Early this
fall, I got a frantic call from one of my friends. One
of her jennets had a foal and just left it in the
pasture. The baby was with their horse and "momma
donkey" was no where to be found. Immediately they took
the foal to the barn then found the jennet that had him
and took her to the barn. She was a maiden jennet and
wanted nothing to do with the foal plus she didn’t have
much milk.
The vet
came out and checked out the foal and jennet and gave
her Oxytocin and something to calm her down so the baby
could nurse, however, it didn’t work. I told her to milk
the jennet and give the foal the milk. He needed the
colostrum.
They
milked her and gave the foal the colostrum and
throughout the day and night, they would either milk the
jennet or try to restrain her so the foal could nurse
and "hopefully" she would accept him. No way Jose’. She
didn’t like the foal and continually tried to kick him
so they were forced to take the foal out of the stall
with his mother.
After
about 3 days of bottle feeding the foal with milk
replacer, my friend and her husband were just about to
collapse from exhaustion. Between taking care of their
other animals, feeding the foal, and both working, they
were desperate for help.
I
remembered a story that our farrier had shared with us
and also another friend had used successfully. I
immediately got on the internet and emailed it to my
friend.
You get an
Igloo cooler (or something like it) and remove the
spigot. Get a piece of PVC pipe that will screw in where
the spigot was. Use a lamb’s nipple over the end of the
PVC pipe and secure it with a ty-wrap or a hose clamp.
Mix up your milk replacer and put it in the cooler and
replace the lid. This not only will keep the milk warm
but will also keep the flies out. You can hang it on the
fence or on the inside of the stall. Then it’s just
teaching the foal to suck from it instead of the bottle.
