Keith Warburton is usually the very first human our foals get to meet, though how much they remember about the time he pulled them out of mummy by feeling for their forehead and manipulating their front legs is uncertain. Nor do they realise how many hours he spent beforehand, checking their mother’s udders and watching on camera or waking up to a foaling alarm to be right there the moment they chose to arrive.
Or that he was the first to help them stand and guide them to the udder full of nourishing colostrum to ward off ailments in their early weeks, and to give them that uncomfortable enema to help them pass the first droppings that otherwise could cause severe constipation.
For Keith is the foaling maestro at Shade Oak, the person who makes sure that the young ones have the best possible chance of beginning their life properly. Even after they are foaled his care does not cease. He helps them take their first steps outside and watches them graze with their mothers, looking for any signs of ailments that could be life-threatening if not treated immediately; and he constantly checks that they are filling out and growing as they should.
Dorte refers to Keith as the ‘Mother Theresa’ of the foaling shed, and the fact that our new-born foals are in his care means that pretty well all we have to worry about is whether they are colts or fillies and how many legs they have. N.B. For newcomers to horse breeding, four is the optimum number.