After much deliberation, we've decided to call Xacra's little colt Golfinho. We kept a close eye on things in his first few days, and last Saturday afternoon we noticed that he was getting very agitated when suckling. Upon closer inspection it was clear that Xacra had little if any milk - argh. Timing of course couldn't have been worse, although there's never a good time for such things - about 5:30pm on the Saturday afternoon of a Bank Holiday weekend. I made an immediate call to the vet, who managed to source some milk replacer for us; Sid and Knickers went off to get that and some antibiotics for Xacra, while I ran around trying to get hold of a bottle. The farmer across the road had one but the nipple on it was for calves and much too wide a hole diameter. Argh. Luckily the vets had sourced one for us, so we thought we were all set aside from the obvious issue of how to go about the bottle feeding.
The marvels of Facebook meant that I had recently come into contact with someone who had tragically had to deal with an orphaned foal, so I knew she would be a good person to ask. In no time at all we were chatting on the phone and she gave me chapter and verse on how to go about the bottle feeding. In short we had to corner him and make sure we got some down his neck; not a nice thing to have to do but necessary. It took three of us in the end: one to hold Xacra, one to hold the foal and another to administer the milk. It's a messy business and was an anxious time for all concerned.
My FB friend (Jess) had also mentioned the need for caution when it came to feeding a broad spectrum milk replacer such as the one we had got from the vets, and offered to provide us with a specific foal milk replacer from the stock she had in for her boy, George. In the end we all set off just after 11pm Saturday evening on the hour's journey to Canterbury to collect it, and while we were there Jess and her partner Jamie gave us a demo of bottle feeding with gorgeous George, and basically gave us all the information we needed to cope with our crisis - including a lot of reassurance which was very much needed. What wonderful people to accommodate us, perfect strangers with only our mutual love of horses and breeding in common, in the way that they did, providing us with foal milk replacer, prebioitics and such a huge amount of information, at some ungodly hour of the night - especially considering their own three hourly feeding routine for George. Not only that but following up, keeping in touch to find out how we were all doing, over the next few days. If you're reading this Jess and Jamie, let me send your way one further huge "thank you" for your incredible kindness. I know you'll know just how much we appreciate it, and if there's ever anything we can do in reciprocation, you know where to find us!
Xacra was started on her antibiotics and Golfinho was much more accepting of the Aintree milk, so over the course of the next 24 hours we were able to get quite a bit into him every couple of hours. Once he got the taste of it we could offer the bottle from under Xacra's belly, and he'd latch on and glug it down. Xacra herself was amazing through this, so patient with me grubbing about under her belly, with her son getting very bumptious in his efforts to get milk - and one might imagine how uncomfortable that would be with rock-hard teats. She is amazing. I'm sure she was well aware we were trying to help her baby.
By the time Sunday evening came around it was clear that (a) he was starting to get some milk, and (b) he had lost all interest in the bottle. We took the communal decision to let them get on with it with just one 3am check, and thereon in they went from stretngth to strength, which was good because we were completely and utterly battered on the rather meagre rations of 2 and a half hours' sleep. Adrenaline will keep you going only for so long, but when you crash, oh god. I honestly don't know we'd have coped if the situation had gone on much longer.
Through this week mother and son have been doing well, and as he's been getting stronger we've let them out in the paddock on their own more and more. He's a bolshy little so and so! Methinks we are going to have our hands full with him.
In amongst all of this we had made arrangements to take Tigre to stud on Saturday morning, Luckily for me, as I was utterly battered by the end of the working week, Sid and Knickers gave him a bath on Friday and Knickers packed his bags for him, so all I had to do on Saturday morning was hitch up the trailer and load him up. He loaded and travelled well, and confined himself to a grunt and an arch of his neck as we walked along an aisle full of stallions to his stable. The stud's incomparable proprietor has kindly agreed to set up a small paddock for him so he can continue to go out on restricted turnout, and he starts his collection training tomorrow. I cannot say enough about the amazing team at Hobgoblins.
When we got back from stud, we put Xacra and Golfinho out with Alfama and Gualter for the first time. A moment of trepidation for us given the not insignificant size differential between the two boys (whom we might collectively refer to as Biggie Smalls) but all went well. What a thrill to see them all running around together, our little herd :) Xacra was being very protective and spent a lot of time laying down the law with teeth, feet and a range of truly appalling facial expressions, but as things went on it all settled down. It'll be a little while before we leave them all out together overnight, so they are coming into the shelter overnight or the stable if the weather is rancid as now, so Alfama and Gualter can have the shelter. We brought them all in for a spell this afternoon as it was raining hard and we wanted to do some preps for the farrier visit, and Gualter led in like a little pro. He is such a diamond little bloke! He needs to work on his herd place though as I was somewhat surprised earlier to see Golfinho chasing him around earlier :O
So all in all, things are settled again and at last we have some rain.
No comments:
Post a Comment