Foster
Adopted by Edie on 1501545600
Foster was an Amish workhorse who got rescued twice. He was bought at an auction by a kill buyer, and then bailed from the kill pen in 2015 or 2016. After some months, the woman who owned him took him back to auction, where an HPF foster barn owner saw him and notified us. So I rescued him again.
After being in quarantine, he came to Surrey Lane Farm in Hamilton, MA, as my guest for several months in the summer of 2017. I named him Foster. He was a big horse, and extremely skinny. He clearly had some issues with his back feet and legs—his fetlock and hock joints were misshapen, probably from being forced to pull loads far too heavy for him.
His demeanor when he first arrived was very shut down. He did what was asked of him and stood quietly to be groomed, but his eyes were dull and he wasn’t reaching out to connect with people. At Surrey Lane, Foster lived in an in-and-out stall next to other horses, and slowly settled in.
He had a huge appetite for hay, and got to eat plenty of it while he was at Surrey Lane. Foster started to put on weight very quickly, and soon was looking like the horse he probably used to be, big and strong, with a nice coat and a bright eye. His back legs, however, were never going to be fully sound, so at best he would make a good companion horse.
I decided to retire him to pasture. It seemed like the right thing to do; let him just be a horse, probably for the first time in his life. So Fairway Horse Transport trailered him to Horse Heaven in Bear Creek, North Carolina, where he lived outdoors in a big pasture with a herd. We got updates on how he was doing, and a few photos. He was big and glossy, and looked very content.
In October 2019, we got some sad news: Foster had colicked and was put down. He deserved a far better life than he had, but at least the last couple of years were good, living in a beautiful place with friends and plenty of grass. I am so grateful that I was able to do that for him.
