How could you pick just one!?
It all started with a post on Facebook. A friend had posted a photo of an adorable black colt, not more than a few days old. Under the photo was a caption that read something along the lines of “Meet my new baby!”. Of course I had to click on the photo to see the comments section where she mentioned that the colt was an orphaned nurse mare foal who she was adopting from the Eleventh Hour Foal Haven, which happened to be less than fifteen minutes from my family’s farm. I thought for a moment about what an interesting and rewarding opportunity raising a nurse mare foal might be. Any daydreams about raising a baby were shortly forgotten as I remembered that I already had one horse at home and am not in a position to have a second.
The following morning I happened to mention to my family that someone we knew was going to be raising a nurse mare foal. I showed them the website for the Eleventh Hour Foal Haven where our friend had found the foal she was adopting.
That afternoon we found ourselves (Yes, all four of us – what horse junkie is going to miss out on seeing 3 day old foals?!) going to see the foals. Our rationale was that we were due to have a foal anyhow this spring (the mare unfortunately did not carry the foal to term) so we were already ready for a baby.
Gus-Gus is quite the inquisitive baby
Skip ahead two hours and we have seen 15 or so adorable foals of various breeding ranging in age from 3 days to 4 weeks. I had an easier time picking a college to attend than we did picking a foal, but there were two 3 week olds in particular that caught our eye. Although the initial plan was to just have one foal, we decided fairly quickly that it might be easier to have two so they could keep each other company. And again, we just couldn’t choose between them!
We ended up bringing home a precious chestnut Quarter Horse cross filly we named Lottie and a paint colt with a fancy trot we named Gus. They have been home for two weeks now and are settling in well. They are certainly proving to have very different personalities but both have been well behaved for a checkup with our vet, to have their feet trimmed, and are mostly halter broke- leading confidently between their stall and turnout.
Miss Lottie is the quintessential little girl.
They have a lot of growing up to do but we are all really excited to watch them develop and hopefully become well adjusted adult horses!
Sarah