Last Chance Corral

Hand-raising foals can be daunting and rewarding

In a perfect world, every broodmare would give birth to a perfect foal and provide a bountiful supply of nutritious mother's milk until gradual weaning at five to six months.

But mares can die while foaling or shortly thereafter; occasional ones fail to produce sufficient milk or are entirely dry; some reject their foals or produce twins; various manmade events separate mares from their foals.

Regardless the cause, if motherless foals are to survive, immediate steps must be taken to provide an alternate, suitable milk source. But there is the financial, physical and emotional cost to a human serving as a surrogate mother.

In 2004, a southern Colorado breeder of miniature horses called Meredith MacKinnon about two at-risk foals. Their dams had gone completely dry. Would MacKinnon take the free foals? The Fort Collins mini-fancier gladly accepted the 2-week-old colt and filly. She fed the babies Unimilk for about three months and recalled using only 25 pounds of the powder, plus hay.

MacKinnon's next other-mother experience was in 2007. Someone had purchased a performance mare, apparently unaware she was in foal. Since the horse couldn't effectively compete with a full udder and trailing baby, the owner gave the 2-day-old filly to MacKinnon. This youngster consumed a 50-pound sack of milk replacer in a month, at which time she was switched to hay and grain only. MacKinnon fed replacer morning and evening only, but kept free-choice hay and water available at all times.

All three foals grew to be sound, healthy yearlings, at which time MacKinnon sold the minis to a good home, and sent the Quarter Horse filly to a trainer for eventual schooling as a pole bending/roping prospect.

MacKinnon noted that all three youngsters were well mannered and friendly from constant handling, a bonus in an otherwise less-than-natural situation. She cautions, however, that young joints can break down from overfeeding, so good Samaritans should avoid that potential pitfall. She said she thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and that if she still had appropriate facilities, she'd gladly do it again.

Some orphan experiences are fraught with uphill battles. Jackie Lynch has been around horses all her life and owner of Lynchland Stables since 1998. Her experience with orphans began in 2002, when a mare colicked and died, leaving behind a colt that Lynch successfully raised and still owns. His call name is Bucky, short for Big Bucks, which is what Lynch said it cost her.

From Last Chance To The Rest Of Their Lives By Caitlin Turner

Story By, Caitlin Turner

Photos By, Katheryn Roan

Ask anyone in Athens and they will assure you that it is a community of givers.  From Passionworks to Ohio University’s student-run associations, the city of Athens takes excellent care and pride in improving the lives of its citizens.  But what many people and students living in the Athens community do not know is that the less fortunate animals are also taken care of.

Last Chance Corral, which was founded in 1986, is an abused horse’s sanctuary located about five miles outside of Ohio University’s campus.  The people working at Last Chance Corral focus their energy on rescuing both foals and full-grown horses.  Many of the adult horses they rescue are from the area and come to them mainly because their owners cannot afford them.  But they do get the occasional call to rescue an abused horse.

My visit to Last Chance was in the midst of foal season.  Last Chance spends all year, but especially the spring, rescuing nurse mare foals and sending them to homes where they will be raised and eventually ridden by people who want them.  Nurse mare foals are foals that are not bred for any reason other than their mother’s milk or condition of pregnancy.  The foals are either passed over for another more valuable foal in need of the mare’s milk or are bred so that their mother’s urine can be used as an ingredient in Premarin, a female hormone replacement.

I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the facilities by Lenny, a recently hired hand at the barn.  She immediately led me to the foal barn, where I was delightfully introduced to about ten foals.  Most of the foals were quarter horse crosses, so I was interested in where they had come from.

“There are about three nurse mare farms that Victoria [the woman in charge of the operation] gets foals from; all are located in Kentucky,” answered Lenny.  She then continued to explain that, due to the large Thoroughbred racing industry in Kentucky, there is a larger demand for nurse mares.

After asking how many foals Victoria can afford to save in one rescue, Lenny answered, “Victoria saves as many as she can, but the ones she cannot save are killed.”  This answer, although blunt, was a shocking truth as I watched the foals, some less than a week old, romp about their enclosure.

As my visit progressed, I was able to witness a couple who had come to adopt one of the foals.  They informed me that this would be the second foal that adopted from Last Chance Corral and that they could not be happier with the first foal they took home four years ago.

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