A sad week on the farm - AlyWishes died giving birth
AlyWishes(foreground) with her mom, AlyDoll checking out the donkeys the day they came home.
Dena’s beloved AlyWishes died during the birth of her first
baby.
A horse is an amazing animal. It’s huge and somehow connects
intensely with humans (mostly women it seems to me, I’m just saying…) because
they are gentle giants with the mind of a dog, I assume.
AlyWishes was born 9 years ago from AlyDoll (grand daughter
of AlyDar). AlyDoll was too hot (too much thoroughbred in her) and Dena
didn’t enjoy riding her much, I assumed it was because she feared her life most
of the time. But AlyWishes was Dena’s first baby to raise from birth, train
and ride. To make her very own. The bond they had was very strong. She was an
amazing animal that people called elephant, because of her size.
Dena was getting into riding trail and doing barrel racing
events on her (I have a video of Dena being bucked off during one race landing
on her head and only breaking her glasses thank goodness) but AlyWishes
became lame somehow. Something bothered her when Dena rode her so Dena stopped.
We moved her to the front pasture. She was the horse you would see everyday
coming and going from the farm. Dena would ask me to stop many times coming
home from some event, so she could call out to her horse and watch her thunder
her way to the fence with a happy whinny.
As luck would have it, Dena had a chance to breed
AlyWishes last year and she took it. I think in her mind she felt that the
horse would at least throw perfect little babies like her mother.
It takes a year for the birth to happen. We planned our
summer around it. We canceled all vacation plans and we started dutifully
watching for signs.
I remember the night when Teague told me how excited
she was that the baby would come that night because of the milk production
level and color had changed. Teague was excited because she wanted to raise the
baby and make it her own.
We all went to bed ready to wake up and be treated to a new
baby on the farm.
At 2am, Dena came running into the house, I could hear the
panic in her voice as she frantically tried to gather things. She ran back
outside as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
It was a full moon.
I ran out to the pasture expecting to find a foal in crisis.
But the foal was fine. Wobbly, shaking, cold but fine. We couldn’t find the
mother. We ran all over the pasture and found her. She was down and did not
look right. Blood was everywhere. We called the vet and explained what we saw,
but were told that it sometimes takes up to 8 hours for things to be done. We
were told to keep an eye on her and wait it out. I paid attention to the foal
while Dena read a vet book. My concern was to help the foal get milk and get it
checked out and somehow reconnected with the mother.
I’m not sure how long it took, but the full moon was
disappearing and the sun was not coming up yet. It was getting dark, fast. I
ran up to the house to get a flashlight and a couple of jackets, as it was
getting cold. By the time I came back, Dena was on the phone with the vet,
screaming for help. It went from bad to worse, quickly.
The vet was on his way, he told her it was not good. Teague
and Dena milked all of the colostrum out of the mare as she lay down doing several
never ending contractions.
I was in charge of the foal. I was trying to find ways for
it to nurse and get warm. At one point near the end, I brought the foal over to
nurse if she could. The foal nuzzled her mother’s body looking for a nipple and
AlyWishes lifted her head and stared at her baby for several minutes, with a
sense of pride in her eyes. She took in a long sigh, look around at us and laid
her head back down.
She accepted what was happening, even though we did not.
We did what we could, thinking that somehow this could be
fixed.
We waited for the vet. (Pet Peeve #343554 – As agriculture is dying in the valley
– Vets live further and further away – it takes a long time to get one here on
a farm call)
Finally he arrived, he gave her a shot to take away the pain
and with that she gave her last breath and died.
Numbness fell over us. The night stopped to exist and the
morning broke free.
All of our attention turned to the foal.
In two hours the
vet put a tube in her to feed the colostrum and then did a plasma drip to put
in needed antibodies. We kept working at top speed. Our mission now was to save
the baby.
I caught myself tearing up several times as I caught a glimpse of the
dark lifeless body laying in the pasture.
The vet left around 8am.
Teague laid down in the stall next to the foal and cried
herself to sleep. Even if only for 15 minutes.
Dena, exhausted and covered in blood, walked over to where
AlyWishes lay and knelt down next to her and sobbed, cradling her massive head. I stood back angry and helpless, feeling very aware of how much this horse meant to my wife.
I bucked a couple tons of hay, to keep my mind off things and give Dena the
space to mourn. I called a service to come and get the horse and asked them to
come right away. My thinking was that if Dena did not have to look at her all
day, then it would help.
It did and it didn’t.
Guilt was starting to set in. We second guessed ourselves.
We questioned our lack of ability to save her. Dena was very hard on herself
and all I could do was hug her and calm her down.
We operated all day without sleep or rest. I drove to a
place to get food for the foal. Kind of a mothers milk replacement and some
bottles. I’m sure I was a wreck. A very nice man, that did not know us, gave us
the supplies. I thanked him and hurried home.
Dena called her friends. Her “Horse Friends”.
Now to be honest with you, horse people are a bit crazy. I
get jealous many times at how much love, attention and time the horses get. I
complain a lot about horses. I kind of do it as a joke but I do it to help me
deal with the overwhelming nature of these fanatical people. Horses consume
Horse People.
But no matter how much I complain, I will never forget how wonderful
these people are. When a horse is in need they react. They don’t know you or
maybe they don’t even like you (you are a horse person after all) but they will
do anything to help a horse.
Lisa is one of those friends. She came and spent the entire day
with Dena. She had crazy horse stories and half crazy remedies and tales about
tails, that took our mind off the morning and made us laugh, even if in a
nervous way.
Lisa, made a couple of calls and we got Goats milk and
Colostrum from another horse. The foal has to be fed every two hours and the
first 24 are the most dangerous, so we basically stood by her and watched her
every move. We took shifts. Lisa and Dena took off and came back with a
surrogate mare. We cautiously put the baby with her and she dropped instantly
into mommy mode. She talked to the baby and the baby talked back. She taught
the baby to follow her and she stood between her and anything that could be
labeled as dangerous, including us.
We all took a collective sigh of relief.
I went to get dinner and when I got back, our friends (The
Steele’s = Todd, Donna, Amanda and Emily) came over with Pizza and set up a
tent. The twins spent the night in the tent next to the stall and spent the
night with Teague. They woke up every two hours to feed the baby so that Dena
could get some rest.
The following day allowed us to create a rhythm and get our
life back to normal.
We are still in shock and saddened by what happened and how
it all happened. I learned a lot. Teague was a trooper and has been a great
help to Dena, (as have the Twins).
Taking care of the baby allows us to focus our energy on the
good. We all look forward to seeing her every day and watching her grow. She is
nameless (but we call her Spit! – short for SpitFire and Spittin’ Image) and
she is a sweetheart. She embodies all of the things we loved about her mother.
I look forward to taking lots of pics and posting them over
the years.
Dena is slowly healing. The tears in her eyes fill less of the
time between the feedings. The ache in her heart will be there for a long, long
time.
I'm looking at our horses differently now. I think I'm officially and finally one of those Crazy Horse People.
| 
