milking a horse

I read a book by Alice Hoffman called The Red Garden where one of the characters milks a hibernating bear to keep her people alive. I loved this book and even though this scenario of a women going into a bear den to milk it is wayyyyyyy out there I never flinched reading it. I say just write it, she milks the mare and saves the babies. Make the mare a very docile mare who is currently nursing a foal and milk the mare while the foal is nursing....something like that.

Just my two cents

Well, that's it. If it's a scene that you really want to write - hey, I'm certain it is far from the least plausible scene put on paper. Don't worry about "will people who milk horses realize MC is doing it wrong," because unless your reader is from the Asian steppes they'll never have done it themselves. Your biggest critics will be people who feed babies, and if the rest of your story is decent, most of them will likely read through, cocked eyebrow or not.

Twick said:

Well, that's it. If it's a scene that you really want to write - hey, I'm certain it is far from the least plausible scene put on paper. Don't worry about "will people who milk horses realize MC is doing it wrong," because unless your reader is from the Asian steppes they'll never have done it themselves. Your biggest critics will be people who feed babies, and if the rest of your story is decent, most of them will likely read through, cocked eyebrow or not.

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Exactly.

I'm not trying to re-write your book for you, but I am also in the category where I need my main characters actions to be logical. If the babies are so frail that they will die without food in the next few hours, then I want her calling the doctor because those are very sick children. That hour spent trying to figure out how to corral and milk horse would leave seriously ill kids alone for a long time. And again, if there are farm hands working on an estate, I can't imagine 95% of them wouldn't drop what they were doing to get milk for sick babies, even if they didn't know the new nurse very well.

taraesque said:

I'm not trying to re-write your book for you, but I am also in the category where I need my main characters actions to be logical. If the babies are so frail that they will die without food in the next few hours, then I want her calling the doctor because those are very sick children. That hour spent trying to figure out how to corral and milk horse would leave seriously ill kids alone for a long time. And again, if there are farm hands working on an estate, I can't imagine 95% of them wouldn't drop what they were doing to get milk for sick babies, even if they didn't know the new nurse very well.

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Yes for sure, the author really runs the risk of losing the audience if we are talking about newborn babies...triplets...surviving in 1938 on horse milk. I'm a mother to twins who were born premature, most likely in 1938 triplets who are frail would not survive. It would be very hard for me to suspend my own personal belief in this novel. With the bear being milked it just fit the story and we weren't talking about high risk babies, it was a group of people who left an area and settled in a new area. If she had tried to say the bears milk saved a failing baby the nurse in my would have scoffed and I probably would've stopped reading.

Write what you want...just realize that if its so far fetched and out of the norm you may lose the reader.

Reminder - this is not a brainstorming forum. Please don't assume you need to advise the OP what does or doesn't work for the story.

If in doubt read the Forum Guidelines.

Take the babies to the horse. See if they find the teat.

There are records of Triplets surviving in the early 20th century (The Del Rubio triplets were born in the 20s in Panama), though of course prior to modern techniques for assisting premature newborns triplet mortality rates (and maternal morbidity and mortality) would be much higher overall than for singletons, or even for twins (also high-risk births).

Works of fiction often focus on unusual or extraordinary situations. As long as the unusualness of the situation is acknowledged in some way (maybe by having other characters expressing amazement or disbelief when told the story), it's not necessarily a problem, imo.

Another thing to remember is that most readers don't come to a book as willing to pick at the suspension of disbelief as are folks on writing forums. That's not an excuse for failing to research or to not do one's homework (and it drives me nuts when blatant mistakes or misinformation make it through the editing process and are presented as narrative truths and not opinions of a character), but again, stories often center around exceptional circumstances.

TellMeAStory said:

Thank you everybody for your help on this.

Lily, whose only assignment was to transport those triplets from the big city hospital to the estate, has received help from the man who cares for the horses here.

He thinks mare's milk ideal, drinks it every day, has raised his sons on mare's milk, and sets Lily up with the most agreeable of his horses. She does the actual milking, pasteurizes the milk, adds syrup--but not water, as the milk looks plenty water-y to her, further prepares as with any formula, then feeds her triplets. They are whisked off to Europe thereafter, and she never sees or hears of them again.

But she'll have this story to tell for years.

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Plausible. Written right I'd buy into it.

Jim Clark-Dawe

TellMeAStory said:

Thank you everybody for your help on this.
>snip<
But she'll have this story to tell for years.

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Bravx! What a great way to incorporate all the advice. I bow my keyboard to you.

If you just want the logistics of milking a mare - google it and look for videos. She should sterilize the udder and of course her hands (we use sterile gloves). There is a method using a syringe as well, but it's with a plastic syringe, which I don't think they had in the 30s. I think the digestive challenges would come from a different bacterial flora, but if it's pasteurized, I'd probably buy in. :-D

Google the composition of mare's milk vs. human. It's apparently more similar in composition than cow's milk.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0958694602001206 "Mare's milk shows some structural and functional peculiarities that make it more suitable for human nourishment than cow's milk."

And I've had to wean foals at 3 months. At this age the foal was already eating hard feed (grain) on his own, and did just fine (though normally I wouldn't wean till 5 months). Honestly, a well-handled mare will let herself be milked. You're probably going to be a lot kinder than her foal! :-D

(my qualifications: broodmare manager for TB racehorses, and BSc in Food Science. Disclaimer - I know nothing about human kids!)

Roxxsmom said:

There are records of Triplets surviving in the early 20th century (The Del Rubio triplets were born in the 20s in Panama), though of course prior to modern techniques for assisting premature newborns triplet mortality rates (and maternal morbidity and mortality) would be much higher overall than for singletons, or even for twins (also high-risk births).

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The Del Rubio triplets sounds like a hot date for Fonzie. Hehe, I'm old.

I'd also buy into the story as presented.

(Incidentally was just mentioning Fonzie to hubby this morning wondering if it was short for Alphonse (my MC) then recalled no, Fonzie is Arthur Fonzerelli. But for a brief shining moment my MC was the Fonz.)

We now take you back to your regularly scheduled program, Milking Mares.

Aside from what other people mentioned already about nutrition, viability, ease, etc. I have one other thing to add. On such an estate the horses are probably going to be Hunter types and therefore very very expensive considering the times and who would be buying them. Even if they were draft animals it would be super expensive to buy. Have you thought about how if the foal were to die from lack of nutrition or milk it could have some serious repercussions for your MC. An estate that breeds horses would rely on their ability to produce quality animals and improve their own bloodlines. Even one foal, could have years of investment in lineage, money, time. They may have had to pay someone else a stud fee to keep inbreeding at bay and you can't just breed back a mare whose just foaled. So there's lost time and money there. Not to mention the loss of potential. I know from family journals that detail the gossip of the time among other things that costing someone their future bloodlines of their estate of that relies on breeding could mean anything from expulsion from the family service (good luck getting another job because it wasn't just a matter of keeping it off your resume. Gossip travels, particularly among those with the money to afford servants), to jail and/or a fine levied against you. It could also mean death depending on the status of the individual, time period, place. Not just directly but indirectly. A mark like that against you -nobody- will hire you in their home, especially those who aren't well off, if you don't have a job you don't have money for food or a home...

Honestly, even if the MC is in no position to give orders to anyone, other servants on the household will help if only to avoid their employers wrath. Because if the employer comes home to find someone tampered with their animals you can bet everyone will receive some measure of displeasure.

A good horse (and if they have an estate and breeding them) could easily go for the entire year's wages of a hardworking family. Not to mention if the mare panics or gets mad, kicks out, and damages herself. Especially if it's the legs they damage. That would be the death of mare and foal and perhaps generations (horse not human generations) of breeding, if it killed even part of a bloodline then I can almost guarantee that your MC will have a very short life expectancy. A lot of people relied on their animals for survival. Even a hunter estate would be crippled by the loss of even a few mares, perhaps even to the point permanent damage.

Roxxsmom said:

There are records of Triplets surviving in the early 20th century (The Del Rubio triplets were born in the 20s in Panama), though of course prior to modern techniques for assisting premature newborns triplet mortality rates (and maternal morbidity and mortality) would be much higher overall than for singletons, or even for twins (also high-risk births).

Works of fiction often focus on unusual or extraordinary situations. As long as the unusualness of the situation is acknowledged in some way (maybe by having other characters expressing amazement or disbelief when told the story), it's not necessarily a problem, imo.

Another thing to remember is that most readers don't come to a book as willing to pick at the suspension of disbelief as are folks on writing forums. That's not an excuse for failing to research or to not do one's homework (and it drives me nuts when blatant mistakes or misinformation make it through the editing process and are presented as narrative truths and not opinions of a character), but again, stories often center around exceptional circumstances.

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I recall in my youth reading something in L.M. Montgomery's opus of a girl saying "Did you know twins don't often grow up, and triplets hardly ever?" So it sounds like it would be viewed as rare, but not impossible, for triplets (especially upper class ones) to survive.