Cinderella (Cindy)

Cindy's Story

Cinderella was born on a freezing, wet February day, 3 weeks prematurely. She was found with our mare, Rosie, at 7am. I quickly scooped her up, cold and wet, while Pip followed with Rosie. We took them in and dried Cindy off but when we observed her try to feed, Rosie had no milk - we hadn't been expecting her to foal, she wasn't bagged up at all. The vet was called and she injected Rosie to induce lactation. We scoured West Yorkshire for colostrum replacement and powdered foal milk but when we finally got it, Cindy was very reluctant to feed from a bottle. Rosie still had no milk and despite combing her field for the afterbirth, we couldn't find it.

Meanwhile, our mares, Foxy and Sunny, in another field were very unsettled - whinnying, charging around and creating. Later that day, on checking them closer, Foxy was still not herself and was running milk - alarm bells rang! And in her field was an afterbirth. Had Foxy foaled too and where was her baby? Had something taken her foal? Ironically a fox?! ........... Or could Cindy actually be Foxy's baby? The only way to resolve this was to call the vet again to examine the 2 mares to see if one or both had foaled. We took Foxy and Rosie in with Cindy who immediately went to Foxy, who accepted her but we couldnt risk cruelly taking Rosie's baby from her if Cindy belonged to her.

The vet arrived and confirmed Foxy had foaled, Rosie hadn't. After foaling, Cindy had somehow got from Foxy's field into Rosie's and Rosie had adopted her! Rosie was upset at losing Cindy but with lots of TLC she soon came round.

As at least 12 hours had passed, Cindy had to be tube fed, then had 2 plasma infusions as her blood tests showed her immunity levels were dangerously low - touch and go but she pulled through [after days of us virtually living in the stable!] It was such a joy to see her go out for the first time and race around the field!

The moral of this story is never take anything for granted and listen to your mares - with hindsight, Foxy and Sunny were trying to tell us but we were too engrossed with Cindy to take heed.