Foster, 5 months old

It’s been quite a summer having both a litter of puppies and a foal to watch grow up and become more independent. Foster has been here since May 3rd. He has been eating grain and hay on his own, drinking water from buckets and nursing less. He leads fairly well and stands for grooming and the farrier. Lately at times he and Cookie would even be a pasture apart from each other (but a gate opened in between) and they were fine not being right by each other. Foster also had become good friends with my gelding, Nick.

Seeing how he was getting more independent his owners felt it was time to wean him and take him back home. On Friday we loaded Cookie in their trailer and in a short time Foster jumped in with her and they were off to Foster’s owners’ farm. Cookie stayed there with him all weekend to help him with his transition and tonight she came back home, her job done. She didn’t have a problem leaving there but now she has been galloping all over our pastures whinnying and looking for him. Nick was calling for him (and probably Cookie) Friday night until quite late so Nick had to wean from Foster, too.

I know it will get better with time but right now we are all sad to have come to an end of life with Foster. Fortunately he is only 5 miles away and we can visit him. Plus through this experience we have made new friends. Maybe some day we will have a foal of our own to raise here. Thanks to Foster our experience with raising him has eased the pain of our loss of our own foal for both Cookie and ourselves and we’ve learned a lot.

If you hadn’t read the story about Foster the original post is here: http://dunnsmarshlabs.com/bbfarmblog/2010/05/foster-story-about-a-foal/