Zalena Delivers While Standing

This morning I overslept and when I finally did get out of bed around 6:30 am there was no reason to rush out to feed, none of the mares were stalled. I waited until 7:30 am to go out to feed and move horses but when I got to Zalena and Eliza's paddock, Zalena was laying down near the bale and I could see a hoof sticking out her back end. Quickly I grabbed a lead rope, ran into the paddock and asked Zalena to get up then led her into the barn and into a stall. Mark was called to bring the camera then straw laid down. Zalena was not making any moves about laying down so the video camera was turned on and right about then Zalena started to push. The camera was dropped and the foal grabbed then laid down carefully on the fresh straw. All of this happened quickly, too quickly to even think of wrapping Zalena's tail. The foal was dried off with a towel, sex checked and was pleased to see a filly. They were left to bond while Lola and her filly brought inside. It didn't take long for the filly to try to stand, she was born 19 days early and is skinny but tall and strong. Check out the video. The afterbirth was not tied up and this shows what can happen when that isn't done. Just one more reason to remember to tie up the afterbirth.
In the video it is funny to see Zalena's reaction to the afterbirth. She looks over as if to say, "what IS that, get it OFF my leg!"
I didn't have a lot of time to watch her as the other horses still needed to be fed, hay hauled in for the 2 stalled mares and the arena cleaned up. I snapped the picture below right after birth.

 Then the next two pictures after she stood up. Her little tongue was going, she was HUNGRY.

The filly was standing on her own and rooting around in the right area so I felt pretty safe in heading to the house to shower then go to church.
Church was amazing. Peoria was hosting College Weekend so was filled with young people, beautiful young people all there to worship and fellowship. The pictures below were taken by someone's phone and it wasn't mine. Mine was as dead as a door knob. This doesn't even show everyone, these singers stretched from one end of the sanctuary to the other end and the singing was beautiful. When number 80 was sung, the sound was as a sweet smelling incense filling the room to the ceiling and beyond. God was surely pleased.

We had 2 amazing sermons, Tim Roecker in the morning and Greg Rumbold in the afternoon. We left pretty quickly after the second service though so I could get home to make sure the filly had nursed. She had and was doing well. Karin came over and helped get iodine on her umbilical cord. Another amazing Sunday. That is now 5 healthy foals born in 2 weeks. We get a nice long break now as Soul is the next mare due and she isn't due until May 7th.