After 3 years of trying, on June 12th I finally got to welcome my Maca x Lider Seven cross foal. Watching Julia foal him out in the grass in the glow of early evening was so magical. I’ve been able to catch most of our foals being born, and feel so privileged to observe, and monitor everyone, each time. I videoed this time, and did note that he was born very quickly, in about 9 minutes.

After about 45 minutes, it became evident that something was a little off. He was having a bit of a harder time standing, so I watched him for a bit longer, then started to help. Jayme and the boys got home from doing some chores, and they helped me get them into the barn. Once he was up, he wasn't looking for Julia like a normal foal, although he did have a suck reflex. I started milking her and getting the colostrum into him.

At some point in those early hours I did the Madigan Squeeze on him, and while I noticed a change, he still wasn't normal. I was getting worried that I wasn't getting enough colostrum into him, so I called my vet. It turned out that we were doing great, I just had an exaggerated number for what they needed in my head. So I carried on milking and feeding every couple of hours.

Our IgG snap test in the morning didn't look great and given that he was still showing dummy foal symptoms, we headed into the clinic for plasma and another Madigan Squeeze. While we were there, I was finally able to get him to latch on his own, and the more accurate passive transfer test showed we were actually ok.

We headed home hopeful that his fast birth meant he just wasn't squeezed for long enough in the birth canal, and that he would make a full recovery. For the next 2 days I still had to help him latch every couple of hours. There was a 3rd Madigan Squeeze in there at some point. I was a bit of wreck with the minimal sleep, so the excitement when he finally started getting it on his own was huge.

From there he made slow and steady gains, turn out into a small pen and moving to follow Julia seemed to have a positive impact. Change in routine would exacerbate the dummy foal symptoms, so it was a balancing act of figuring out was beneficial, and how much at a time. Soon he was flying around, doing lead changes and roll backs. He still wasn't 'normal', ie he would do something like turn and get his back legs tangled, and that tongue was still hanging out, but my reading said some of them just take time.

Eventually they were out in the big pasture with the rest of the mare herd. He seemed like he kept up with Julia just fine, and he definitely enjoyed grazing.

Before we left for our annual camping trip, I was a bit concerned that he didn't look great. Not enough to panic, but just no longer progressing, and like maybe he wasn't gaining weight. We have eyes on them anytime we are away, and he seemed ok. In the couple of days after we got home, it became much more evident that something wasn't right. He had definitely lost some muscle mass, and he was ataxic. Julia had a small wound on her leg with enough swelling that I was concerned, so off to the vet we went for both of them.

There was a lot of concern over why he looked so ill thrift, and the ataxic movement. But yet his vitals were all quite normal. I had also noticed that his eyes looked yellow, not the sclera as in a jaundice case, but the iris. We all commented on how weird it was that he was both so normal, and so not normal. We pulled blood and the SAA revealed that he was fighting some sort of infection. The next step was to ultrasound his lungs, and sure enough there was a really big abscess in there, with a few smaller ones as well. So, all of his symptoms combined with the findings led to the diagnosis of a rhodococcus infection. We then ran a PCV, which revealed that he was quite anemic. Given the infection on top of him being a dummy foal, the prognosis wasn't great but he was also still doing well enough we needed to try.

For 10 days we did the treatment protocol. It was a roller coaster tracking all of his symptoms, watching joint inflammation travel around, having better movement days and worse movement days, watching how he was latching, hydration, temperature, appetite, bodily outputs, mental state, demeanor and it felt like 100 more things.

One of the side effects of one of the antibiotics he was on is it inhibits sweating and their ability to regulate temperature. We had shade set up and he was pretty good about finding it. We did have an overheating episode, but I was able to get him cooled off quickly. His temperature was less stable over the following days, so I would check it every hour or so to make sure he was ok. He had gained a bit of weight, just looking a bit fuller.

Mid week, his ataxia got really bad, and the swelling on his hocks and stifles increased. I talked to the clinic, worried about some of the things that can happen with this particular infection, and made a plan for his recheck on Friday. I felt that he lost some condition again, but Thursday evening he was moving better than he had for a long time.

Friday morning he didn’t seem as good, and he definitely looked much thinner to me. There was immediate concern when we arrived at the clinic for his recheck. Dr. Andrea was the perfect combination of expressing her professional opinion, compassion, and still running some tests and getting me more information to feel solid in my final decision to let him go. He just had too many things stacked against him to ask him to keep going.

Throughout all of this, he fought so incredibly hard and never quite trying. He has to be the toughest thing I have ever seen. His appetite was great, he always talked to me, and still requested particular scratches. I was shocked that his anemia was worse at his recheck based on the brightness I had been observing. He was definitely a very special colt.

Julia was incredible as well, from letting me milk her halter free the first bit, to her patience with him when he was struggling more, I couldn’t have asked for her to be any better.