Blind Ambition - November 2007

So Much For The Gradual Weaning...

In this particular case anyway. The filly is now 3 1/2 months old. Mom's patience with baby is growing thinner and thinner. Mom wants to free from this baby responsibility in a bad way. We have decided to wean them to prevent any possible injury to the foal. Since the gradual weaning is not going well, we make arrangements for the owner to take Mom from the farm on Thursday Nov 21.

Needless to say I am very concerned as to how this will go. The foal is eating grain/hay and drinking on her own. She has been for a while now due to Mom not allowing her to nurse. So that is a definite plus. I plan to give her foal lac powdered milk for a short while just to make sure she is getting all the nutrition she needs. As I mentioned previously in the story Mom was never to keen on being a Mom so we have continually monitored the foal’s well being. We wanted to keep the foal with her Mom for as long as possible. If we weaned her to early I was concerned with her not getting the proper nutrition.

The Great Escape
November 21, 2007
Mom is loaded and off she goes without looking back, not even a whinny to her foal. However, this is not true for baby. She is already hollering for her mom. Oh Boy, I did say I liked adventures. Right?


Hoarse Horse
We have tried to think about the best way to handle this. We decided to move her to the stall that is adjoined with the other horses to give her some equine company. That way she will have Willy, Biggest and Indy all around her. I have been playing this scene in my head for days now. Instead of just leaving her in her stall to contemplate this new part of her life I decided to try and keep her busy, keep her mind off it. We go for long walks several times a day. She begins to cry for her mother immediately, non-stop pretty much. She is agreeable to walk but then remembers she is not with her mom and will start to holler for her. Within 24 hrs she looses her voice. This horse becomes hoarse.

I have taken time off from work to be close by. When she is in her stall she circles. Sometimes her circles get fast and furious. I was afraid she would injure herself. When we are not taking her for walks we are with her in her stall pretty much constantly. Whenever we leave she runs in circles in what I now call her panic attacks. They are just like an anxiety attack a person may have. All day and night we stay with her. Comforting her as best as we can.

Things do not get much better. Due to her running in circles she becomes so frantic she sweats. It is cold out so we are constantly calming then toweling and blanketing. Her back right hock begins to swell along with her front right leg. Because she always circles to the right she is causing excessive trauma to her right side. Her right shoulder and wither begins to get swollen. I am up most of the night with her. I can’t leave her she is so sad and I am afraid she will colic or get hurt. I grab an hour of sleep here and there. I sure wish it were spring or summer. It’s cold out.

For those of you who are not familiar with horse terms, Colic in horses is the number one killer and is defined as abdominal pain but it is a clinical sign or a symptom rather than a diagnosis. The term colic can encompass all forms of gastrointestinal conditions, which cause pain, as well as other causes of abdominal pain not involving the gastrointestinal tract. The most common forms of colic are gastrointestinal in nature and are most often related to colonic disturbance. There are a variety of different causes of colic, some of which require surgical intervention and can prove fatal. Colic surgery is usually an expensive procedure as it is major abdominal surgery. Among domesticated horses, colic is a major cause of premature death. The incidence of colic in the general horse population has been estimated between 10 and 11 percent on an annual basis. It is important that any person who owns or works with horses be able to recognize the symptoms of colic and determine whether or not a veterinarian should be called.

November 22, 2007
It's the same thing only different day. Not much improvement. I have a horse hang over and the filly is in Mom withdrawal Forget about Thanksgiving dinner here, we are out in the barn. We have many wild turkeys here today. Word must have spread that Jim and I are vegetarians and they figure they are safe here at Black Horse Farm! I did mange to throw a dinner together for us to enjoy quickly.

November 23, 2007
On Saturday it is still pretty much status quo. We are concerned about her emotional well being as well as her physical. We call several veterinary hospitals to perhaps get some ideas. Some were supportive where others asked why we didn't we euthanize her when she was born. A lot of good that suggestion was. It made me angry. Guess I won’t be calling that Vet again. I was very frustrated with the lack of support or interest from the medical side of this. Most Vets seemed irritated or not real interested in helping out when I called. I must say that Dr. Sara Emanuel and Dr. Lila Solomon from Blackstrap Vet Hospital.

Anyway we continued to support her as well as we could. She became so exhausted that she would fall asleep standing up with her head in our arms. It was painfully sad to see her so upset. I have to say she is a stubborn horse and a strong willed one too. It seemed like she would not give in. We were willing to try anything at this point so we tried to put her back into her original stall and it seemed to help some. It was bigger too she was less likely to run into the walls when she was in the midst of a panic attack.

Dr. McNitt from Blackstrap Veterinary Hospital offered her Nanny Goat Mary. So I drove over and picked up Mary along with Banamine . Since we were concerned about her colicing I wanted to make sure I had some Banamine on hand. I was also giving her some Banimine to help with her swelling but with foals you have to be very careful. Foals are very prone to ulcers resulting from overuse of Banimine . Once the goat arrived she wanted nothing to do with her so Mary was returned.

When she would finally lay down to rest we were thrilled. If I had to compare it to something I would say I felt like I felt when my children were newborns. Being so exhausted and trying to get them to go to sleep. Patting them on the bum, rubbing their backs till they fell asleep and then tip toeing out the door afraid to breath so not to wake them. That is how it was here. We would hold her, rub her to relax and calm her. She would fall asleep and we would tip toe out of the stall, carefully closing the doors and sliding bolts shut with no noise. Swearing at the neighbor's dogs when they barked and would wake her. At night checks I was so careful not to disturb her that I would take my shoes off and walk in my stocking feet in the snow so not to make any crunching noise with my feet. Sneak up to the door and peek between the cracks to see if she was ok.

She started to display some symptoms of orphan foal syndrome. She was getting attached to us. Replacing us with the loss of her mom. She greeted us with so much enthusiasm when she heard our voice.

Four days of this with no progress was very discouraging. We tried everything we could think of. I decided it would be in her best interests to sedate her. Unfortunately it worked for a few minutes and wore off pretty quickly. I needed to think of something to get her to stop running in circles or she was going to continue to deteriorate. I thought of teaching her to tie. I used a regular cotton lead and ran it thru the bars on the window. She would pull slightly and I would give her some slack. We did this for 20 minutes or so. She did not seem the type to violently pull back when the lead was taunt so I got my stretchy crosstie with a quick release snap on it. She did real well.

I of course stayed with her to make sure she did not panic when she felt the rope go tight. It was working. It was enough to bring her back to reality when she got herself into a panic attack. I use hay bags with her due to her walking thru her hay and making a mess of it. So I took her hay bag and attached it near to where I had her on clipped to the stretchy tie. The one thing I can say probably saved her was that throughout this whole weaning process she always stopped to eat her grain, hay and drink water. Her input and output was always good.

As we moved into December Day-by-Day we began to make slow but sure progress. She would do well for a day and then revert back. Any sound that she related to her mother (neighing from any horse, horses eating their grain, etc would send her back into a frenzy. I called Steve at Rolling Dog Ranch many times. He was always ready to offer support and advise us. We were talking about how this destructive behavior was turning into a learned behavior. It was repetitive; it was turning into a habit for her. Any memory would spark her. So if it was a learned behavior I could teach her to unlearn it.

So every time she started to run in circles so fast she would fall or begin to sweat or hurt herself I would tie her on the stretchy tie with hay nearby. It was quite amazing to see her come right back to reality. She would stand absolutely calmly and quietly. It was working. It made her think and get out of that almost additive running in circles.

If I knew then what I know now I would have weaned her sooner. We learn as we go sometimes. The weaning process was difficult. More difficult then a normal weaning due to her blindness. Which we knew and expected. I am sure that sometimes there are very difficult weaning with sighted horses but due to being blind and the her being more dependant on her mom added to the situation. Also in my conversations with Steve at Rolling Dog Ranch he said out of all his blind foals he has not had a difficult time weaning except once. That time was with a filly that came to them at 4 months of age. In my opinion if the blind foal cannot be kept with the mare for whatever the reason the longer the foal is with the mom the more difficult the weaning.

Most of Steve's foals came too them as newborns or a few weeks old. The owners either did not want the responsibility of raising a blind foal or the foal was to be euthanized and some good soul intervened. In his experience they did great on Foal Lac powdered milk and bond well with people and the other horses. If I had to do it again I would do wean as early as possible.

Now with her legs wrapped in standing wraps her legs were improving. The swelling was decreasing. We had the vet over to draw fluid out of her rear hock to make sure she did not have an infection going on. Tests were all normal, no infection. I was also concerned about the stress causing an ulcer. Something else to watch for.

So as the weeks went on she improved. She enjoyed her walks. Her frisky bucks and silly behavior told me that she was feeling better. She began to act like she use to. Since her silliness was turning into behavior issues we began to work on her manners, leading, turning, stopping/standing, voice commands and trotting on line. She had her first taste of snow. Horse babies are like people babies they like to put everything in their mouths. She likes to paw in it and then roll. She will do this over and over.

She continues to rely on the texture of the ground, smells and sounds to recognize where she is. We can’t sneak up on her anymore she hears our feet crunching in the snow. She does still have some moments where she gets frightened. I find that if something sparks her panic button she has difficulty gaining control. That flight instinct is very strong. If we are close by and can see her beginning to get sucked into the dark hole of the boogieman and horsey scary world we can calm her down but if she is already headed down the spiral of I’m out of here it is more difficult to bring here back. It takes a little more time to soothe her. She hates the snowplow. If we tie her she can cope, if not she will run in circles till she is broke out in a sweat. So I usually stay with her or bring her for a walk while Jim plows. Which as been a lot this year.


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