Cleveland Bay mare Shireburn Ava and her beautiful filly foal Scarholme Juno arrived at Rossdales Equine Hospital several hours after Juno’s birth on 10th May. Ava had retained her placenta and Juno was slow to nurse from the mare as a result.
Ava was treated by medicine specialist Emily Floyd and after she had passed her placenta, she also received treatment for post-foaling metritis. Juno was fed initially via nasogastric tube and she received lots of care from our nursing team until she learnt to nurse from the mare. After a week at the hospital, Ava and Juno returned home to their owner, Jackie Sparrow, and Jackie reports that both are making excellent progress.
Ava and Juno’s connection to Rossdales, however, began much earlier. Cleveland Bays are now considered to be a critically endangered breed by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), with only about 1,000 individuals remaining worldwide. With this in mind, Jackie decided to breed Ava to a stallion foaled in 1988, Borderframe Prince Charming, with semen obtained through RBST, using the SPARKS* system to improve the genetic diversity of the breed. Ava was inseminated by our stud vet Billy Fehin and Juno is the resulting foal. Jackie said: “Rossdales’ vets have been with us at every step of this journey and Juno’s breeding is very interesting genetically for the survival of the breed.”
We look forward to following the progress of Ava and Juno and in the meantime you can follow them on Facebook at Scarholme Cleveland Bays.
Images courtesy of Glidergoth Photography
*SPARKS – Single Population Analysis and Records keeping system – find out more about SPARKS here.
