Twin TWH Colts Beat Odds

©Voice, June 2007

Clay and Paige Hackney’s fearless TWH trail horse Thunder’s Diamond Reo, selected to be bred because of her great temperament, gorgeous head, luxurious mane and tail, and beautiful doe eyes. We know that she had been bred once before and had a black colt. She is a black mare with small star. She was bred to Rockie’s Bandit, a black and white spotted TWH, one of the studs at Magic Mountain Farm in Winchester, VA.

It was a cool spring evening and Thunder showed few signs of impending labor other than a dropped belly and a relaxed vulva. No waxing, no loss of appetite, and her udders, although enlarged were not bulging. After spending 2 weeks sleeping on a mattress in the barn with the dogs, Clay called me from the barn on his cell phone to come down and get our 3 Great Pyrenees because Thunder was banging on the gate, indicating to Clay that she was ready. I stayed in the house with our 2 young children, Bronwyn, 4, and Fain, 16 months. He called again a few minutes later on the cell phone to give me the play-by-play of the delivery. I heard, ”Here come the front feet…and the nose...it’s black…the back feet are coming…Oh no!…There’s something wrong with the back legs…That’s not the back legs…It’s twins…Call the vet!”

Our neighbor kindly came over to watch our sleeping children so that Clay and I could tend to the health of the babies. Both were black colts, and one was larger than the other. Their navel stumps were cleaned and tied off, and then we dried them and covered them with blankets to keep them warm. After a few hours, both were up and staggering around. The smaller of the 2, whom we nicknamed Lucky, couldn’t reach Thunder’s teats so Clay milked Thunder and fed Lucky the colostrum through a syringe. Later, he would lift up the colt’s front end so that he could suck from the teat himself. All 3 horses were taken the next day to REACH Equine Center in Millwood, Virginia to have their colostrums levels and general health checked by Dr. Rode. They were healthy, and after 2 days of observation were sent home.

Today Lucky and Lil’Ace, who was named after our gelding Ace because they look and act exactly alike, are both healthy, active colts with a very patient and protective mother.

FACTS

• 90% of mares carrying twins abort them before 150 days of gestation
• Of twins carried to the end of gestation, only 1 in 10,000 deliver 2 live foals
• Of the 1 in 10,000 twins born alive 80% result in the death of one or both foals