What has feet the size of dinner plates and loves to nuzzle your neck? The Clydesdale draft horse, once the lifeblood of many Midwestern farms. Meet a family of Clydesdale breeders who have carefully tracked this lovable horse.

Often as not, it’s late on a cold winter night, snow flying, when a foal is born on the Behn farm. As many as four generations of Behns gather in the foaling barn, cell phones and cameras in hand, a stack of clean, dry towels at the ready. The mare’s 11-month, 10-day pregnancy is drawing to a close, and the family is eager to welcome another leggy, 150-pound baby to the world.

“We have a video camera in the barn, so we keep an eye on the mare from inside the house,” explains Logan Behn, 21, a third-generation Clydesdale breeder. “When her water breaks, we go to the barn and watch over her during contractions. If she needs help, we help. Mostly we’re there so we can dry off the foal with towels and touch it right away and stay in very close contact. This imprinting is important to our relationship with the foal. The mare doesn’t mind. She knows us.”

“It’s a way of life for us,” explains Cathy Behn, Logan’s mom. “My mom [Betty Groves] is in her 80s and lives in Winnebago [Ill.] now, but she still insists on being called when a mare is about to foal, even if it’s 1 a.m.”

You can read the rest of this Fall 2011 Feature story in our print edition. To obtain your own copy, visit any one of our Preferred Providers. Link to our directory here, or on the widget to the right.

Tags: breeder, clydesdale, horse, janine pumilia, pecatonica

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