Cheyenne was part of the July 1996 Bureau of Land Management round-up of wild horses in Nevada. The horses were rounded up to be sold at auction. If they were not healthy, a worse fate awaited them. Annie and her friend stepped in to help bottle feed and care for over 175 foals that had been brought in. They were all between only one to three days old. The babies had to be bottle-fed around the clock for the first couple weeks of their lives. Then they learned to drink out of a trough.
The stress of the round-up, and being hauled in a trailer (25 babies per trailer) for a twelve hour drive to Vegas in the middle of summer, caused some of babies to lose all of their hair. Cheyenne was one of them.
At two years of age Cheyenne contracted a life-threatening spinal infection from a parasite that had entered her spine. The only way she could have contracted it was through the hay. If a horse eats the hay and has a nick in the intestine, the parasite enters the intestine and works it’s way to the spine.
Eventually it could go up the spine to the brain. It’s that one in a million shot of getting it.
It took about a year for Cheyenne to fully recover!
Update:
In May, 2020, Cheyenne started getting sick. She had no energy, was having a hard time picking up her feet, or going out to play. At first I thought she was getting depressed because Blue was dealing with the cancer. She was slowly going down hill and the vet could not come out for another couple of weeks. I had a farrier come out to help trim her hooves and see if maybe she had an abscess. Nothing helped. A week later Cheyenne could no longer walk.
The vet finally came and drew blood. Cheyenne has Cushing’s Disease. By the time I got to start her on the meds, Blue died. Two weeks later Cheyenne laid down and could no longer get up. It turns out Cheyenne not only had Cushing’s but the farrier cut the bulb right above the hoof and didn’t say anything.
Cheyenne died of a sepsis infection five days later. She just turned 24 the week before.