Raising an orphan foal takes a lot of love and a lot of time

Though the pregnancy was uneventful, the foaling started out with difficulty. When "Lil" laid down to foal, her haunches were against the wall, so within a few contractions the foal was stuck half in the mare and half in the wall. Wolson, and her husband Mark, began to panic, not sure how to deliver a baby in a wall. They called their vet, who talked them through shifting the mare by the back legs, and then pulling the baby free. The baby, a bay filly who showed signs of turning gray, began trying to leap free of her mother before she was all the way born, and was trying to stand almost immediately. Her anger at not succeeding led to her name, "Maddie."

The vet felt the mare was bruised and battered by the difficult birth, but would be fine, and the spunky filly was given a clean bill of health. Thinking the worst was over, the Wolsons relaxed and enjoyed their new baby.

On the filly's fifth day of life, Wolson came out to the barn after work, and while doing chores noted that Lil had dirt on her rump, as though she had lain down during the day. She also hadn't finished her breakfast, though she had happily eaten her hello carrot when Wolson had arrived. As she talked to her sister on her cell phone, Lil laid down again, and a nervous Wolson called the vet.

The vet told Wolson to administer some banamine, and that they would be there as soon as possible. After the initial dose of banamine and some walking, the mare seemed to settle, but when the vet arrived, her vital signs were found to be poor and within minutes the mare began to crash. The vet immediately became concerned that Lil was experiencing a torsion of the uterus - when the uterus begins to shrink post - birth the size of a horse's body cavity can cause it to twist, like a loop of intestine during colic. When the mare got worse again, and her gums turned white, the vet advised she be taken to a local university vet hospital. Wolson called a neighbor to bring a trailer, but in the meantime Lil went in to spasms - she rolled and thrashed and threw herself against walls. She foamed at the mouth and quivered uncontrollably. Little Maddie had to be rescued from her mother's thrashing lest she be injured.

Today Maddie, or "Proof Set" is a healthy 2-year-old filly, who garnered good ribbons in the hunter breeding ring in the fall of 2001.

From the time the vet had been called, to the moment when Lil had breathed her last it had only been 45 minutes. Little Maddie was an orphan.

Wolson called Mark, and her mother and sister who all came rushing to the farm. When the neighbor bringing the trailer arrived, he was devastated to find that Lil was already gone. Wolson felt awash in emotion - grief for Lil, fear for Maddie, confusion and concern for their future. But the first in a series of lucky breaks was about to come Wolson's way.

"The vet said, 'I have a nurse mare - a little pony - she came with the practice and has raised several foals of her own and several orphans. She's not lactating, but she'll mother the baby, and she's yours if you want her," said Wolson. "It was all so overwhelming, but I said yes, and tried to figure out how to feed this baby." The vet provided Wolson with some powdered formula, and explained how to attach lamb's nipples to plastic bottles ("Dasani water bottles fit best," laughed Mark) to create a nurser for the baby. Wolson was told the filly would need to drink a bottle every two hours until she was ten days old, then every three hours, then eventually every six. The vet recommended they try to get Maddie to be a "bucket baby," but that would prove to be futile.

"She was having no part of that bucket," remembered Wolson. "It was all we could do to get her to nurse."

In fact, their initial attempts to get Maddie to nurse from the bottle didn't go that smoothly.

"She was used to bumping her mother with her head when she nursed, and she couldn't imagine how to do it without that," said Mark. "So I climbed up on the side of the stall, and got Margie to hold me, and I put the bottle under my thigh so when she lifted her head she could bump into my leg the way she used to with her mother. That and the Karo syrup [on the nipple] did the trick."

The next afternoon, Thumper the nurse mare arrived. Wolson was initially skeptical of the tiny white mare, but she soon showed that good things come in small packages.

"She came off the trailer and heard that baby cry, and just took over," said Wolson. "It was just awesome and amazing - she was so fierce in the care of that baby. After that Maddie would come to us for her bottle, and then run right back to Thumper for comfort."

By time Maddie was 11 weeks old, she had graduated completely to Foal-Lac pellets. It was a major turning point for Wolson and her family.

"At last we could sleep through the night," she said.

Today Maddie is a happy, healthy two-year-old filly who made her debut in the hunter breeding ring last fall. As Wolson looks back on her experiences, she feels that several factors led to her successfully raising her orphan.

"Share the suffering," said Wolson, who shared foal - feeding duties with her husband, son, and sister. They managed a schedule where Mark would do the early morning feed before he went to work, Wolson's sister Pat would do the midday feedings, and Wolson would move into an RV they had parked at the barn after work, and she and her son would do the afternoon feedings. Mark, Wolson and her son would have dinner at the RV, then Mark and their son would go home for the night. Wolson would do the feedings through the night, sleeping in the RV throughout the ordeal.

"I would hate for this to happen to someone who keep their horses at home, and they are the only ones around who are horse - inclined. Or, if I had been keeping them at a boarding stable, I wouldn't have been able to manage this," she said. Wolson also gives credit to her fairy godmother, Thumper. "Having that mare to help raise her helped Maddie become more of a real horse. I'd heard so much about the personality problems that orphans often have, how they don't see themselves as horses. Thumper helped Maddie know what she is."

Finally, Wolson credits Maddie herself. "Her personality is such that she wanted to live. She's a real fighter, and she didn't want to be in your pocket - even before her mother died she wasn't at all interested in us. You wouldn't know she's an orphan now.

"I always think, if her brother, [Everythingbutwings] had been the orphan, I don't know if it would have turned out as well, because he's a much more people - oriented type of horse," concluded Wolson. "Even now, he's more in your space and wanting your attention than she is."

After all she's gone through, Wolson admits she's not eager to breed again. "I've thought about breeding Maddie someday, and I don't think I could do it, knowing all that really can go wrong.

"I'd read all the books, and thought I was prepared for all that could go wrong with the foal, I'd never really considered that I could loose my mare and have this orphan to raise. It wasn't really in any of the books," finished Wolson.

To follow Maddie in pictures from birth visit her Web site at Maddie.