"Debi"
Debi
is our latest rescue. she's only 10 years old and has had a rough
couple years, to say the least. The story goes as follows: Debi was a
carriage horse working the streets. her owner had no barn/paddock
therefore chained her right foot/hoof to a stake in her yard. For some
reason, her weight was poor and so were her hooves. her owner chose to
dump her a a "big cat farm" to be killed and fed to the lions. the
volunteers at the sanctuary got attached to Debi and pulled together to
try and help her. They pooled money together to buy her medicines and
other necessities. They also arranged to have a generous man volunteer
his truck/trailer to transport her to the rescue. After a year of being
at the sanctuary, the volunteers realized they didn't have enough
knowledge to help this poor mare. They chose to do what was best for
the horse & seek more professional help for her. this was a very
painful decision for the volunteers as they are very attached to Debi
and come to the rescue often to visit her with handfuls of apples &
carrots!
Upon arrival, out initial concerns were her hooves and
weight. We called in a founder specialist who has been working with
Debi every 3 weeks trying to improve her quality of life. Debi's hooves
hadn't had much care to speak of in a couple years. This caused us to
have to use a hand saw to cut off about 6" of hoof from her one foot
alone. It took TWO farriers about 15 hours (over a 2 week period) to
get her front hooves to even resemble a normal looking hoof. We
currently have her on Horse Shoers Secret to promote hoof growth. Her
daily ration consists of spirulina, vetflex, electrolites, bute,
pelleted feed and T&A hay. In the pictures, you can see the IV bags
that we use to administer her "White Lightning" treatments to her
hooves to help aid her recovery from thrush and white line. she has
picked up a good couple hundred pounds since she's been here. We have
body clipped her and found that she LOVES a bath! she has gone from
laying 23 hours a day to laying about 18 hours a day. She has a big
heart to match her big brown eyes and a tremendous amount of desire to
get better. Here are all the pictures of Debi we have to date showing from when she arrived until now. Please check out this slideshow of Debi. .
We'd like to thank Debbie C. for being a sponsor to Debi.
