This past weekend our neighbor that winters our mares called and said that we had a mare that stole a colt. We rushed down the 10 miles to where the mares are at and he luckily had the mares and colt in the corral. One of our 3 year old mares had her first colt, a fancy palamino stud colt. An older mare had stolen him and we had no idea how long it had been since he had been born. We got the young mother and her baby loaded in the trailer and brought them to the home place. The mare was not liking her new offspring and would kick and bite at him. We put her in our calving chute to milk her out and fed the colt from a pop bottle. He drank really well and even sucked some off of the mare. The mare would let the colt suck as long as we stood there but would kick at him if we left them alone. We fed him two times that night and again the next morning and then at about 11:00. He was doing great on the bottle but momma was not interested. It was looking like we were going to have an orphan on our hands, not the most ideal situation. Trent went out again at 2:00 and the baby was laying flat and was unresponsive. We tried to feed him again but he left us for greener pastures. It was a sad day and there were some tears shed by all especially our three year old son. That is the hard part of ranching, the daily toll and stress of caring for these little lives. We try our best but it doesn't always work out for the positive.
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