Smallest orphan Salt River wild horse celebrates his 4th Birthday!

For his Birthday, Gideon would love a new giant ball and some fly spray and maybe some horse cookies? This is our Amazon wishlist:

And this is where you can become Gideon’s sponsor for his monthly care and feed. Even when they are bigger and maybe not as cute, they still eat a lot and always need their daily and monthly care! https://saltriverwildhorsemanagementgroup.org/sponsor…/

It is thanks to our amazing supporters, our amazing volunteers, and our amazing partnership with AZDA and FS that happily- ever-after, is the norm for the Salt River wild horses, be it in the wild or at our rescue.

This is Gideon’s story:

Gideon was found abandoned under a tree in July’s scorching 115 temperatures as a premature brand-new newborn, by a family that was picnicking at the recreation area, and there were no other horses around.

When SRWHMG volunteers arrived, he was weak and immobile, extremely dehydrated and overheated, and he never received his important first mothers milk, colostrum.

He weighed only 33 pounds, which is half of the size of a normal newborn wild foal.

It was a mad rush to the Equine hospital where he immediately received an IV with plasma and hydration, which was in the nick of time to save his life. The caller and the fast response from our field team saved Gideon’s life, as another half hour would have for sure been fatal.

Fragile newborns like him cannot regulate their own temperature very well and it was too hot for Gideon to be outside at the rescue facility, and because he needed feeding every hour around the clock, he spent his first month in Simone’s living room, with an army of volunteers coming and going. Later he was to be joined by his buddy Snow, who was also very fortunate.

Here is a cute flashback.

Its hard to believe that that was 4 years ago.Just two short weeks after Gideon’s rescue we would be rescuing Snow (we will feature Snow’s story next) and the little boys grew up together, did everything together, and are still together and best friends today!

Thank you everyone! Pictures by SRWHMG Deb Mykitiak. SRWHMG.ORG