breeding question

[paisjpq]

Originally Posted by Cunningham Racing

Yep, this is one of the reasons that there is such things as nurse mares....a lot of nurse mares are just cheap Belgium horses that can really provide good natural nourishment to foals if the original broodmare dies or does the rare refusal to take on her foal....

the ideal nurse mare should be a draft cross as opposed to a pure draft. That way one can get the benefits of the draft horse easy going nature while NOT getting a mare that will produce so much milk that it puts the TB foal at risk for excessive growth and therefore OCD...
And in my experience the foal will only accept one or the other--meaning if it goes on a nurse mare it won't bottle/bucket feed or if it's on a bottle too long it won't go back to the mare to feed.