An unlikely love story between an orphaned foal and a horse that lost her baby is moving people to tears online.
Her owners, Iris Pinkster, 30, and Sanne Kolman, 22, shared a moving video to their TikTok page, Equitality, earlier this month.
The pair, from The Netherlands, tragically revealed their mare, Citty Z, lost the foal she was expecting this summer.
The friends said: "Our mare lost her first foal two months early this week. We wanted to offer her as a foster mother. This little boy lost his mommy today. He was already weak, so asap needed a new mommy."
The touching video shows the orphaned colt bonding with Citty Z, 12, as the owners shared follow-up videos documenting the pair's progress.
They said: "She accepted him immediately as if it was her own baby. Such a proud mom. Welcome little boy. They loved each other right away. Today we took them outside for the first time.
"They love each other so much. He needed some extra food, and lots of love. And now five days later he is a happy little guy. And his mom is so proud."
Responding to comments, they revealed the foal's mother passed away when he was a few days old.
"The foal was born the night we lost ours. They took this foal away on day three and their mare passed away a few hours after they arrived at our place," they said.
They confirmed that he'll fly the nest one day, adding: "He will return home when he's old enough."
Speaking to Newsweek, the owners added the foal didn't have a name yet.
They said: "I bought Citty about two years ago. But because she has the best personality and sweetness we really wanted to have a foal from her. She had seven weeks left before giving birth, but due to an inflammation on the placenta (placentitis) her foal died and she gave birth way too early.
"She was really confused after she lost her baby and you could tell the whole herd was grieving with her. We looked so much forward to having a Citty Z 2.0 so it was really sad that it went wrong. We placed our story on Facebook and through a friend (our photographer Julia) we got in contact with the owners of the foster foal.
"They called us, and needed a foster mare immediately. This was 3 days after our mare lost her foal, so she still had milk. We told them they could bring the foal right away and see if the mare would accept her new baby. The foal will go back to his owners once he is old enough. If there is any chance of buying him, then of course we would do so!
"Luckily Citty accepted her new baby right away. They were just in love from the start! They are both doing so well. It is always tricky if the mare will accept the foal, but we were in luck. The foal was already weak so it would be very tricky for him if she didn't accept him."
The video, captioned "how strange & beautiful this world can be" soon went viral, amassing more than eight million views.
The heart-warming tale moved people to tears, as Fran from the Rainbow Bridge commented: "The foal's mother is taking care of the mare's baby right now."
While AnetteH said: "This made me cry. The fact that an animal will instantly accept and care for a baby that needs them, it's so beautiful."
"You can see life back in her eyes," Mya wrote, referring to Citty Z.
While Katrina Rotar commented: "Not me bawling my eyes out over this."
And You Don't See Me admitted: "I'm crying. Like this makes me so happy but it's so sad at the same time. She is such a good momma."
While Addison Jarman wrote: "I'm sobbing. Never knew how sweet this could be for animals."
Sanne, who's completing hergraphic design studies, and Iris, a horse dentist, have seven horses in total, with the others called Rose, Yellow, Bambi, Nala, Hero and Peanut.
The friends document their lives with the menagerie, who live at Iris's home, on their various social media channels.
Explaining more about the set-up, their website says: "We are Sanne and Iris, two good friends. We had known each other for some time through the horses, but when we met each other at the beginning of 2019, we appeared to have a similar plan for the future. Then why not join forces? Shortly afterwards Equitality!
"We spend a lot of time making fun and informative videos about us and the horses. We always have a lot of fun together and we certainly try to radiate that cheerfulness in the videos. Of course things sometimes go wrong, but we always try to have a positive attitude towards life and to inspire others with this."
