Wednesday 5 September 2012

Surprise!

My friend Linda went out to the paddock to feed her 4 horses before work yesterday.

She has a retired ottb, a palomono arab warmblood dressage gelding (Hoodie, you have met him before), and two western mares.

They are all out on a heap of pasture but she had Pheonix (her young mare) locked up at night as despite being worked each day the mare was still pretty chubby.

As she drives down the drive way, there are deer in the paddock, the sun is shining, sky is blue, life is good.

She pulls up to Pheonix's yard and she sees little deer feet in the yard with the mare. How cute!

Opening the gate however, she sees that Pheonix is no longer chubby. And she has a wet, wobbly filly foal at foot.

Surprise!!

Seriously though, Pheonix was fat but did NOT look pregnant. She had been out on grass and the other mare looked almost as big. Pheonix has been in full work and was going like a dream. Linda has little knowledge of breeding, doesn't intend on breeding ever. The first thing she did was call the vet when she recovered from the shock enough to use the phone. Vet said both mare and foal are healthy. Foal is to be kept locked up in the yard until her legs straighten (couple weeks) then she can be turned out with the other mare and foal on the property.

She has had Pheonix for almost 12 months. We have no idea who the sire is, but the filly has a cute little head with tippy curly ears, very leggy.

So. What do you do with a surprise foal that is 100% not your fault? Linda is planning on doing the very best she can by the filly and if she doesn't suit Linda then she will rehome her as best she can. Which means the perfect home.

Want some foal pictures? Bet you do.

6 comments:

Funder said...

OMG she's so adorable! That is the BEST surprise possible.

Kelly said...

Ohhh...seriously adorable! What a suprise!

Val said...

Ridiculously cute!
What a great surprise.

Dom said...

She's very cute. Best of luck to everyone involved. I wonder how it happened...

Ruth said...

Such a cute surprise.!!

Lisa said...

Well Linda bought her from a friend who had picked her up from the sales about a week before. Linda is going to look into her pre-sales history to suss it out I think.