A three-day-old foal, who was rejected by his mother after falling into in a ditch, has been found a surrogate mum.
Rejected
The RSPCA was called to help the foal after a passer-by saw him struggling to climb out of a ditch on a farm nearBristol. It was estimated he had been trapped there for around 12 hours – and was cold, wet and muddy.
The young colt was reunited with his mother, but she sadly rejected him after numerous attempts.
Help
When it looked like the youngster would have to be hand-reared, HorseWorld was called in to help.
“He had been in the ditch a long time and when he emerged, he would have smelt very different to her as he had been covered dirty ditch water,” explained HorseWorld’s Jerry Watkins.
The colt – now named Muddy Waters – was brought back to HorseWorld, where he was bottle fed him by the staff. Despite him taking to the bottle, the charity knew the ideal scenario was to pair him up with a surrogate mother.
New mum
“After some phoning around, a suitable mare was found whose foal was stolen at less than 24 hours old only two days before,” said Jerry. “After the traumatic loss of her foal, she was only too willing to accept her new baby and now become the foal’s new mother.
Muddy will stay with his surrogate mother until he is weaned at around six months. He will then come back to HorseWorld, where he will begin training in the hope of finding him a new home.