Travelling Pregnant Mares

[tinastephenson]

Can somebody give us some advice? Chas is at a yard about 2 miles from where we live, we are only allowed 2 horses on our smallholding as it is rented and Roo and Apache are here, but, I am hoping to rent another 20 acres in the very near future...
Chas is due to foal May 15th but if I get this land I would dearly love to bring her up to foal here so I can keep eye on her 24/7. Please can somebody tell me what is the latest time it is safe to slowely trailer a pregnant mare to new home. She has been out with both the boys before so not worried about her meeting them although I would keep her seperate, until I can finally buy my own mare, which I dearly want to do....

[jap]

you can travel upto about a month before the due date imo. some people travel them anytime and if you go to the shows there are some really heavily pregnant mares about. i think moving her any time would be preferable to leaving her with the colt.

[Debbie]

As an alternate, would it be safe to simply walk her down to the new field?

[DalesLady]

she will be fine, but I wouldn't leave it too long - I think the limit is a month before. They are much hardier than we give them credit for

[SuzieP]

Mar 18, 2010 15:34:08 GMT -1 heathera said:

I've checked my books and they all recommend that mares move to new areas no less than three weeks before they are due as that gives them time to build up immunity to the new bacteria and virus in the new area. Personally I wouldn't leave it that late and would go with the month everyone else has recommended purely because my two became progressively less and less comfy during the last month.

Gosh - there's a lot to think about! Thanks for this Heather - I'd never have thought of building up immunities in new places.

[mickey]

I've always thought it was 4 weeks- more from a point of mum building up immunity to local bugs to pass on to the baby )