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Chestnut Colt born: 16th May 2001 (10.30am) (This page was last updated 22/08/07) This birth was not straight forward as malpresented with head and both front feet back. Tragedy hit! - See below for more details.
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| Holme Grove Solomon (chestnut) |
Fernando (chestnut) |
Flugwind (dark bay) |
| Freude II (grey) | ||
| H.G. Schlobitten (bay) | Malachit (chestnut) | |
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SPS
& PS Holme Grove Hertzblatt (chestnut) |
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After our celebrations of delivering a live healthy foal, HG Hertzblatt failed to cleanse the afterbirth. We called the vet back in but while trying to cleanse she prolapsed the uterus. The vet managed to get everything back in place and stitch it but the mare very quickly went into shock and despite fighting to save her and putting fluids in we lost Holme Grove Hertzblatt. Our priority now had to be to HG Heritage who had no Mum.
We called Joanna Vardon of the National Foaling Bank and within half an hour she had called back with details of a 9 year old Mare by Dallas called Melody's Dreamer who had her foal PTS the previous day. The owners Julia and Phil had taken Joanna's advise and had their dead foal skinned and Phil had continued to milk the mare and keep her in touch with her foal's skin wrapped round a stuffed sack. They lived about 1½ hours from us and agreed that time was of the essence so offered to drive down to us with their mare and arrived about 11.30pm. Joanna had given us clear instructions on how to approach the adoption for the best chances of success. "Mel" was a superb match for Heritage being a similar size as Hertzblatt (16.3hh) and chestnut. We set up two boxes beside each other with a grill window between with the bottom part boarded so that Mel could not touch the foal. We dressed Heritage up in the dead foal's skin and rubbed some of Mel's milk over his head and neck, we reversed him up to the stable door so that Mel could smell him (disguised as her foal) and she instantly started whickering at him and licking him. We then tested her reaction by walking him away and she got quite agitated and called strongly for him. We then moved her to the back corner of the box and brought Heritage back reversing him up to her (we gave her a small dose of ACP for the first introduction and put felt kicking boots on although not required) she was very receptive to him and was licking him and pleased to have him there. We then turned him around, nose away from the mare and put him in position to drink. Before we let him try to latch on we gently ran our hand along her tummy to check she would not react but she was quiet and willing. As he latched on one side the other was as though the tap had been turned on and poured milk. Heritage was very keen and guzzled well and Mel was clearly enjoying the experience too. After drinking for several minutes from both teats Heritage was full so we quietly pivoted him back round and walked him out of the stable to put him in the adjoining box. Mel was not happy about us taking him away she was already convinced this was her baby but we knew we had to take things slowly to be sure we did not spoil things. On Joanna's advice we had attached the dead foals ears to the viewing grill between the two stables and so as she was looking through to see the foal she was smelling her own foal. After a few minutes she settled and stood gazing at him. Heritage was full and content and went to sleep. We repeated this operation 2 hourly through the night and each time she was unhappy when we took him away but settled more quickly knowing he was only next door. After the first 3 times we brought Heritages tail out for her smell and she started licking his legs and seemed just as happy. By 7am this morning she was so relaxed with him drinking that we removed the foal skin and then the rug and let him loose. We kept a loose rope hold on Mel until we could be sure of her reactions but she was already convinced and even when the foal came round and they met nose to nose for the first time she just lovingly whickered at him. We knew we had succeeded so took of her rope and stood and observed from outside the stable - a wonderful site of a mare lovingly licking her foal!!! Within a few minutes with a full belly again Heritage laid down and Mel stood over guarding him - content that she had her foal back. A happy ending to a sad affair. Below you can see a brief pictorial record of a long night. Our sincere thanks go to Julia and Phil for letting us borrow Mel and to Joanna Vardon for her invaluable advise and introduction and of course to Mel for being such a good Mum.
the happy ending .....
