Farewell, Mira

Mira passed away in the early hours. She suffered from post partum torsion colic. Carrie was in town to see how her girls were doing. The vet had been out for a health check on her and the baby earlier in the day. Right before Carrie left, Mira started to show signs of discomfort. 

The situation degraded quickly. Carrie and Sonya loaded Mira on to a trailer to get her to a surgical site over two hours away that could handle a torsion colic (Mira's intestines rotated and tied themselves in a knot). 

Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done. I got a call from Sonya at 1:30 AM and she dropped Carrie off at 2 AM (and she must have got back home after 4 AM!).

Carrie was distraught. That said, she also handled it much better than I expected and it was because of Nibs. Carrie knew Nibs needed her.

At this point, Nibs just crossed the 18 days old threshold. She didn't know where her Mom had went or why. She was nervous and wasn't sleeping. Sonya and Jeff stayed up with her through the night. They tried to bring in some of their goats to see if any would be a suitable companion for Nibs until an equine solution could be found.

Shane, Carrie, and I left to check on things early Tuesday. I got a sub and Shane got to miss school. He loves the barn. I wish the visit could have been under better circumstances.

We talked to him about what happened, but he only stayed sad for a moment or two before he wanted to play.

Being hyper and playing is not a good idea when there are a bunch of stressed horse people and a stressed foal in the picture. Shane got a lot of practice with his "calm walk."

He did okay overall. That's actually pretty darn good for him considering his energy level and the lack of distractions that were brought with us!

A blessing in disguise through all of this was that Nibs was already bucket trained to drink milk.

Mira had been unable to produce enough milk for Nibs, so Sonya and Carrie were already supplementing her diet with formula.

The hope is that a mare will be found who will adopt Nibs. None of the new mothers at the barn seemed too keen on it (Mira had actually become a dragon mother and charged any mare that was in the field as Nibs -- Very uncharacteristic of her).

To my knowledge, a mare is being brought by tomorrow with her foal who has accepted a second, adopted foal in the past. Carrie spent the whole day with Nibs and is spending the night to see how things go. Shane and I are back home, so that we can go to our schools.

Prayers for Nibs and Carrie are appreciated!