I'm sure most of you have heard this story by now. The mare that gave birth to two surprising miracle foals!
http://www.walb.com/story/21859812/twin-horses-born-on-easter-morning
Wow, how amazing and what a shock!
..... Except it wouldn't be if you weren't a irresponsible owner.
There are so many things wrong with this story.
Let's list some shall we?
1. That mare is incredibly underweight and those foals are going to kill her.
"But she's twenty!"
Don't care. Old does not mean skinny, my neighbors 32 year old horse who passed away this year was fat. Good broodmares look great at 20. You just didn't feed your goddamn horse the food she needed.
2. "Well, She was bred by accident."
Then you should have gone to the vet and gotten a shot to terminate for your mare's well being. There is a shot for that; so you made the choice. If you didn't know about the shot... no, you have access somewhere to a computer with google. If my mare "accidentally" got pregnant I would be calling the vet and googling options so much my hands would cramp.
3. "Twins are a rare miracle."
That's because responsible breeders take their horses to the goddamn vet for ultrasounds! And then they then they usually choose to terminate one because it typically doesn't go well. All I hear in "it was a shock!" is "I probably never took my mare to the vet during her pregnancy!"
4. "My neighbor called me and said there were twins in the pasture!"
.....So, you clearly either didn't know she was about to foal (how could you with no vet checks?!) and you didn't have her under observation or in mare watch. I'm guessing that no one was there to help in case of complications- which anyone who's having twins would know are extremely likely to occur. You ass.
4. News station, why the hell can't you see that this mare is NOT HEALTHY?!
5. Ever notice how many of these horses are only bred by "accident" when people start faulting them?
Lets recap shall we?
Mare probably received no vet care.
Mare wasn't on a proper diet, clearly for a long time.
No idea she was having twins, again points to no vet care.
No one watching her to make sure the foaling went well.
Yep, you suck.
If anyone, like these owners, are wondering what a GOOD owner of a mare and twins looks like, please check out this link or video:
http://www.huntingtoncountytab.com/feature/12564/rare-twin-foals-kicking-heels-polk-township-farm
http://uverseonline.att.net/tv/show/strange-the-feed?play=c___oVCKqBV0hTDI
This is a 16 year old mare who is in good weight and who received constant care and foaled at the vets to make sure everything went smoothly. Apparently their vet said keeping the twins could hurt their mare so they tried to abort one.... twice, with no luck. So they made sure they took her to a vet where the entire staff had successfully delivered twins.
Bam. You get the good owner of the day award.
If you can't afford the vet bills to make sure foals are delivered properly and your mare is safe, don't breed!
Can I please add the following:
ReplyDelete1. The TODAY show also ran the piece, and they ALSO negelected the negelect. The orignal piece ran in a local newspaper in the relatively podunk town this occured (Tifton GA). One MIGHT expect such stupidity, but a NATIONAL news show! PFFT
2. The ower is NOT pulling the foals from the mare (at last check anyway) so they can continue to kill thier Mom.
3. There were rumors floating earlier that the local AC said that the horses were fine and to stop calling!
4. In another article, owner is quoted in saying the mare is an "easy keeper" and is her "baby"...yep...looks like an easy keeper to me! And it certainly looks like you lurve her /s
Yeah, I'd read that. Amazingly it doesn't make me want to stop harassing them! Thankfully all the comments I've read on the news site have been outraged.
ReplyDeleteWell if she's an easy keeper there goes all their excuses about the foals taking her down... easy keepers don't do that, especially when fed properly.
I don't know about her, but I feed my baby and if he starts looking lean I put him on more food and supplements!
I did the non-horsey boyfriend check. He picked up on all of these. His first words were 'God that horse is skinny!'.
ReplyDeleteHe also wanted to know why there were two babies as horses always had one? He said that it was surely a bad thing?
Then I showed him the video and he wanted to know why the woman wasn't there?!
Lastly he said it was obvious that the vet hadn't seen her during her pregnancy. He also wanted to know why they weren't using a bottle since the made shouldn't be feeding them in that state. He asked why wouldn't they use a bottle first as they would definitely drink from that.
Seriously - if he can see that ...
The damn owner wants shooting, & isn't that some sort of uniform either vet tec or nurse ? If so she's twice as bad,no excuse for such appalling neglect
ReplyDeleteExactly! Why on earth isn't that foal being fed from a proper device when it's so young? I wonder if they are even feeding the right type of milk? Somehow I don't feel like they're going to be feeding on a proper schedule... It also seems unlikely that they'd get a nurse mare.
ReplyDeleteI love doing the boyfriend check: it gives me an outsider look and helps increase their knowledge!
The woman's scrubs do make me feel like she's a nurse or something professional, which means she really should know better. Then again sometimes vets can be as bad or worse as other owners.