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Ruby's adopted mom wrote this: I wasn't looking for a foal when I found Ruby. I was just browsing the listings at
Dream Horse.com and happened across the rescues ad on there. I'd been searching for a Quarter Horse to Trail ride. I don't
recall just what the ad said, but it got my attention. There was the website for the Rescue, and when I read about Nurse Mare
Farms, and the "by-product" foals, my heart just broke. I was appalled that such a practice what allowed and not illegal. There
was no way I couldn't get one. I called that Rescue, and within the week I was headed south, my trailer well padded with several
bales of fresh straw. I got there, and I wanted to bring them all home. I still want to bring them all home. When I first
saw Ruby, I thought she was beautiful, I fell in love at first sight. The whole way home I had to keep stopping
and checking on her, my oldest daughter wanted to ride in the trailer with her. We felt like we'd been given a precious gift. I
spent the whole week before I got Ruby searching for a goat in milk so I'd have the best nutrition possible available for
her. I grew up having to milk goats and always swore I'd never own one myself. Well I couldn't let my baby have anything that
wasn't absolutely best for her, so now we have a goat. As it turns out, we aren't feeding her goat milk after all. In my search
for a goat, I called the man who runs the Kidron auction, and he has a friend who had a mare who's baby was born blind, and
sick. They wanted to find a foal in need so that the Mare's milk wasn't wasted. So now we also have a Standardbred Mare. All
to provide for our little gem of a filly. Ruby is a Quarter Horse, Saddlebred cross, and she's the most beautiful baby I've
ever seen. I wouldn't be happier with her if she had come with a Pedigree, and papers. My whole family just adores her, and
I'm pretty sure she feels the same way. I will continue to adopt a foal a year as long as my barn has empty stalls in it.
I won't always have a mare to adopt my orphans, but I will always have the mare that adopted Ruby, and she will live out the
rest of her days in peace and not be bred again. She's 25 years old, has had 16 foals, and some of those foals, have gone
for as much as $15,000. One even raced and won half a million dollars. That's pretty impressive, but to me the most impressive
thing Barb has done is to take Ruby and be a good mother to her. I'm in her debt, with out a doubt, that mare is doing a better
job than I could have ever hoped to do. Raising a nurse mare foal is a very rewarding experience, one that I hope someday,
won't be necessary.
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