I’m struggling to find the right words and how to introduce this sweet baby. There’s so much to discuss but today we have just tried to process, address immediate needs and then we will go from there.
I know I said earlier the baby was a girl, which is what we were told but he is a precious little boy, and he was born with only 3 legs.
Once we picked him up he was taken immediately to Dr Longoria’s. She drew blood, did a full assessment and X-ray of the shoulder where his left front leg should be. There is actually the start of a very tiny underdeveloped leg there, it just stopped growing for some reason. This is not something she has ever seen nor the other professionals we have consulted today. Due to that, there are more what ifs and maybes than there are “we can do this or thats”. What we do know is today, he’s a fighter and has a very strong will to live. At only 3 days old, he’s learned to compensate and can walk, and get up and down on his own. He’s bright and curious just as a foal should be, and incredibly sweet.
I don’t think anyone would have faulted us for euthanizing him today, and many will fault us for not doing so today as well. We held off on making any decision about him until we could see him for ourselves and see what Dr Longoria felt as well. This is also why I did not post what his birth defect was or a photo in my earlier post. I like to come to you all with as much information as possible and be prepared to answer questions to the best of our ability. I feel I’m prepared to do that now.
We made the decision to bring him home to the rescue as TODAY, he is thriving. This could change at any time, and we will not allow him to suffer or prolong any suffering he may have in the future. Being there is no research to look to, no professional we have found with any previous experience, this was a somewhat hard decision partly in knowing that there will be some outrage but having this precious baby of my arms and knowing he wants to live, it’s the decision we made.
There is no hope of a prosthesis so let’s please not get deep into that. We contacted the best in the world before we ever took possession of him, and it’s just not an option. There is nothing there to attach a prosthetic to, and if there was, it would likely fail due to not bringing able to bend it, inhibiting him further from laying down or getting up.
He is drinking very well from a bucket and caught onto that pretty quickly. The best I have ever seen a foal do. This was encouraging. We do believe his quality of life would greatly improve with a nurse mare and that is in the works. His life most likely will not surpass a few months or at least weaning age as he will gain weight and become heavier and that’s when more problems will arise, but we would love for him to have the very best life possible while he is on this earth. What things do you put on a baby horses bucket list when life is just not fair sometimes but you want to make the best of it? Nature is wild and things happen, but he made it here and we want to chose to celebrate the time that he has however long that may be.
We take in a lot of hospice cases, but a newborn hospice case is a first for us. How special it is to get to provide this for him though, and as worried as I was, I was very joyful after being with him. All God’s creatures 
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.I will update more as we know more. For now, what should we name such a special little boy? I will not name him anything to do with him only having 3 legs.
