Nurse Mare Foals? Why don't people know about it?

Real or fake....look at all those cute babies!! Bless whomever is caring for all of those young ones.

I worked with TB's 8 years, broodmare operation. The mares have to foal in the state in which they were bred, for the foals to be eligible for the breeder's monies, (think that is what they called it). If your mare was bred in KY, or FL in our case, you trailered the mares down to FL well before they foaled, they were then bred back and you went back and got them in a couple of months. Foals stayed with their mothers, on their mothers.

Broodmares were just that, broodies. Didn't go back to racing. There might have been an odd one that did, but by and large no.

And we hauled mares/foals just fine, nothing against it mandated by the JC. Mares were taken by the barns that were providing mare care, to the farm where stallions were, and teased, bred if in, and then taken back to other farm. They generally stayed down there 3-4 months, from time mare in foal was hauled, to when I went back and brought them home.

Don't doubt that some of this is going on, but don't know about the numbers reported? But do know one thing, if a human can make money of the misery of a living creature? They will do it.

And most mares will NOT take another foal if they have their own. It is a rare one that will. And nursing two usually means one doesn't get enough to make them really thrifty, this is why it is such a bad thing when twins are born, and one is usually smaller/doesn't do as well.

I agree....it was probably PMU foals. Because when you buy PMU foals they are always weaned....nurse mare foals are not used weaned when you adopt them from rescues....unless you adopt them late. But they usually cannot rescue more nurse mare foals until they adopt out the ones they already have.

There are few places that rescue nurse mare foals. But one very well known nurse mare rescue farm is Last Chance Corral :: Ohio Horse and Foal Rescue - Available Foals

And they have nurse mare foals available for adoption now!

Your right...it probably won't die out anytime soon. But if we can get the word out about nurse mare foals then maybe more people would consider adopting a nurse mare foal....if they have the money/time/experience. Or maybe they would consider donating time/money to rescues that adopt nurse mare foals. Either way....it will help. It might not save every single nurse mare foal's life but it will save some of them. And that's better then nothing!

Must...Adopt...Cute...Foal... lol

I deal with Bull calves that the dairy industry dumps. Anything from 1- 10 days old. Putting money into these calves is a huge risk. Many did not receive enough colostrum and end of very sick no matter how hard you try. Not to mention the risk of Phenomia. I can't count the calves I have euthanized that went down hill fast.

In my opinion, I would never buy one of those foals. Its just not worth it money wise nor the heartbreak if they crash. To me, with any animal there should be a minimum of 10 days before they are pulled.

10 days of a calf on a dairy cow? Add up those days when that production is supposed to go back in the bulk tank. That is a LOT of money to those poor farmers. It's not the full 10 days as the first few are milked into a bucket and usually fed to the calves but it's still several hundreds of pounds of milk. Add in the fact the cow may not let down her milk after she is used to being nursed and you can end up with mastitis.

Sorry, that is never going to happen in the dairy industry!

Yes I know this. I just stated that in a "Perfect world" we wouldn't HAVE to pull the calves so fast.