Every year the Wild Horse Fund is there protecting the Wild Spanish Mustangs.  They work very long hours and their only reward is seeing the horses running free in their natural habitat. 

On May 11, 2010 at 2:30 PM the Wild Horse Fund was called out to a home owner’s yard where a four day old foal was without his mother.  The foal’s name was Corova Son.  Karen McCaplin, Executive Director of the Wild Horse Fund, explains that “the foal was weak and his head was hanging down.  After searching the area for horses and finding none and with Betty Lane’s help, a volunteer, the foal was transported off the beach in the back of the CWHF Yukon.  Wesley Stallings, the herd manager, met the vet at Wrangler Farms.  Blood was drawn and he was tubed (naso gastric tube) with mare’s milk replacer.  According to our vet, he is in remarkably good condition but has been without his mother’s milk for a significant period.”

The plan was to bottle feed the foal every four hours throughout the night and then in the morning Stallings would head out to find his mother.  The best place for the foal is to be with his mother.  That never happened.

Around Midnight the foal began to have problems breathing.  He was too young to go that long without his mother’s milk.  Colostrum is the first “milk” the mare produces.  It is high in antibodies that protect the foal from disease.  The average foal should receive about 1 cup each hour for the first six hours of the horse’s life.  This is very important because the foal’s small intestine is “open” and allows the large antibody molecules to be absorbed.  By the time the foal is 24 hours old the small intestine has changed and the antibodies cannot be utilized.  For reasons unknown it is believed that this foal never received these crucial antibodies. The Wild Horse Fund put forth a great effort, but there was nothing they could do to save the foal. 

If you would like to help the Wild Horses please donate to the Wild Horse Fund.  To find out more infomation please go to http://www.corollawildhorses.com/help.html.