Baby horse in the NICU

Lexi's filly has been fighting to survive since long before she was born. I had Lexi checked at 14 days post breeding and she had twins, but the vet told me that it looked like it wouldn't be possible to pinch the twin at that point. And because I knew I was gelding the stallion and never breeding again I had to decide what to do. I either needed to terminate the pregnancy completely or wait a bit to see if she would eventually reduce to one on her own. Because I wasn't worried about trying to breed again the same season I decided to wait a bit to see if there was any chance to save the pregnancy. And Lexi waited until the last possible moment but finally there was only one foal on the ultrasound so I thought we were in the clear. I continued to have her ultrasounded throughout her pregnancy just to be sure everything was ok but when she was about 5 months pregnant my vet noticed some white flecks floating around and some separation of the placenta. She was put on antibiotics and regumate for the remainder of her pregnancy and we continued to monitor her but we were worried she was going to lose the foal. So we were pretty shocked and excited when she made it all the way to her due date and beyond.

Lexi's filly was born 5/21/24 at 388 days. Initially she looked fine, although very small. However it didn't take long to see that she was a dummy foal and had some signs of being dysmature. But it wasn't until she arrived in the hospital that I found out that she had hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism isn't something that would effect her long term, but the biggest issue is that she essentially had no joints yet, they were only cartilage, and if she were to stand on them they would be crushed which would be a death sentence for her. So essentially, all she needed was some extra time off of her joints to allow them to mineralize but that would require a commitment of figuring out a way to give her 24/7 care until her joints were completely developed. I wanted to give her a chance since the vets seemed optimistic about her future as long as I was very careful to give her joints the time to mineralize, but financially there was no way I could keep her in the hospital the entire time. So the plan was to allow her to stabilize in the NICU for maybe a week to 10 days, possibly 2 weeks at the most and then try to figure out a way to bring her home and manage her here. But unfortunately that proved to be impossible, foals are just very very fragile. Overall she was mostly doing well and her x-rays were improving. Everything would be fine for a bit and then she kept having minor setbacks, but with a foal, those minor setbacks would have been fatal had I brought her home. No matter how hard everyone tried there was just no way to even attempt to safely bring her home yet. With each of the minor setbacks days had turned into weeks, and weeks had turned into months. And the bill continued to grow even though the vets were doing their best to keep it as low as possible. But I felt like the worst thing I could have done is take her home with a very minor issue that would have ultimately killed her after everything that she had already been through. I knew that she would be fine, she just needed more time in the hospital. And thankfully as of this week it looks like she may finally be in the clear. They are giving her a few days to make sure that she truly is completely healthy and not having any other complications but so far she is doing amazing, her legs look even better than expected, and we're hoping her x-rays will show that her joints have mineralized enough that by the time she gets home we won't have to worry about them anymore and she should be able to go on to live a happy normal life ❤️