Tiny premature Salt River wild horse rescued!
A call to our hotline yesterday resulted in our field team rushing out Coon Bluff, where a couple of kids had found a tiny newborn all alone and unable to get up. After finding out from an alert bystander that the tiny baby had already been there for at least 6 hours without a mare, we rushed it to the hospital (since newborns can die quickly without receiving mother’s milk in triple digit temperatures). The rest of our field team stayed behind to search for a possible mother.
During triple digit temparatures, newborns are at high risk of dying from dehydration if they do not get up right away after birth, and ofcourse being born prematurely or small gives him even less of a chance. So expectedly this little fellow was dehydrated and overheated, but we were able to cool him off right away.
His tests came back good, he is not septic, and has no broken bones and he received some colustrum. But he weighs only 33 pounds. Because he cannot regulate his own temparature well, he is now in the livingroom in the airco with a blanket!
Newborns are at risk of many things and need around the clock care. This little guy sleeps a lot, but wakes up every hour and lets us know that he is very hungry! That is a very good sign. It did not take long for him to steal our hearts, so please help us hope that he makes it.
We are extremely busy with many important projects right now and we are in urgent need of donations to carry on our important work.
He does not have a name yet, so we will be holding a contest to name him, for everyone who would like to become his monthly sponsor.
That will be our first post tomorrow morning, because the little guy has woken up for his feeding and we have to go now.
P.S. After a full day search, we have not found his mom. We do not know who she is, since we saw no horses nearby. That makes the search a lot harder.
We are going to keep this little boy safe and sound.
Thank you for your support.
https://www.facebook.com/saltriverwildhorsemanagementgroup/videos/1763845763698174/