The story of the third foal this summer was incredible. To begin with, we bred a broodmare that we like a lot (even though we have higher evaluated mares), because she’s such a talented riding horse, and she throws babies with such super temperament and also talented, they are so easy to train and we just love them. It is our Dúkka from Sauðárkróki, an evaluated mare. We bred her to IS2001135613 – Glymur frá Innri-Skeljabrekku, a silver dapple stallion, with 8.38 in main score. Actually Glymur is the stallion that has gotten the highest scores for talents for 4 year old stallions in the world (!), 8.67 for talents as a 4 year old. And then the foal is born, a mare (horay), silver dapple (YES), with blaze (the color my husband likes the most, he loves blazes). The perfect foal… exept that it was very ill, very sick. It was born with diarreah, and there was something very wrong with the nervous system, it couldn’t stand up and it couldn’t stand really even if it was raised up, and it couldn’t nurse it’s mum. It was the dream foal, and it was dying. We called the vet, and he came with fluids and intravenous solutions and penicillin, and then we just had to wait. We stayed with the foal all day and into the evening, the vet came again, the foal got stronger and started standing in the middle of the day but was again a cripple by the time the vet came again the evening with more solutions. All the time we fed it with a bottle with milk from the mum. All night I stayed with them, was in the car by the pasture, to go and feed the foal every two hours, and again the day after that. The foal was now standing on it’s own and walking a little, but wasn’t nursing on it’s own. The little thing and mum nickered a welcome each time I came, the mum was helpless to feed her foal, the foal didn’t get the idea that the milk tank was on her mum, and struggled against us when we tried repeatedly to encourage it gently or push it to the teat. In the end the foal looked quite frisky but was not nursing. And then we had to take some stronger measures and forse the mouth to the teat and milk into the foal’s mouth… after an hour’s struggle the foal nursed by force for maybe half a minute, we were holding the head up and the foal’s body was flat on the ground when nursing and we were rather discouraged and felt helpless.
The next time we came the foal had to be forced to drink in the same way but it wasn’t hard, just took 5 minutes and it drank more. The next time we came the foal actually, with help, nursed while standing on it’s feet, and… there it got the idea : ) After that it nursed on it’s own. And nursed and nursed and nursed, I´ve never seen a foal drink so frequently. Always from the same side of the mare though. That night I was awake again, checking that the foal drank, checking that it was alive, all the time. And the day after we taught the foal that it could drink from the other side too.
Now the foal is healthy and energetic and a beautiful little thing : ) We will definitely always own it, it is our little gem, our little foster baby, so beautiful, such a little hero 🙂
