'The First Foal of 2002'

By Marlene Malcher,
Mammoth Mules

What a cold month March was - brrrr! Such weird weather, warm and balmy in February and then March came along and threw us into a deep freeze. Of course this year we had 2 mares due in March, not the way I usually like to plan things as having babies even in April can mean a lot of lost sleep if the weather turns nasty. May is definitely my first choice for foaling out mares.

However, all wishes aside, Sherry, a registered quarter horse mare bred to Red Ranger was due to foal March 15. Thankfully she has a habit of going overtime and this year was no exception. She just about hung on till we were out of the severely cold weather, but not quite. She and barn mate Raspberry had been spending their nights in our 2 large foaling stalls ever since the cold weather struck, meaning lots of daily barn cleaning for me in the frigid temperatures as our barn is not heated.

I have a baby monitor hooked up between the house and our barn, which is a short walk down a pretty steep hill. The monitor has alerted me to almost all of the barn night time foalings in the last 9 years. Friday, March 22 I woke at 1:20 a.m. to hear a soft nicker via the monitor, suggesting there had been a change in the barn count. I got up and dressed for the 25 below weather and walked down the icy hill in the moonlight to the barn. Sure enough a beautiful baby mule was just getting to her feet. After checking to be sure that everything looked normal and helping to dry the newborn molly off in the freezing temperatures, I decided that just toweling her was not going to get her dry and certainly wouldn’t keep her warm. I sure didn’t want to risk her freezing those long beautiful ears. So back up the hill for more warm clothes, an extension cord and my hair dryer.

So that’s how I spent the whole night; drying baby with the hair dryer and thawing the icicles hanging from her ears and pretty little muzzle. About every 20 minutes I would give her a ‘’warm-up’’ with the hair dryer and she soon learned to really enjoy it. Her coat dried into a lovely red dun color with the dorsal cross and stripe. Her flawless conformation was topped off with a beautiful dished head, with wide set big sparkling eyes and a beautiful white marking on her forehead that looked like the number 2 (view my picture in the photo gallery).

About 6:00 a.m. I thought if would be safe for me to go up to the house and catch a few winks. I dozed for about an hour and around 8 a.m. I decided the air and sun outside would help to warm baby up so I marched down the hill for about my sixth trip to the barn. Close to the end of the hill, my left leg shot out from under me on the ice, I heard an awful snapping sound and down I went. I lay there for a few seconds in pain and shock. Visions of a broken ankle with me stranded at the bottom of the hill and no one aware of my plight till Jerry came home from work at 4:30 p.m., went through my mind. But as the pain subsided and I got my breath back I found my leg still worked and nothing appeared broken. I cautiously picked myself up, found that my foot could still stand weight and so continued on my journey, this time with a very definite lurch to my gait. So with my near useless leg I continued on with my plan of putting Sherry and her foal out of the barn and also Raspberry, the mare in waiting.

Well, I sure do forget things fast. The first baby of the year always creates quite a stir around the place with the rest of the herd, and their rowdy raucous brought that fact to my attention very quickly in greeting this new arrival. Everyone was excited and in a frenzy to get a closer look at this new creature and even though they were all on their own side of the corral, there was lots of gate banging [especially by the mules] and fence hugging going on for a closer look. On one side of the corral the yearling and 2 yr old mules were fighting each other for front row viewing. On another side was the main herd, a mixture of horses and mules in various stages of life, from retirees to potential brood mares. And then along another side the mares in waiting that had not graduated yet to nighttime stall duty, clamored for their first look.

Suddenly, Scarlet, a 2 yr old molly mule, leaped the 5 foot fence, [mules can do that you know, jump like a deer] thoroughly intent on getting to the baby. Meanwhile Raspberry had decided that maybe the baby was hers and was challenging Sherry for it. The only good thing that happened when Scarlet joined the 3 ring circus was that Raspberry decided that Scarlet was a threat to the baby and fought her off, giving me time to get Sherry and baby back into the safety of the barn. All this excitement and me with a sprained ankle! But you do what you gotta do and after all my boo-boos, my guardian angel and I got it sorted out.

So with a scary situation averted and Scarlet back in her corral, I gave everyone time to settle down, including myself, leaving the mares and baby in the barn until early afternoon when hopefully the warm sun and time would sufficiently lower everyone’s excitement level enough to attempt a second introduction of the ‘’new kid on the block.’’ This went over much better and even thought the gawking continued, peace settled into the farmyard once again. Whew, what a day, [and night!]

Please consider this as a reminder to those of you who have or raise mules. And while this can also be a problem with horses and deserves the same precautions; these behaviors are sometimes exemplified in mules, so take this as a warning.

Some molly mules can be a danger to young foals because they generally love equine babies and can become very possessive and protective of them. They become incensed with the need to get the baby and they will fight the mare to take the baby away from her, which can often harm the baby in the process. We have heard several stories of this happening. Some have had sad endings with the foal being hurt or killed in the process. In my recent case, 2 yr.old Scarlet had just shown a heat cycle, which in molly mules can lead to really irrational behavior. I would say that 75% of the molly mules we have had have never shown any signs of a heat cycle and the few that did would maybe only show for 1 or 2 days. Of those that would show a short heat cycle one turned into a blooming lunatic for the one day she showed a heat cycle all summer. Molly mules do generally love babies and if they are in heat, I believe their mothering instinct is that much stronger, so be cautious if you have any mule, donkey, horse or even calf or lamb babies being born in close proximity of any mules on your place. Make sure they are kept out of harm's way.

Likewise, please remember that john mules will also sometimes harm baby animals of any kind unless they are desensitized to them by previous exposure. They are not intentionally violent but their strong sense of herd protection and self preservation sometimes clouds their senses and they see anything different as dangerous and will even kill baby mules [or other livestock] if they see them as a threat. We have experienced this ourselves in the past. One of our mares that had foaled was showing a heat cycle. An amorous john mule in the next pasture jumped the fence and in trying to claim the mare, killed her john mule foal by picking it up and slamming it to the ground, and injured another john foal in the same way before we could stop him. No other john mule has ever acted like this, but it only takes one incident to have disastrous and heart breaking results, so be aware of this possibility and take appropriate precautions. These incidents lesson once the baby is a little older but in the meantime we now make sure a good hot wire is run on top of the fence separating new babies and moms from the rest of the herd. As I stated previously, and before you condemn mules for this behavior, be aware that the same thing can and does happen with horses too.

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