Rhoads Six, the horse, was our last foal due in 2007. He was born late in the year on June 1 st , a few days after my admission to Penn for treatment of AML. I watched his birth live on my computer with my nurse as she was administering my second dose of chemotherapy. My husband and helpers at the farm welcomed him into the world. He was already special to us as he would be the last foal by the stallion Awad and the full brother to one of our favorite horses that we had bred. He is out of our Thoroughbred mare that we call Priss. She was the second mare that we bought when we started the farm and the mother of several of our best racing foals so far. She is unfortunately also a very difficult mare and she doesn’t get along well with others.
Rhoady’s first few months were spent with his mother only so he did not get to socialize with the other foals. He was a tough and difficult foal to work with so when it was time to wean him it should have been no surprise that he would be unique during this time as well.
When weaning I usually separate the mare and foal using stall partitions for a week or two and then remove the mare one day and take her to the other side of the farm. Then the foal goes out with the other weaned foals. I have done this for years and have minimally stressful weanings.
This time when I tried to start the weaning process with Rhoady, he went nuts. With the partition up he was still next to his mother and could still see and touch her. He threw his whole body at the wall between them, he just kept backing up and then throwing himself full force against the wall. After he started showing scrapes and cuts on his shoulder and head I decided he wasn’t getting over it and was going to really hurt himself.
I had to come up with Plan B! A couple of years ago I had read an article about the use of donkeys for weaning. I had a friend with a donkey so I asked if I could borrow him for a few days and we all thought we’d give it a try! We put the donkey, Chalupa, in a stall, sedated Rhoady and took him from his mother and put him in the stall with Chalupa and tethered him to the donkey by an eighteen inch rope attached at the halters. We took the mare away and by the time Rhoady woke up she was gone. He was so dismayed by what he found attached to him when he woke up, he never cried for his mother.
Chalupa would lead him around the stall and they would eat hay together. For three days they stayed tethered together in the stall. They were doing very well so I decided to take the tether off and see how they would do. They were great so I decided to turn them out with the other weanlings. The other weanlings were fascinated by the donkey and Rhoady was fascinated by the other weanlings! Everyone did great so we did that for a few days. Each day Rhoady moved closer to the other weanlings and away from Chalupa. After about a week of this we took Chalupa away and Rhoady didn’t have any trouble at all. Finally he was just one of the weanlings.
Rhoady has continued to be a unique horse with a wonderfully curious and fun personality. He got started with a little training to get used to a saddle and bridle and a rider on his back. He was very good for all of that. He has grown into a very big horse and will go into race training at the end of 2009, to start racing as a 3 year old in 2010.
We can’t wait to see what he can do!!