Orphan Foal

[Tinkerbee]

We were told in the Box on the way to Kellsall Hill that the woman next door lost her mare the day before, to colic. The mare, Pebbles left behind a 7 week old foal,

very sad, though the mare had been prone to colic but they culdnt sve it this time.
They have been in contact with the foaling bank and studs s fingers crossed tehy find a mare for the wee foal

 

[Coffee_Bean]

awww

Hope foalie finds a new mummy x x

 

[kirstyfk]

My dad's horse was orphaned at 2 weeks and was hand reared, I hope they find a mother for it.

 

[Tinkerbee]

yeah, hand feeding it atm but often they afre sods when hand reared, so they are trying to keep contact to a min

 

[Happytohack]

[ QUOTE ]
yeah, hand feeding it atm but often they afre sods when hand reared, so they are trying to keep contact to a min

[/ QUOTE ]
Tilly (coloured cob in my sig) was the same age when her mother died. It is difficult to find a foster mother that will take a foal of that age, so I hand-reared her. I have an Icelandic gelding (the grey) , born in Iceland where they are reared in large herds. He immediately adopted Tilly and apart from feeding, in every other way he was her surrogate mum. He basically taught her that she is a horse, not a human. He looked after her just like a mum would and told her off when her behaviour was not acceptabe. Now, 4 years later although they are not inseparable she is still very fond of him, even though he still tells her off when she steps out of line.

 

[henryhorn]

Sad, we hand reared one two years ago and it was really hard work.
Try and persuade her to bond it with another small pony, we used our's sister, they became good friends and used to sleep using each other in turn as pillows..
Not good to stop all horse contact or they find it impossible to adapt later on, a shetland can be a cheap option and small enough not to hurt the foal.
We also used a foster dam a few years back, and that worked well too, but subsequent attempts to foster didn't work, the mare wouldn't accept the above foal at all.
Hand rearing is expensive to, it cost us a fotume in powdered milk...