Meet Ginger Pye

Ginger was the most pleasant surprise! Her mom, Lolli wasn't showing signs of being really close to delivering and according to the calendar, she had about two weeks left. I went out to feed everyone in the morning and there was a beautiful, light red bundle standing next to her mom! I have no idea where her color came from! She was all dried off and seemed just perfect.

Having not been there for the birth and not knowing when exactly it happened, I wasn't sure if the baby had eaten well or passed her meconium. This is Lolli's first foal and maiden jennies make me a little nervous. She was doing really good about protecting her foal but was finicky when it came to nursing. I hadn't observed the foal eating or eliminating so we started observing things more closely. By the next evening, Ginger seemed much more lethargic than when we first found her and I started to worry a little. We decided to give her an enema and that was successful.

I did start to notice times when Ginger nursed but her energy levels were continuing to drop. I had expressed milk from Lolli's teats and there was milk there and no clogs. Every time I went out, Ginger would be laying on her side almost lifeless. I took her temperature but there was no fever (their temps shouldn't be above 102).

Ginger is tiny! Here she is standing next to Charlie, our two month old foal.

When we hadn't seen any improvement by day four, we took her to the vet. They did an ultrasound scan and her organs all looked good and normal, then they did a blood test. The results came back showing that her Igg levels were far below normal which basically meant she didn't get colostrum. This is SUPER important in order to give the foal the antibodies it needs and the energy for it's entire life!

The vet immediately put her on an IV which gave her plasma with the good antibodies she was missing. She also gave her a selenium shot which can also help with droopy donkeys. We were given a probiotic to give Ginger daily to help with her digestion and a hormone to give to the mom to help with better bonding and milk increase.

The next day there wasn't much improvement and we had a vet appointment scheduled to check her levels again. The results showed improvement but the levels weren't up to where they needed to be. Another round of plasma IV was done. The vet also put some little splints on the back hooves of Ginger to help with her walking. We had noticed that she was walking with a twist and on her hocks rather than upright on her hooves.

Improvement was finally observed! The following day, Ginger was up and alert and not laying down constantly.

She is now one week old and continuing to improve. She has a lovely personality and loves little kids. It has been a shaky start but things are looking up now for our little Ginger Pye.