The "Sid Snot" nickname refers to a punk character
played by the British comedian Kenny Everett, "Dandelion" refers to
his masses of fluffy white mane that resembles a dandelion clock, "Poofball"
refers to his general all-over soft fuzziness, "Frank Sinatra" to
his beautiful blue eyes, and I call him "Baby" because he's my
little baby, who I bottle fed until we found a foster mare to take him,
whereas now I just do motherly things like wipe his face and generally
embarrass him in front of his friends! Mostly, however he gets called "Bish".
(Above: Bish shows off his gorgeous
"baby blues" at 1 week and 8 months of age)
Bish got his posh name (Royle Prince Bishop) from his county
of birth - County Durham, which is known as the "Land of the Prince
Bishops", and my home town, Bishop Auckland, which is the location of the
Bishop's Palace. Locals will call the town of Bishop Auckland simply
"Bish", so this confuses my family somewhat when I tell them I'm
"going to Bish" they have to ask if I'm off into town or just down
to the stables!
(Above left: Bish at a week old, above right:
Bish at 11 months old)
Bishop is of very good bloodlines, with his dam being "Sidney
Conner" of Gypsy Grace Ranch
in Vermont, who is a daughter of the famous stallion "Hairy
Conners". Bish was born in the UK before his dam was flown out to
the USA.
Bish was born in early May, but at some
point in his first week of life, a bit of fence became broken in his herd's
pasture, and the person who fixed the fence didn't realise when they did it,
that mother and foal ended up on opposite sides of the fence. Bish's
breeder came to check on the horses a few days later and found them separated,
with Bish having (luckily) attached himself onto another mare who already had
a foal. His breeder tried reintroducing him to his real mum but
unfortunately her milk had dried up and she wouldn't take him. Although
it is possible for a mare to raise two foals, Bish's breeder preferred not to
risk the other mare's valuable filly in case the colt took too much milk, and
so gave Bish away if we could keep him alive he was ours.
I drove across to the farm in my Land
Rover, enlisting the help of a good friend of mine, Richard, who used to be a
mounted police officer - the only horsey friend I had at short notice to help!
We picked up the (then nameless) Bish, and as directed by the National Foaling
Bank, wrapped a blanket around him and put him in the back of the Land Rover
to take him home. Unfortunately Bish didn't like this idea much, so poor
Richard had to almost sit on Bish the whole way home (about an hour's drive)
to stop him from getting up and bouncing around the inside of my car!
When we finally got to the other end Richard was red as a beetroot and
sweating buckets!
I got an emergency pack of foal milk
replacer and a lamb feeding bottle, as I would have to bottle feed the colt
every 2 hours day and night until a foster mare could be found. To start
with Bish was not at all interested in either the bottle, or feeding out of a
bowl, but as the Foaling Bank say, when they're hungry enough - they soon
learn!
After a while he soon learnt about the
bottle and latched on. Later that afternoon I received a call from a
thoroughbred breeder from York who had a mare who had lost twin foals.
He said he could bring her up to us that night and we readily accepted.
The mare ("Topcliffe") arrived around midnight, and we set about
trying to introduce her to Bish. Unfortunately she didn't like him one
bit, so to disguise his smell and try to make her think it was her own foal,
we skinned the largest of her dead foals and tied the skin on Bish so he'd
smell like her own. Topcliffe, however was not fooled and reacted quite
violently towards him, so we carried on bottle feeding, and tried again in the
morning.
(above: Bish in his ikky overcoat)
We persevered with Topcliffe for another
two days but nothing we tried could convince her to like Bish, it was
dangerous for all concerned, and stressful to both mare and foal, so after
giving it all the chances we could, we sent her home again. We did
discover that we could reduce night-time feeds as we found a feeding rack for
lambs which takes 4 bottles and attaches to the wall. We would fill 3
bottles and leave them in the stable with Bish at 11pm, he would regulate his
own intake for the first half of the night, I'd drive along to the stables at
3am and replace the bottles, then at 7am Claire, who owns the livery stables,
would remove the empties (or untouched bottles) and feed him again.
Every day we took Bish out in a little
paddock to play around and stretch his (increasingly hairy) legs, and although
he wasn't imprinted at birth, indeed he hadn't been handled at all until we
picked him up at a week old, he was so laid back that I could handle him like
a grown horse - he loves being brushed, he picks all his feet up and even let
the farrier run a rasp over them lightly (for training rather than trimming!)
and tap them with a hammer, he let me hose off his feathers when he got muddy,
and wasn't bothered when I flapped a towel around and over him, round his
legs, belly, neck and even draped it over his head - completely unbothered -
puzzled but not bothered!
The day after we sent Topcliffe home I
received a call from Alison Bell who owns a
livery stables at Prestwick near Newcastle Airport. She had a
thoroughbred mare who had a stillborn foal in the early hours of that morning.
She didn't want her mare to leave her own premises so we agreed to bring Bish
to her farm to see if her mare would accept him. I did some frantic
phoning round trying to find a horse transporter at short notice (there was no
way Bish was going back in my Land Rover again!) and a lovely guy from the
Gibside Stud came out to pick us up.
I traveled in the truck with Bish - who
traveled absolutely fine on the hour-long journey - he didn't even raise a
sweat, nor did he want to lie down - he just stood there, occasionally
swishing his tail if he was annoyed at a particularly bumpy bit of road - he
was even relaxed enough to finish a whole bottle of milk as we drove, whereas
~ I ~ was a sick as a dog! :o)
When we finally got to Alison's farm the
mare - "Creamcake" started whinnying as soon as she saw Bish, and
although she had the odd squeal, on the whole she seemed to like having him
around (at least in front of her nose) but reacted rather sharply whenever
anyone got near her udders. We spent a few hours trying to persuade her
to like him, and even built a mini-stable out of hay bales to put Bish in
right up against her stable door so he was under her nose. She liked him
there, but still didn't want ANYONE touching her udders. We rubbed the
afterbirth from her foal all over Bishop so he smelled more
"new-born", but it still didn't alter the fact she didn't want to
feed him. We tried taking Bish away to see what she'd do, and she got
VERY upset when he went out of her range of sight, when we brought him back,
she relaxed, so a few times we took him away, she got upset, and we brought
him back again, but STILL she didn't want him sucking.
It was my mum who finally suggested that
she might be sore from a build up of milk and that we should try milking some
off to relieve the pressure. I hit upon the idea of giving her food
rewards whenever she let me get near her udder, until finally she accepted me
touching and milking her udder for a reward. It was a tense moment
indeed when I finally pushed (a very patient) Bishop towards her udder, and
after a bit of fumbling on his part, he latched on and Creamcake didn't mind.
We stayed with them to supervise for a
couple of hours longer but soon it was clear that Creamcake thought Bish was
HER foal and wouldn't let him out of her sight. When they were out in
the paddock, if bad weather threatened, she pushed Bish into the field shelter
so he would'nt get wet, if another horse 3 fields away so much as LOOKED at
her baby, she hid him!
After being weaned, Bishop is now back home again making
everyone at the stables fall in love with him all over again!
(Above: Bish mutual grooms with 17.1hh
eventer, Harvey, hanging out with eventers Teddy and Harvey, and bottom,
grazing with 12.2hh caspian pony Buttons - I shall have to take the measuring
stick to Bish again as he has skyrocketed and it looks like he is going to be
a heck of a big boy!)
Click
here to view more photos of Bish
(Above: short video clip turned into an
animation showing Bish at a week old gambolling in the paddock)
