PHILLIP Deaves has been around horses all of his life, and is considered one of the district’s most experienced horsemen.
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But even he was surprised by what he discovered in a paddock at his Cooranbong property on the morning of August 23.
Mr Deaves checked in on his pregnant Australian stock horse mare, Nugget, just after 9am, then headed into an adjacent paddock to do some work.
“When I came back on the tractor there were two little heads in the paddock,” Mr Deaves said.
“I thought I needed to get my eyes checked.
“But the mare had foaled in 30 or 35 minutes. I had no idea she was ready to go.”
The twins – a bay colt and a chestnut filly – looked healthy and bright eyed from the moment they were born.
“The little chestnut was the last to get up. She was a little bit weak, but she soon got to her feet, and everything was good,” Mr Deaves said.
Twins are rare in the horse world.
“It seems fairly rare that twins survive,” he said.
“People I’ve spoken to said it was quite rare for two to be born alive. Usually, only one survives – if any.”
According to the website The Horse, an online guide to equine care, the twins have defied all sorts of odds.
The website said between 2 per cent and 5 per cent of horse pregnancies are twins, however “the majority of these cases end in abortion, with less than 1 per cent giving birth to live foals”.
Mr Deaves said he’d been told it was also relatively rare for twin horses not to be of the same gender.
And furthermore, most mares tended to give birth at night.
“I have a friend at Mandalong who has had 40 foals born on his property, and only one of those was born in the daytime,” Mr Deaves said.
Nugget had given birth to seven foals prior to the twins.
“We’ve had her here since last Christmas, and this is the result,” he said.
He said Nugget was a good mother who exercised the foals by leading them for a trot along the fence line.
The foals have yet to be named, but Mr Deaves’ grandchildren have provided a list of suggestions.
“The twins look pretty healthy to me, and we didn’t need any veterinarian assistance,” Mr Deaves said.
This is not the first twins born on the property.
“My black Angus cow had twin calves in the same paddock – a male and a female – exactly the same as the mare,” he said.
“So I’ve told my wife Glenda to stay out of that paddock and not to drink the water. I don’t need another set of twins.”