Since my last update, I have spent much of my time with mares and foals in Kildare Yard. This is where the foals who are around four weeks and older live, which means that each day there is a significant amount of vetting and teasing. I have enjoyed being in this yard as I have been increasing my knowledge and experience around foals, especially with the leading of the foal, which is not done at this early stage in New Zealand. However, my favourite part has been the vetting every morning, which involves scanning mares for follicles, ovulating and pregnancies and taking swabs before they go for cover.
 
This past week I have been teasing mares in this yard, which means myself and the yard foreman will watch the mares each morning when they come up to the teasing board. Also, I will create the teasing and vetting list for the following morning and help with the vetting each morning. It has been great to see the foals that I foaled or were born in the foaling unit while I was there when they are older and how much they have grown and developed.
 
I have also had another week on night watch, where we had seven foals over four nights, and on one night, we had no foals. It was great to further my foaling experience and see some different scenarios with one of our foals only being born with one eye. This was interesting to see as it is something that can happen as the eyes are one of the last things that are formed in the womb.
 
We have had some interesting lectures, especially from the different vets that come to talk to us about many various topics, including foal care up to six months of age, infectious diseases, orthopedic diseases and locomotory systems. We also had a lecture from Dr Barbara Murphy, the founder of the Equilume mask, which was very interesting to gain more knowledge on the science behind these masks. Joanne Hurley also came to talk to us about equine nutrition and the digestive system of horses. As a group of students, we also got to take over the Thoroughbred Tales Twitter page. Four of my fellow students were in charge of organising content for this, and it was a good chance to get a taste of what a future marketing role may involve.
 
I am currently completing a foaling assignment in which we have to talk about a normal and an abnormal or dystocia foaling that we have done while here at the course. This will be a way in which we will be able to document what we have learnt during different foalings.
 
Next week I am back in the foaling unit, which is still as busy as ever as we lead into the last month of foaling and still getting a large number of foals each week. I look forward to returning here and hopefully having some more foaling experience.