This little 5 month old filly was found at the Cleburne horse auction in February 2022. There were several weanlings there that day. There were far too many needing rescuing from the slaughter pipeline. We saw a familiar brand on one of the weanlings that we knew. We decided to bid on her that night and get her out of the slaughter pipeline.
It sickens us that her breeder sells their weanling horses at a production sale, way up in South Dakota and this filly along with many other unfortunate ones, get bought by slaughter pipeline traders who take them to multiple auctions trying to get the big bucks until they end up down in Texas auctions, just a leap from the border where the ones who don't get saved end up getting slaughtered.
We rescued another young filly with this brand before Christmas 2021 and unfortunately we were too late. Despite our every effort, she had been starved down too much before she made it to a Texas auction and we saw her badly in need of help. She died from organ failure from sickness and starvation. She only knew 6 days of love, that is all the time we had with her, but at least she was finally loved, no longer used as a tool for greed, for money.
Treasure was brought to the rescue and placed into isolation/quarantine. Her very thick, long winter coat was hiding hundreds of ticks embedded all over her! There were so many ticks, we worried she may not love through the anemia and blood loss! It was life threatening to leave the ticks on her and life threatening to use insecticide to kill them. Daily, she stood still patiently as we picked ticks off of her body and dabbed iodine over the area where the tick heads were imbedded. We picked ticks off of her for what seemed like an entire month, as more hatched. She developed a snotty nose 2 days after arrival and became very sick. Now she had to deal with infection in her body from sickness and the tick infestation that left her anemic and low on blood. We were treating her anemia and feeding her Red Cell to boost her immune system. Thankfully she still had good body weight and could afford to lose weight while being off of feed and hay. They get so sick, their throats hurt like ours do when we have strep throat and horses can't breathe through their mouth, so when their noses fill up with purulent snot, it is really hard for them to breathe and to eat. We could not entice her with any type of grain to eat, which was really strange. Most of the horses we rescue have never had any feed or grain before, but it smells good so they try to eat it. It is the funniest thing to watch a horse try to eat grain for the first time. They don't know how to pick it up and how to chew it. They make the funniest faces and bounce their heads up and down and to the side. This little girl just had no interest in trying. We tried several different kinds of grain and different feeds, she wouldn't even eat sweet feed, We kept alfalfa in front of her to help her not lose too much weight while being sick, since she refused grain. Treasure lost a lot of weight, her sickness hung on longer, and our damp cooler days did not help any. She was such a good girl through all her antibiotic treatments and nose cleanings and tick removal, she seemed to know we were just trying to help her. We named her Treasure, because that is what she is.
Three courses of antibiotics and 3 months later and Treasure finally was able to leave quarantine and join the other weanlings at the rescue in the weanlings paddock.
Today Treasure is enjoying her life with the other horses her age, happy, without a worry and with a full belly. Through peer pressure, she finally learned to eat grain and loves it now. She is very special to us, it is likely she will stay at the rescue at least for the near future. Sabrina has her eye on Treasure for a future barrel racer. ;)
