Monday, November 14, 2005

News from Last Chance Ranch

Dear Readers,

Sorry for the blog problems.

More seriously, please keep the tiny filly at Last Chance Ranch in your thoughts and prayers. It's cold and snowy in her part of Oregon and she's not doing well, though the humans "mothering" her are working as hard as they can to save her life. Here's my most recent note from Andi Harmon:

The Vet doesn't know why she isn't getting over her scours. He said it's a possibility her immune system has been compromised but the BLM is limited on the amount of funds they spend for such things and we are limited on funds in general just caring for her and our other horses. For BLM the cost of a blood test for a single horse is way more than the adoption fee brings in and to run diagnostics on an orphan that may not make it, and would be adopted for only $25 (orphan foal fee) is hard to justify in their budget.

Still, she is one tough little girl and is a fighter and I'm hoping she pulls thru. She is getting so weak from the scours it scares me but we are doing everything we know of to help her. We have a heater out in her stall but need to get a better one - it doesn't put out much heat. So I'm going to Big R, Rite Aid and King's to see what we have in stock here today. When we are out with her, we have a propane bottle we can run and when she's warm, she feels lots better. If only this dang weather would cooperate! We had snow yesterday and rain and wind today. She wants to go outside and graze so much but we can't let her out in this weather. We keep her blanketed and a light and radio on in her stall and when we sit with her, she eats really good and she drinks lots. The Vet gave us some stuff called "Resorb" that is for calf scours to replace the electrolytes she's lost and she drank 2 gallons of that over the weekend, so that's good. We are giving her all the hay and Foal Lac pellets she will eat but she has lost so much weight and gone down so much, I don't know if it is going to be enough to pull her out of it. We are giving her sucralfate for ulcers along with a little Pepto Bismal and giving her some probiotics foal paste as well.

All we can do is hope and pray at this point, I guess. After I feed all the horses and cows and dogs and cats and eat breakfast myself, I'll get a book and go out and sit with her for a few hours and read and keep her company. She's getting scalded from the scours and doesn't want us cleaning her any more and we've been putting Desenex on her little butt for the "diaper rash", so to speak but I think all that stresses her too because it hurts her.

Life is fragile and all your all your readers' thoughts and prayers for the baby sure wouldn't hurt.

Andi

Burns, Oregon

Last Chance Ranch

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