Cooper's Story A tale of foaling, fostering and friendship.

In loving memory of GOLDEN PARR MISS (THE YANK), 1989-26TH APRIL 2007

The morning of Thursday, 26th April 2007 started like any other morning, I had three healthy foals on the ground and was expecting the fourth anytime – it was not unusual for Yank to go over; she always hung on to her babies longer than of the others and consequently the foals were always very big. For the first time ever, I had made a conscious decision to let the foals be born outside in the field and had not yet brought the mares down to home; they were a couple of miles away. Normally, they would have been in the stables by the house with a foaling harness firmly planted on them. In the event, I don’t think this would have changed things, but it does play on my mind.

My friend Bev and I were off to the local horse auction, which we went to once a month, just to have a look. We went in Bev’s car as it was her turn to drive and instead of making a special trip, we would go to the field and check everything there on the way. We arrived at the field and the two mares with their foals and the two year old that were in the field with Yank came storming down as normal. I fed them and thought it was a positive sign that Yank hadn’t come down to claim her seniority in the pecking order. Thinking this was a good sign, we decided to drive up the field.

We were greeted with a sight I never want to see again. At first I thought we had caught her in the act of foaling and before the car had stopped I jumped out and went over to her. She whinnied and tried to get up to come to me, as was her wont. Something made me stand very still and look around. Some yards off was the afterbirth, but no foal. It looked like she had been making her way down the field and had on several occasions fallen. I looked again and found it was not a foal but her womb, which was out. Her back end was covered in blood and there was blood gushing from her. She was trying to stand, then falling over and thrashing about. Although in shock, instinct kicked in and I phoned the vet. This was not the sight I expected to see, things like this don’t happen to me or people I know, do they?

The vet was on her way, she had been about to commence an operation on a dog when I called and she dropped the scalpel and took off. Bev was looking round the field, but there was no foal. In the meantime Yank was going downhill and was in extreme shock, she was cold to touch, her gums were white and she was obviously disorientated but she still kept making her way to me and neighing.

By the time the vet arrived, somehow Yank had managed to get down into the middle field. The mares and foals paid no attention to her; it was though she didn’t exist. There was no decision to make, the vet attended to Yank, and, as she gently went to sleep out of her agony, the vet said there must be a foal somewhere. The other horses were giving nothing away; they were all in the middle field too. I wandered up to the top field and started looking hopelessly on the ground for a dead foal, absolutely nothing. I went to turn away and continue my search and right in the corner of the field, where it dropped and was overhung by tree branches, I saw a movement. I walked closer and there he was, the most superb little dun colt, standing watching me, hardly moving, as if mum had put him there and told him not to move. Perhaps I am putting human emotion into this, but why did he not stay with her, why did the other horses leave him and why did Yank deliberately, at all costs, get as far away from him as possible as she was bleeding unless it was to make certain he was safe from predators? A perverted feeling of joy filled me and I screamed for the vet and Bev and somehow managed to phone Jude; I don’t remember it but I managed to shout “There’s a foal - we need a mare”!

This little colt with enormous eyes was peering at us. I was next to useless and Bev and the vet took over. They managed to get hold of him and calm him down. We needed colostrum as we had no idea of how much, if any, he had taken in. Bev phoned her husband and he was dispatched to get a Foal Starter pack. I thought it would be a good idea to milk Yank and use her milk, and was not in a state to think about the consequences as all I was thinking is foal, milk, foal, milk, so I milked my beloved dead Yank. The vet however stopped me (after milking her), she had been injected and the milk would be tainted and could kill the foal.

We had to move him –and fast - we had to find someone with a trailer which wasn’t locked up 15 miles away as mine was, to get him out of the field. Not wanting to walk him past his dam, I called a friend who came over, and, besides them getting stuck in the gateway, we managed to get him into the trailer and out of the field with Bev and the foal in the back.

Meanwhile Jude had started on finding us a foster mare and immediately contacted the National Foaling Bank, At the Races.com (which resulted in an announcement put out over Channel 4 Racing broadcast!) and anyone else she could think of. Another friend organised the lorry to come and pick up Yank. Just as an aside, apparently there is a thriving business of renting out foster mares, but it will cost you anything upwards of £1,500 plus all the transport fees and the mare has to be returned in foal, so they can hand rear the foals next year and then rent out the mum again. We declined the offer. The NFB assured us they could help, there was a maiden riding pony mare that had lost her foal not far from us, which we thought was too good to be true. Bev headed off with the foal in the trailer whilst I waited for the lorry to come and collect Yank. When she was picked up, none of the horses paid any attention at all – weird.

When I arrived at the farm, they were already trying to get the mare interested in the colt, they had skinned the dead foal, but there was no way she was interested and would have done him a serious injury had we continued.

Jude in the meantime, through NFB, had located a warmblood maiden mare (Pasadena) who had birthed prematurely and the foal had not survived – it had happened at an equine centre only 15 miles from her home that morning. The only problem was that the owner was on her way back from the USA and, of course, her permission was needed to allow the mare to be used.

Back in Wales, we were endeavouring to find foal milk, which we eventually located, plus getting feeding bottles, sterilising tablets etc. We got the baby home and started the bottle feeding; fortunately, he was a big strong colt and his suckle reaction was superb. Every hour the procedure was repeated, throughout the night while we tried to find either another mare or make arrangements for help in hand-rearing the foal. Some friends came round and said they would bottle feed him for a while, so I could get some rest and try and come to terms with what had happened. The foal would have nothing to do with them - I was mum and that was that. Fortunately someone had the intelligence to suggest she wear my very grubby jumper – it worked and we got through the first night of hand feeding. Cooper was holding his own, even if I wasn’t!

Jude got the go ahead to use Pasadena and it was all systems go. She was going to leave work, borrow a lorry, which she had never driven before, pick up Pasadena and come straight over to West Wales – only thing was it was midday and she was in Birmingham at the time. She picked up the mare and foal with a very hasty familiarisation of the lorry on the way to the Equine Centre just outside of Gloucester - she had driven lorries before, but not this particular one. She was nervous until the moment Pasadena and her dead foal were put on the box, then the nerves disappeared: she was on a mission. A quick stop was made at the hunt kennels to arrange for the skinning of the foal as none of us felt we could do that. Pasadena was frantic that her foal had been taken away, but to her satisfaction, the smell returned and she settled. Jude arrived in Cardigan at 10pm and having let the mare settle for a while we started the fostering procedure.

I had talked to Johanna Vardon of NFB several times prior to the mare arriving and she had given me some very important pointers, and strict procedures. All three us read them over and over again, talked about who would do what, rung Johanna with what have seemed some very naïve and stupid questions, but she was always there, reiterating procedures which should be adhered to if it was to be anything like successful. Johanna said it would take at least 48 hours if we did things right. What? What happened to the “Just slap a bit of honey on the mare’s teats, bung the skin on and leave them to it - 2 hours - Bob’s your uncle”? The light at the end of the tunnel disappeared with a very final blip. We then put our gloves on to start the fostering procedure.

We gingerly approached the plastic bag, which held the skin of the dead foal, ears, mane and tail still in place. The first job (other than having the nerve to open the plastic bag) was to cut the ears off and place them one foot apart hanging from the grill between the mare and the foal. I think I just stood there with gloves on, but can’t actually remember doing anything useful. Jude cut the ears while Bev held the skin tight. We had to place a towel over the foal before putting the skin on, as this apparently can alter the colour of the foal. This eventually proved to be a non-working idea and fortunately a small foal rug had come up as well which we eventually put on and put the skin on top of that. We smothered the foal with a mix of the mare’s excrement and anything else we could put our hands on that smelt of her and very gently fitted the skin on to him. The mare was watching us through the grill, obviously confused but interested.

Our next stop was to present the colt’s behind to the mare over the stable door to gauge her initial reaction, if it was positive then we were to open the door – reverse the foal in and stand for a minute. Obviously everybody was anxious and lead ropes were used at all times. As we had no adverse reactions, we went to the next stage. There were to be NO face to face positions. We had to swing the foal around keeping his backside to her head, so presenting him to her teats. This went so well I think all three of us were feeling a bit cocky - you know what they say about pride….the mare stood like a rock – it was hard to believe she was a maiden. Would the colt suckle – no, all he wanted was my fingers. So, not knowing the mare at all, I stuck my hands through her back legs and tried to encourage him to follow my fingers up to the teat, squirting a little milk into his mouth. As soon as I withdrew my fingers, he withdrew his head.

We tried for nearly an hour to no avail, so we put the colt back into his box, took his coat off and retired to the kitchen to once again ring Johanna and tell her she was dealing with a load of incompetents. Sweat was running from our bodies and I could not see for sweat trickling into my eyes. Very dejectedly, we rang Johanna and said it was not working. “Had we milked the mare?” she asked. The solution was so simple, the mare had bagged up and was full of milk, therefore the teats were not floppy and easy to get hold of. We were to go back and milk the mare down to a manageable size.

Out we went again to the stables, we had no intention of bringing the colt in on that occasion, just to milk the mare, but she was anxious about the foal and was very restless, so the best way we felt to handle it was to kit him out in his outfit , reverse him in and start the procedure again. As soon as he was in the box the mare settled. The three of just stood there and looked and as I was preparing to milk her, all of a sudden he tottered forward and grabbed hold of a teat. We all stopped breathing. He was so hungry he took the lead and drank a large draught. All I could think of was Johanna’s words: “25 -30 gulps and swallows, you are in heaven; 8-10 gulps and swallows you are in hell”. Well, by this time I had forgotten how to count to 10 anyway, but fortunately Bev and Jude hadn’t. All I know is that when we eventually breathed again, he was still suckling. This procedure was repeated every two hours throughout the night. Bev went home and Jude slept, probably very uncomfortably, on the dog’s armchair.

This scenario continued for quite a while – the object was to get the mare’s milk through the foal so he assumed her smell, this would take 36-48 hours. I think the gods were with us, and we then accelerated through the procedure, only because the mare was an absolute angel. Bev went home and returned every 2 hours to help me. It was becoming evident Cooper still wanted to be with me, so several times I got banished from the stable as a distraction.