Problem Foals

Three foals – all problems! I jinxed Coco’s foal in my last blog by saying that she seemed to be doing well despite her tiny size. A couple of hours later, she came down with pneumonia and I thought we might lose her. Her breathing was so fast and loud but after a few days of strong antibiotics she seems to be pulling through. She was cantering around the paddock this morning trying to elude her injections so she must be feeling better!

So yesterday, I went into Nanyuki to stock up on vet supplies. Unsurprisingly, after all the recent traumas we are running low on lots of things. As I don’t leave Lewa that often, I thought it would be a nice opportunity to do my shopping then go for lunch at a restaurant with free wifi, catch up on emails and download some more books on to my Kindle. No such luck. At 12.30 I get a call saying Champagne (the four month old foal and my absolute favourite as she is so full of character) had, to quote the syce, “hit a stick and was bleeding”. What he meant was that she had crashed into the fence when she was galloping round, splintered the fence and basically impaled herself on it at the top of the front leg where it meets her chest. Most fortuitously for Champagne there was a surgeon staying at Wilderness who kindly stitched her up. As Nanyuki  is over an hour from Lewa, I didn’t get back until they had almost finished so I didn’t get to see the full horror of the wound. I do know that it was very deep and there was lots of blood as she damaged an artery. I was met by a very sorrowful Champagne, all sleepy from her sedative. She is limping around today and being a very difficult patient because she hates injections. She is determined to do battle over each and every one which is unfortunate because she is going to have to have two injections a day for the next week if the wound isn’t to get infected. Hopefully she will make a full recovery since she has been stitched up by an expert. He is actually a plastic surgeon and hasn’t ever stitched up a horse before but he seemed very competent and I’ve no doubt has a much better idea of what to do than any of us here! And he’ll have a story to tell his friends about his holiday in Africa!

The other foal, Santa, is actually doing well (although perhaps I shouldn’t say that or it may jinx him). He seems to get bigger every day and is now bigger than Champagne despite being half her age. Still has to have his leg bandages changed every 2 to 3 days though so he is high maintenance too.

No more foals due to be born until September – phew!