Foal ends up with two mums after "one in a million" birth story

SWNS

A foal is now being raised by two mums after a "one in a million" birthing phenomenon left a mother without a foal to care for.  Sol, now just one week old, is being cared for by Mary and Starr, both six years old, after one of the donkeys gave birth to a stillborn foal.  Both mothers gave birth at the same time and both attached to the healthy foal.  Farm owner Ben Best, 32, believes the chances of his two pregnant donkeys giving birth early and at the same time "must be one in a million."  Mary and Starr were expected to give birth in June, so neither donkey was set up in the birthing barn.  Since they foaled more than a month early, they weren't being monitored, so no one at the farm knows which donkey is the biological mother.  Now, the pair shares parental duties equally with Sol feeding from both donkeys.

Transcript

00:00It is the most bizarre thing to see in such a minute chance of this happening.

00:06For those of you who don't know the remarkable story of Saul, our little donkey foal here,

00:12he has two mums.

00:14So both of these mums, Star and Mary, here they are ushering him around the paddock,

00:21were pregnant and due to foal at the same time and that's exactly what they did.

00:24They foaled at identical times.

00:27Now unfortunately, one of the mums had a stillborn foal but the other one had a perfectly healthy foal

00:35and because they foaled at the same time, they both claimed the same healthy foal

00:42and we weren't here at the time to be able to see who gave birth so we have no way of knowing who the mum actually is

00:48but they don't care.

00:50You can see the way they're behaving.

00:52They behave exactly the same way.

00:54Little Saul nurses from both of them.

00:58He feeds from both of them and the good thing is out of this tragic situation of losing a foal

01:03and having a stillborn, not one of these mums is bothered because they both think equally

01:09that that foal is theirs.

01:11So we don't have any grieving mums at all and both of them are quite happy.

01:15They're both happy looking after them 50-50.

01:18So unless things change, unless one of the mums has a change of heart, we'll leave things as they are

01:24and they can be an amazing little trio.

01:28There's no reason to upset the apple cart, upset one of the donkeys and take one off.

01:34So Saul's nearly a week old now and we've kept him inside since he's been born just to monitor mum's behaviour

01:41because it's such a peculiar set of circumstances.

01:43We wanted to make sure that the behaviours of both mums are absolutely fine

01:47and we're confident that we're going to look after him out here in the paddock.

01:51But now everything seems absolutely perfect.

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