[QUOTE=chemteach;5558123]
So sorry Libera. Why would anyone breed that mare again?[/QUOTE]
This. I cannot believe this mare would be rebred. 
Prayers for the little foal and hoping for better management and care of him. I, for one, hope the mare fails to conceive.
PennyG
SunnyDays is right and that vet is WRONG!
I remember reading in several places this certain “lines” in certain breeds (they mentioned an Arab line, but I’ve forgotten which one) have a high incidence of dams who reject their foals, so it IS hereditary.
And personally – assuming full disclosure was made to the vet staff about keeping the mare tied while the baby nurses, and having someone attend them, etc. I would be telling the clinic to stick their bill on the foal where the sun doesn’t shine…THEY were liable and THEY need to be responsible for the consequences.
Poor little guy…
[QUOTE=Kyzteke;5559058]
I remember reading in several places this certain “lines” in certain breeds (they mentioned an Arab line, but I’ve forgotten which one) have a high incidence of dams who reject their foals, so it IS hereditary.[/QUOTE]
Never having had a case of foal rejection I don’t know if it is hereditary or not. I do suspect that our management of mares and foals may have something to do with it at least on occasion. We foal out mares and tend to keep them and their babies in individual paddocks/pens and stalls…they are sometimes the only horse on a property and sometimes just never in with others in a herd setting. My personal belief is that foals should, whenever possible, be raised at least until weaning, in a herd. It makes weaning a lot easier but it also exposes them to other foals/mares. And once my fillies are weaned and the mares dried off the fillies go back into the herd with their dams. I’ve never had one start nursing again (I don’t wean until about 4.5 to 5 months to begin with by which time mom has pretty much started the process herself in most cases). If the filly hasn’t sold she remains in the herd during foaling the next season so sees foals as they arrive. I’ve had several instances of a mare with a two year old filly, a yearling filly and a new foal at her side…within the herd these smaller groups maintain a “mini-herd” situation or "family group. I think that in many cases foal rejection is just a mare that is terrified as she’s never seen a foal or normal foal behavior since she’s been raised by herself, largely isolated, since she was weaned herself. This management style would tend to make it LOOK hereditary if it were to continue for generations.
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Well, as a nurse you know one case doesn’t prove anything, but I tend to think this sort of thing IS herediatry and NOT management.
My one case was a 4 yr old WB mare I got who had been orphaned at 3 weeks of age. She was a caeserian and spent the first 3 weeks of her life in the hospital till they lost the dam.
Then her (well-meaning but ignorant) owners took her home and boarded her at a local stable where she never saw another foal and was NEVER put in with another horse. NEVER. Zilch! She was in paddocks where she could see & touch noses with them, but not really interact.
I got her very cheap because she grew to be 17.1h and was rather alpha, so everyone was terrified of her. She really wasn’t bad…just VERY big and doing what horses do.
I got her home, turned her out in my herd, my 14.2hh Queen Arab kicked her butt BADLY and poor Ms WB had to learn how to be the low guy.
Meanwhile, I bred her and during the whole pregnancy she would NOT let me touch her teats…no matter what I tried. Man, I was worried.
But when she foaled (I happened to be there), she was just perfect…even lifted up her hind leg like a dog to help “guide” the foal to the milk bar.
And both her daughters have also proven to be good moms, although they tend to get abit bored with the Mommy-thing around Month 3-4, which certainly makes weaning easy.
So my experience puts me firmly on the side of Nature & not Nuture.
I mean, it’s one thing for a frightened maiden with sore udders to wave a hind leg at her newborn for the first 24 hrs. or so, but for a mare to savagely KICK her own foal in the head about 2-3 weeks together – THAT mare does NOT need to be a mother ever again.
Of course he said that, he’s the one making all the money on this mare!
FYI, just because a veterinarian has a license doesn’t mean they know everything or makes them an expert! :no: Personally, I would be inclined to go through the veterinarian’s malpractice insurance to pay for the damages to the foal while in their care.
I worked at Windfields Farm - big TB breeding operation - for a season as a foaling assistant.
They handled as many as a hundred births a year, in busy years.
The senior Foal attendant, who had been there for years, knew mares who had been rejected by their mothers. They were watched intently for the 1st 48 hours, and frequently their foals had to be removed and given to a nursemare, as the birth mother could not mother, and was a danger to her foal.
He knew incidences of this up to 3 generations. Of course, these mares were bred for running, not temperament.
Interesting. See, this is where we have painted ourselves into a corner in terms of Nature. We breed for jumping ability, gaits, racing, etc…but few of us breed exclusively for fertility and mothering ability…so it stands to reason the lack of these abilities would pop up and then breed on from time to time…
Another good example are modern chickens. Many of the breeds won’t even brood anymore…it’s just been bred right out of them.
Kyzteke - In the same vein, in that TB breeding barn the incidence of cribbing was very high. I’d estimate close to 25% wore cribbing collars. Cribbing is co-related to stomach ulcers, which seem fairly high in TBs. Also, restriction to stalls and lots of high starch feeds - oats and sweet feed, tend to be a practice in some TB operations, which can also attribute to ulcers.
I have no idea if tendency to ulcers is hereditary, but I would believe it may be.
Also, a rejected foal may always be untrustworthy. A breeder friend of mine leased a broodmare for a season to breed to her stallion. The mare violently rejected the foal. They were separated and the colt grew up with another colt born that year.
It was the year my friend moved, so she didn’t spend much time with the foals that year (she was building barns and fences). The rejected foal never trusted easily, he was aggressive in the field with the other horses, and he was the kind of horse you always had to be careful around.
When he was four, my friend was feeding him in the field. Without warning, he wheeled and double-barreled her in the chest. She had an 11cm laceration in her liver and a collapsed lung. These injuries could have easily killed her.
She ended up giving the horse to a cowboy who thought he could turn the horse around. She gave the broodmare back as soon as she weaned the colt.
I had a mare do the same thing 2 years ago. I think it was due to the fact that she had impaction colic and had to be brought into the clinic because she was being a good first time momma until then. The stress might have triggered her to react that way. Who knows… At the clinic she bit the foal by the neck and tried to through it across the stall and had several other attempts to hurt the foal. That was enough for me. We ended up seperating them. If she saw the foal the would hollar and act like she wanted it, but the minute it was close she wanted to kill it. The raised the baby with a 20 something year old pony and they went out with another mare and foal. My friend now owns the mare and wants to bred her again…I’m concerned as to what she will do.
Sad update… the foal didn’t make it
Some interesting points are being brought up here though! I have asked the owners of full siblings to this mare, whether they had had any problems in regarding to rejected foals, surprisingly, they did not! So the other mare might very well be OK too, even though she is a full sibling. I sure hope so!
Not sure if the dam to this unfortunate baby is back in foal, I guess we will find out next week. I am kind of curious to see how next year will go, I really hope she will accept her next baby. But at least now they have a plan ready. Just in case…
If it was my mare and she was bred again, I don’t think I would ever trust her…even if she seemed to accept the foal.
I’d be making plans to raise that foal as an orphan from Day One. Better an orphan than dead.
Poor little thing…RIP.
