A series of caches meant to provide a little information about my favourite equine - the donkey:-) All of the donkeys in the photos on the cache pages can be found living nearby at The Donkey Sanctuary of Canada.
A 'foal' is the name of a donkey less than one year of age. Foals are born front-feet-first, followed by the head and the rest of the body (picture a diving position). In a normal foaling situation the delivery takes approcimately 20-40 minutes and the foal will be standing within an hour and nursing within a half hour after that. It is important for foals to injest an adequate amount of colostrum (a yellowish milk produced by their mother starting about two weeks prior to giving birth and ending 12-36 hours after giving birth). The foal's gastrointestinal system can only absorb the antibodies (needed to help the foal fight off bacteria and viruses) within the colostrum during a short window of time-usually the first 12 hours after birth. A slow weaning process is better than abruptly separating a foal from it's mother - distressed foals and mothers may injure themselves in an attempt to reunite when separated too quickly.
Baby Flint, a little over a year old in this picture, was born at the sanctuary as his mother, Diamond, was pregnant when she arrived with her 3 other offspring - Pearl, Jasper and Ruby.