in the low light. And there are a number of settings to make it even better.
I was able to use ustream.tv to stream the webcam image to the internet so I could watch it from my house last night. And you know, this worked really well! The image is pixelated – a limitation of ustream – but I may even been able to improve on that. The point is, I am not able to see my mare in her stall. And anyone with an internet connection and any web browser would be able to see her too.
Let’s hope she has that baby tonight. I would like to get some decent sleep this week.
Ficus goes home
The new orphaned foal, Ficus, has found his nurse mare adoptive mom and the two of them headed for home at the big farm on April 21. Here is a quick video as they leave the hospital and get on the trailer, heading for Tanbark Acres.
Ficus, the new orphan foal, is doing better
In the last post I told of losing our mare Oeke last week due to complications from foalbirth. Her baby, a colt by Mintse 384, is still in the hospital at the Virginia Tech Equine facility. We have found a nurse mare for him and brought her in from Kentucky. It looks like he will be able to bond with her and the vet techs are working with them now to have him nurse from her.
Two days ago Ficus was taken in for surgery to repair an opening between his umbilicus and urethra. The opening never sealed properly and he was suffering from a lingering infection. This procedure is very common with male foals (I think this is the third such operation in our herd) and is fairly standard. Still, you worry. He recovered well though and we hope to bring him home next week.
We named the little guy Ficus. A ficus is a plant and one version is a rubber plant (ficus elastica). Seems to suit him since he keeps bouncing back. A tough start, but welcome to the world Ficus.
