July 17th

 

Snow’s story:

There was once a magical horse named ❄️Snow White, and she was fairer than any other. We watched her live happily in the forest for over a decade, but tragedy struck during mesquite bean season, right after the rains, she died from mesquite bean colic.

We were so sad when we found her, and then immediately remembered her beautiful colt, he was only 2 weeks old! He was born a bay color and had all the signs that he would be graying out as well. Because the names of the seven dwarves were not really befitting him, we called him Snow to honor his mama.

We 🔦searched for Snow everywhere, but didn’t find him until the following day. He was still with his band that was run by two powerful 🐴stallions. How they acted was pretty amazing. They kept little Snow right in between them at all times and protected him fiercely. It was heartwarming to see that, but we knew that he would slowly die without his mother’s milk.

We received permission from AZDA to rescue him (as we do with every rescue), but we had to give up, because the stallions would just lead him away from our rescue team. After 4 days of trying, we knew we had to outsmart the stallions or Snow would die. Finally, there was a moment and we were able to safely kidnap Snow White’s baby, to save his life, because that is how his mama would have wanted it.

Once we had him, the stallions seemed to willingly let him go and did not follow us when we walked the dying baby out of the woods. Snow was in bad shape with mesquite bean poisoning, just like his beautiful mother. He was extremely weak.

Snow spent several days in the veterinary hospital receiving round the clock care for acidosis and hypoglycemia and dehydration.

When he finally was able to come home, we moved him up north for cooler temperatures so he and Gideon would be able to keep each other company as they were the same age. We had just rescued Gideon two weeks before, and we also had foals Agave & Nakota that we were caring for at our SRWHMG property, so it was a lot of effort, because foals eat around the clock, and that includes nights! It was a wild baby-mania!

When we wrote Snow’s original story on July 20th, 2018, we didn’t know how his story was going to end, we know that we cannot save them all, and he was one of the worst cases.

We could have let him go peacefully, when we saw no improvement and he could’nt even stand up. We knew that either choice was better than leaving him to suffer in the field. But one thing we learn from the horses’ incredibly strong survival instinct, is that no matter how bad things may get, you hang in there, keep your head up, and you just don’t give up. It took numerous expensive plasma treatments, and a special green powder we mixed in his formula.

Today, Snow and Gideon continue to share everything together. And although Snow hasn’t gotten as snow white as his mother yet, he is greying out beautifully. He does not have any permanent health issues.

A great big thanks to the AZDA and USFS for the partnership, to our managers and directors and our president for the expertise, and our volunteers, for not just giving their time, but their hole hearts, to the Salt River wild horses.

❤️❤️❤️

To learn more about Snow or to sponsor Snow for his monthly care, please visit his page.