Hunter Valley Brumby Association has rescued two orphaned foals

One was found wandering along the live firing range at Singleton Army Base on Monday. The other was discovered down a hole on the site on Wednesday and has been named Brad (I fell in a) Pitt.

They are now learning how to drink from a bucket and adjust to life without their mothers.

It’s an unusual situation for Hunter Valley Brumby Association president Kath Massey who has never had two orphan foals at the same time.

She is up for the challenge, but the cost to feed them has her worried.

She has appealed for donations on social media to help pay for what they need. 

The drought has lifted feed prices and a bag of milk replacement – which gives them all of the nutrients they need to grow big and strong, now costs more than $100.

Read more: The Big Dry – everything you need to know about the drought

It is estimated the charity will have to spend about $3400 on that alone over the next eight months.

Then there is the cost to make a pen big enough for the two of them that’s safe to protect them from injury and predators including wild dogs. That venture will cost around $1000. At the moment they are living in a stock trailer and are let out for a run around.

“The milk replacement is very expensive; we will be going through about one bag a week, it’s a specialty formula and you can’t use anything else. We know it helps them to grow up into big healthy and strong foals,” she said.

“It is cramped in the trailer, we can let them out for exercise but they do need a safe and secure area. It has to be all meshed to keep them safe and keep wild dogs away.”

The first foal, called Tigerlilly because a man from Tiger Company found her, was dehydrated and had several ticks.

She was rushed to Dungog Veterinary Hospital for treatment. 

“I took her straight to the vet because she was very skinny and dehydrated. She’s wearing a tick collar now to protect her,” she said.

“If either one gets a paralysis tick it will kill them because they are so young, and with the weather we have been having lately the ticks are just rife at the moment.”

The foals need to be fed every two hours around the clock and must be closely supervised.

Ms Massey has set up a system that keeps the milk warm and allows them to self-serve via a bucket.

“It is very early days, but so far they are doing very well and are very healthy. We are taking it each day at a time.

“There’s a lot of hard work in front of us.”

Ms Massey said Range Control brought Brad to Maitland to save her the trip to Singleton and he has taken a bit of time to settle in.

“He was on an area of the base where nobody really ever goes and it just so happened they had to do some maintenance there this morning and they found him,” she said. 

She said the mothers could have abandoned them for a range of reasons.

“This is an army base so they have the live firing range, they have bombings regularly, they have night sniper training – there is a lot of activity that goes on there. If the family bolts and a newborn foal can’t keep up they just get left behind,” she said. 

“We are very lucky when we do find them because there is such a large wild dog population out there.”

About 150 wild horses live on the base and have been there since the 1930s.

It is rumoured they are descendants of a Welsh mountain pony that was imported into Australia in the late 1800s.

In the 1950s and 1960s people competed at Sydney’s Royal East Show with the horses, but now the adult horses are too traumatised to be trained.

“They are beautiful little ponies, the adults are far too traumatised from all of the activities on the base unfortunately.

“The foals have a chance to be rehomed because they haven’t been subjected to that environment for long enough.”

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