Fostering mares and foals

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poiuytrewq

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Sadly see the ad's almost daily looking for either mares or foals. It's not something I know anything about and was interested how it all works.
Does the mare go to the foal or the other way round? So the owner of either pretty much puts their horse completely in the hands of someone unknown?
After weaning they return to original owners?
 
Makes sense. Must be awful for the mares owners though. The heartbreak of loosing a foal followed by the mare being gone aswell.
Do they usually take to each other easily?
 
ive always wondered about this too. I had just assumed the foal would be moved to be with the mare. As I thought the idea would be to convince the mare the new foal is hers, so the mare would need to stay in her own environment. You live and learn !
 
There was a fostering at Twemlows Stud when my mare was there to foal down in 2011. My mare was stabled for a few days as a 'calming influence' to reassure the mare next door during the the fostering, which went well. I'm sure that the foal was brought in to the resident mare, as with sad irony it was Johanna Vardon herself of the National Foaling Bank who was one of the owners, and I remember thinking 'eek' that such a thing could happen even to her :(.

ETA maybe it was JV's mare that was brought to the orphaned foal, rather than her bringing the foal to the mare, I can't quite remember after all this time.
 
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Getting a mare to foster a foal is incredibly hard work.

I have done it twice and both times the foal traveled to the mare, mainly because the mare was booked to a stallion at the stud. The first mare lost her own foal during surgery when he was 2 days old, he had a deformity that could have been fixed but he died under anaesthetic. Under the instructions of the vet I had the delightful (not) task of skinning the dead foal and turning the skin into a 'jumper' for the foster foal to wear. Foster foal arrived late the same afternoon and was fitted with his jumper and carefully introduced to the mare. She was a lovely calm girl in spite of having lost her first foal and she stood very nicely for him to suckle. Problems arose however because foal had spent a couple of days being bottle fed from a position that in no way replicated the stance he needed to feed from a mare. He got very rough with her and we decided it wasn't safe to leave them together in case she lost all patience with him. So, it was every 2 hours during the night of taking the foal into the mare and trying to help him feed. This went on for a very long two weeks before we were able to have them together 24/7.

Eventually they went out in the paddock together and we all heaved a sigh of relief... only for the foal to get joint ill (septic arthritis) Vet saved him but I can't remember what the prognosis was for the future.

Fostering is certainly no 'easier' than bottle feeding but it does ensure the foal has a far better start in life in terms of both nutrition and education. Either needs a huge amount of patience and persistence and be prepared to walk around like one of the undead until all is established!
 
Interesting thread OP. I have another question on the subject. Hope it's not too daft. What happens to the foals of foster mares that TB breeders use? They all seem to have a few foster mares ready if the TB mare has problems. Do these foster mares have foals of their own or are the mares constantly producing milk like cows?
 
I was told by JF at the NFB( many, many moons ago, think the mid eighties) that its better to take the foal to the mare. Moving the mare is more likely to stress her. You want people she knows and trust to give the best chance for success. The foal at this stage will be more accepting , it just wants milk. Obviously this isn't always possible.
 
Blanche said:
I was told by JF at the NFB( many, many moons ago, think the mid eighties) that its better to take the foal to the mare. Moving the mare is more likely to stress her. You want people she knows and trust to give the best chance for success. The foal at this stage will be more accepting , it just wants milk. Obviously this isn't always possible.
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Actually also makes sense that way round.
Maybe it's an individual thing then.
I've heard about the skinning and putting the skin over the orphan foal, horrible job for someone. I thought that would be a vet job!
I just think it's such a big thing to hand over either to someone unknown who more than likely has never been in the situ before.
Likewise a massive responsibility for the carer.
 
claracanter said:
Interesting thread OP. I have another question on the subject. Hope it's not too daft. What happens to the foals of foster mares that TB breeders use? They all seem to have a few foster mares ready if the TB mare has problems. Do these foster mares have foals of their own or are the mares constantly producing milk like cows?
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Usually they have foals of their own that are then bucket/bottle fed along with any others.
 
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