Destiny the blind foal
Destiny
was born in April in South Carolina. Her eyeballs were tiny,
smaller than a pencil eraser. The condition, known as microphthalmos,
left her totally blind. The owner wanted her put down at birth.
His vet asked him to wait.
Two weeks later, on the vet's next visit, the owner again asked that the foal be euthanized. This time the vet drew up the euthanasia drug in a syringe and was preparing to administer it when the barn manager intervened. She asked the owner to give her a day to find someone to take the foal. He reluctantly agreed but insisted the foal had to go… within 6 days.
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A couple of hours later the barn manager contacted us. It was a Saturday morning. Our first reaction was shock at the thought of taking a two-week old foal away from her mother. Then we focused on saving her.
We called our friends at Best Friends' Horse Department to see if they had ever heard of a foal being transported at such an early age and surviving. They hadn't, but offered to call their equine vets that weekend and get their opinion. After a flurry of phone calls with vets and horse transporters, we decided to try and save this foal. And Best Friends generously offered to pay for the foal's trip.
The vets said that as long as the foal was healthy and had a zest for life – and if the alternative was euthanasia – they thought the risks were reasonable and we should go for it. The horse hauler, Hubble Horse Transportation, said they could get there within 10 days, and the driver graciously offered to bottle-feed the foal on the trip out West.
We contacted the barn manager and said we would send a horse hauler, but the hauler couldn't get there until the following week. Would the owner agree to wait? She checked and the answer was, “Yes.”
With that, we scheduled the trip and ordered mare milk replacer, a nurse bottle, vitamin supplements and other supplies. We had it all drop-shipped to the barn in South Carolina to be ready for the horse hauler.
Late on a Wednesday night, the transporter arrived at the stables to pick up Destiny. The barn manager escorted the mare out of the stall, and our hauler took the foal out to the trailer. That was this little girl's introduction to life.
For five long days, we anxiously awaited the hauler's daily phone call with an update on the foal's progress as she headed West. Each day's report was a relief: She was eating and drinking and apparently just doing fine.
Finally, the transporter arrived in Montana, and we drove over to Great Falls to pick up the foal there. You can read a Great Falls Tribune story about the foal's trip here.
Today Destiny is a healthy, spunky 6-month old foal enjoying life at the ranch. Thanks to a lot of people who cared, she got a chance to live.
