Unorthodox adoption
Mare cares for young orphaned foal like it’s her own
She may not have given birth to the brown, bay coloured filly, but 17-year-old Tantum is protective over her young foster foal.
“She’ll whinny for her to come and is protective if the foal doesn’t follow her when we transfer the mare,” said Brian Andrews, one of the founders of Meridian Farms, in Charlottetown.
Thirteen days ago he was left with an orphaned foal after her mother died after giving birth.
“It wasn’t hard birth, but her mom haemorrhaged really badly shortly after and we lost her. She was one of my nicest mares,” said Andrews.
From there, Andrews and the staff at Meridian were working around the clock to take care of the foal and find her a surrogate mom. “I had enough colostrum from horses who foaled last year to last about 20 hours. Without that we would have had to take her to the vet right away,” explained Andrews.
Colostrum is the first milk a mother gives. It is nutrient rich and crucial to a young animal. “I also had enough milk replacer to last me about 10 days, so during that time period we were searching for a mare that could be her mom or else I’d be playing nurse mom until she was older.”
Not long after, Haley Cole, an employee at Venture Stables in Freetown, saw a post on Facebook advertising that an orphan foal was in need of a foster mom.
“I immediately told Jasmine and Mark. I knew we had the perfect horse for the filly,” said Cole.
Jasmine Bantarache, and her husband Mark, are the owners of Venture Stables. Recently, after 15 years a part, Jasmine was reunited with her horse Tantum.
“I had a friend tell me one day she saw Tantum for sale on Kijiji. Sure enough it was her. But when she came back to us I noticed that she was producing milk, but it made no sense she didn’t have a baby,” said Bantarache.
“Then I found out Tantum had foaled in the past, and after giving birth she was sold to new owners. And I kept hearing the same thing over and over again. ‘Had a baby, sold her’.” When Bantarache learned about the orphaned foal, she wanted to help.
Within a few hours, she contacted Andrews to let him know they had a mare that could help.
Andrews added, “I decided I’d come up and take the mare, and see if things would work out.” For seven days, Andrews and his staff worked with Tantum providing her with supplements that would help her produce enough milk to care for the young filly.
One morning, Andrews decided to give Tantum a needle, making her sweat.
“After about 10 minutes you could see the steam rising off her. I rubbed her down with a cloth and then took the same cloth and rubbed it all over the foal so she would recognize her. It was great, she didn’t reject her and she wasn’t hesitant about her.”
Today, the still nameless filly and Tantum are doing well. “I’m glad the mare and the foal are happy. I had no alternative. I don’t know what I would have done, but these two are a good looking pair.”