It is Friday night and Sabrina McClain is getting dressed to go out. But instead of putting on dress pants and a party shirt, McClain dresses in a sweatshirt and old jeans. She is going to the horse farm.
It is her turn at foal-watching tonight. As part of the equine reproduction special study, McClain and a partner must be on call at the farm from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. in case one of the pregnant mares gives birth.
Foal-watching duties for the students involved include half-hourly checks on the mares in the pastures.
“We have to walk around and make sure these horses aren’t about to foal (give birth),” said McClain. “We also have to go into the barns and check on the mares that have recently foaled,” she said.
McClain also said that the cold weather could cause complications for the mares and their newborns.
In the event of a birth, the students must call a graduate student to help them. The students are there to ensure there are no difficulties during the birth. After the birth, the students run tests and perform various procedures on the foals.
“We have to stay until the foal is up and walking around,” McClain said.
Animal and dairy science professor Peter Ryan said foal-watching developed as a result of current research projects on campus.
“We need to collect samples at the time of the birth from the blood and the placenta,” Ryan said. “We look for the things that can complicate the pregnancy.”
“We give the students as much hands-on experience as possible,” Ryan said. “We let them do as much of the routine procedures as they can.”
In some cases, these “routine procedures” can make a weak-stomached student queasy. However, for McClain, that’s not the case.
“It doesn’t gross me out. I know I just have to do it. Since I live on a farm, I’ve seen all this before,” she said.
Nevertheless, she understands how the process could be “gross, especially if someone has never seen a birth before.”
Jake Key, a student in the equine class and also a worker on the farm, was lucky enough to be on duty when a foal was born last week.
“It was neat to see a baby being born, to see how that happens,” Key said.
Ryan said there are three foals on the ground at the moment. They and the pregnant mares require a 24-hour watch because “once a mare goes into labor, she can foal within five minutes.”
Graduate students used to be the only ones on call for the foaling, but they cannot handle it alone. When undergraduate students got involved, the foal-watching program was born.
“Right now this is designed as a special topic in equine reproduction, but we hope to present it as a class next year,” Ryan said.
He explained that in the student calendar, the class is formally open to undergraduates in all parts of veterinary medicine.
“Students can use the foal-watching as ‘animal experience’ for their vet school applications,” Ryan said.
“For somebody that’s really into horses, foal-watching is really educational,” Key said. “Even if they aren’t into horses, it can be really fascinating.”
David Christiansen, instructor of pathobiology, said the class gives students opportunity to learn hands-on.
“Lots of students who have been around horses all their lives never get the opportunity for something like this,” Christiansen said. “The foal-watch program gives us the extra help we need to watch the mares in the middle of the night.”
For McClain, the benefits are not only in the education she receives, but also in the friendships she makes while foal-watching. She said, “You learn a lot about someone sitting out there for six hours with them.”