Xerxes is Born

On the evening of April 26th, Dallas went in to labor.  Although she was a maiden mare, she breezed through the foaling process like she had done it four times before.  Xerxes was so little at birth compared to Einar, yet he was fiesty right from the start, trying to get up and about after only minutes of entering this world.  All seemed well until a couple of days after birth.  Xerxes' abdomen was distended, and he was throwing himself on the ground in pain.  Once again, Chris and I rushed Dallas and Xerxes down to Anoka Equine where he was quickly diagnosed with a patent urachus, for which the only treatment is surgery.  Knowing what the outcome would be if we decided not to put Xerxes through surgery, we decided the surgery must take place.  The surgery went without a hitch, though Xerxes developed an abscess in one of the incision sites which caused an infection that took quite a while to get under control.  However, after two weeks, Xerxes was given a clean bill of health.