Mystery foal returns to where he was born

I suppose I should start at the beginning of the story of the mystery foal. His mother is a 13.2 grey Connemara type pony mare who was bought for a 13 year old girl a year ago. She rode and competed on her over the summer while the mare grew progressively fatter.

Pony puts on weight
Naturally we all worried about her getting laminitis so she was moved into a bare field with only a little grass. I decided she was a particularly ‘good doer’ as she continued to put on weight. She was placed in a working hunter pony class at a show in early August and by then most people who knew about breeding suspected she was in foal. The vet was sent for, she was scanned and had an internal examination and we were informed that the foal would arrive in about two months time! The woman who had sold the pony had no idea she was in foal and neither did the previous owners.
It was interesting guessing what sort of foal would arrive out of the mare. Our main hope was that it wouldn’t be too big as it was probably her first foal. The vet also said that the foal’s legs felt like they belonged to a pony and not, thank goodness, a horse. Another worry was how late in the season the foal would be born – coming into winter instead of summer.

Foal separated from mother
Just as the good weather of our Irish autumn finished, the foal was born early in the morning of October 15th. The vet had told us that the pony would be better off left out in a small paddock but unfortunately the first thing the foal did was clamber under the fence and was found wandering about the lane by a neighbour coming home from night shift.

Being separated from his mother for several hours was not ideal and the mare, all confused by this little creature which kept following her about, was kicking and squealing at him, refusing totally to allow him to suck from her udder which had become swollen and sore. We called the vet who had to come to inject the foal for tetanus and both mother and son were brought into a stable where we tried our best to get the foal to suck. In the end, the mare had to be sedated and the foal was stomach tubed which meant the vet milked the mare and put a tube down the foal’s throat. The milk was poured into a funnel and down the tube directly into the foal’s stomach. This gave him enough food and energy to keep him alive for another few hours while we tried to teach him to suck.

Maple syrup to the rescue
It’s amazing how silly some foals can be. Not even the vet could get him to suck and then she had to leave to attend another case. We had to persevere and if we hadn’t got anything into him by a certain time, he and his mother would have to be taken in the horsebox to the veterinary clinic to stay the night otherwise he would most certainly die.

A variety of friends phoned and/or arrived to give us advice as we struggled because we’d never had to deal with a newborn foal before. One piece of information was to put honey on the mare’s teats. I had no honey but had a bottle of maple syrup which we tried. The foal was happy to suck the maple syrup from my fingers but it took another half an hour for him to discover what to do with the teats. Once he started sucking, he was fine.

He and his mother left to stay nearer to their owners and he has done very well – grown and put on weight. He arrived back with me last Monday after being weaned on Friday. Now he has to learn to be one of the boys. He’s in a field with two gelding ponies who have no motherly sympathy for him at all and were quick to kick at him when he tried looking for milk under them! He follows the bossier 12.2. pony around and gets pushed out of the way and bitten if he tries to take their hay. It’s tough when you’re only a newly weaned foal and bottom of the pecking order. However, that aside, he seems a happy, placid foal.

At the moment he is a chestnut colour with a black mane and greyish legs, a small star and one white sock. I suspect he will turn grey like mum when he gets his summer coat but we’ll have to wait and see. We’ll also have to wait and see what he’ll turn into when he’s ready for riding.