Rare, twin foals born in Alabama

By CNN Newsource

Published June 5, 2021 7:52 AM

THOMASVILLE, Alabama (WALA) — Am Heath in Thomasville knew her horse, Raven was pregnant, but she and the vet completely missed a second foal.

“I had no idea what to do because this just doesn’t happen,” Heath said.

Three weeks ago, Raven went into labor and delivered a colt prematurely and when she didn’t get up to nurse, Heath noticed Raven was still in labor.

Heath said, “I pulled the filly out and she was alive and feisty and happy and I mean she was healthy. She was small. It truly is a miracle that they’re here.”

A miracle is right! According to horsefactbook.com, there’s only a one in 10,000 chance a mare will carry twins. To put it in perspective, humans have a 3 in 100 chance to carry twins. Most of the time, one of the horse twins will die before birth and if they are born they, usually don’t make it past 2 weeks.

“Every day I wake up nervous to see what’s going on because it’s something different every single day,” Heath said.

Though they’re not in the clear yet, dealing with some leg issues, Heath said her three week old foals are thriving. She’s named them Kylo and Ray from Star Wars, but calls usually just calls Ray, “Sister”.

“Oh my word! She’s (Sister) just a puppy dog. When you go up to her, she’ll lay in your lap and she will let you pat her, scratch her and Kylo is just the opposite. He wants to come up and get you,” laughed Heath.

She takes professional pictures and videos almost daily, keeping her now hundreds of Facebook friends updated on their condition.

She said, “People shared it and then other people shared it and then it just kind of kind of blew up. I have more friend requests than I can accept. Just people wanting to keep up with the foals.”

Thanks to the power of Facebook, Heath said people have been willingly bringing horse supplies and medicine from all over to help out with the twins, since Thomasville is hours away from a vet that treats foals.

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