Things could have turned out very differently for tiny day-old foal Charley, found alone and collapsed in a ditch. But now – nine months later – she has recovered, recently been rehomed and can look forward to a bright future. Charley was rescued from the ditch in Cheshire by the fire service and immediately moved to a veterinary hospital where she could be given life-saving treatment. Following improvement in her condition, two days later in June last year, she was transferred to Penny Farm, World Horse Welfare’s Rescue and Rehoming Centre near Blackpool, Lancashire.
There was no response to attempts to find Charley’s owner, and her mother had been nowhere to be seen when Charley was discovered, so the team at Penny Farm began the long and intensive round-the-clock job of hand-rearing her, feeding her by bottle every two hours around the clock for several months.
By August, Charley was strong enough to begin spending time out in a paddock with some of the other youngsters at Penny Farm, where she began to learn how to properly interact with other horses. It took Charley a while to relax around other horses but thankfully she soon became firm friends with some of her companions, including another orphan foal.