As a breeder of warmbloods, I wouldn't be without one, especially if your vet is over fifteen minutes away (and most are) try this ph. they are in Nth QLD but send it quickly...I certainly haven't been disappointed. Ph 0740532379
Magic Breed who make them also hire them out. You can find their add in HD. I would not be with out it. Failing that you could have somebody else foal the mare down. Sometimes it is safer as they have all the right eqipement.
"if they're not knocking you down, you aint climbing high enough"
quick related question - how reliable do you find these foaling alarms? do you get many 'false alarms', and do they ever fail to go off at the critical moment?
i know of an owner breeder, who had 1 on all her mares due to foal, and after many false alarms, missed all but 1 of her foals (4/5)but other seasons they worked fine. By the way how much are they to hire..i always prefer to sit and watch but u cant always u know?
I have only used the "Magic Breed" once. Not many false alarms but it didn't go off at the "moment" either so I missed the whole thing! I found the foal a short while after it had been born on one of my regular patrols. I haven't bothered with an alarm since, prefering to patrol hourly. This is still no guarantee as last year on one patrol the mare was happily eating her hay as calm as a cucumber. An hour later the foal was standing up!! Boy did I get a shock. Fortunately the mare seems to foal quickly with out any problems. No foals this year so lots of nice, uninterrupted nights sleep!
I hired a magic breed for one of my maiden mares last season. I had it on 3 nights, 2 false alarms...one a 2.30 am flat out sleep...a 6 am gate scratch. 3rd time it went off (2.30 am) I bounced outa bed (in the stables) & down to the paddock (20m away) to see mare standing up, further explooring with torch showed foal in front of her & placenta passed! I had checked the mare at 1am anyway. Was there to observe standing, drinking & pooping at least
As some of the other posts have mentioned they don't always go off. They are supposed to go off when the mare lies down (ie when the actual alarm is tipped on it's side) but mine didn't although the mare had grass and dust all down one side of her body including head and neck so she was definately lying down. I went out for my hourly patrol(2.30 am)and wallah!! a little black filly who whinnied at me as soon as she saw me! The mare was a bit torn around her vulva but was ok. Don't rely on alarms!!!
I think you will find that the Magic breed alarms (the one I used) have an 8 second delay in the tilt switch.. so if a mare rolls or just sits to have the foal & is not flat out for 8 seconds the alarm will not go off.
I figured If I missed it with an alarm on (in between manual checks) most likely all went well - great! if she was gonna have problems then most likely would be she would be flat out for 8 seconds or more & set the alarm going.
We do use the magic breed foaling alarms, and have never had one not go off, however we have many many many false alarms. So many so that for some mares we just dont use them until the actual night they foal. The first years I was a wreck, as I have at least 50% of mares that sleep with their head lying down setting off the alarm every 2 hrs. Drove me nuts. (I foal down about 14 mares) What we do now is use a combination of the alarm and the Foalwatch milk tests. The test shows when they are likely to foal, ie within about 24hrs, so we then turn the alarms on when they reach that stage, limiting the amount of sleepless nights. We also have a video down to the boxes so I can check for the false alarms, as it was quite tiring actually having to get up to check that they were ok.
11. "RE: foaling alarm"
In response to message #10
I have had discussions with several people that have used the milk calcium test to assist in foaling prediction. I too was thinking a purchasing some.
My summary...some work & some dont...the Mares just dont read the instructions! eg - 2 mares tested, 1 no way (or what ever the equivalent reading was) & the other yep tonights the night! They both foaled within 30 mins of one another.
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