Raven

We are so sad to announce that we lost a dear friend last week. Raven, our three year old Thoroughbred filly, was humanely euthanized on Wednesday after a bad colic.

We love all of the horses that pass through SAFE, but every so often, a horse comes along that works their way into the hearts of most everyone they meet. Raven was that horse. Her loss has been unbearably sad for the volunteers and staff here at the barn.

Our Raven was a stunningly beautiful horse: tall, athletic, and high spirited. She was so vibrant and full of life that it was easy to forget what a hard beginning she had. As a young horse, Raven was seized by Animal Control along with her dam. Both horses were starved and badly neglected, with painful hooves and protruding ribs and hip bones. Sadly, help had arrived too late for Raven’s mother. Not long after they were removed from their owner, she was found down and unable to stand. Vets determined that there was nothing that could be done for her, and she was humanely euthanized. Raven’s chances for survival seemed bleak as well. She had two serious bouts of colic while in county custody, and both times was treated by the vets at Pilchuck Vet Hospital. This was especially difficult for her because she’d had very little human contact up until this point, and found people to be quite strange and scary. But she was smart enough to accept the help and care being offered to her, and soon the Pilchuck staff nicknamed her “Sweet Pea,” a testament to how brave she was.

Raven at Intake

Raven was released to SAFE after she was discharged from the hospital. She was a pathetic little thing, sad and scruffy looking, and covered in rain rot. This necessitated even more human contact for her, and it was not long before she decided that we were okay. From that point on, she was a friendly, curious, and interactive horse. Though she never set foot on a race track, Raven possessed a lot of the personality traits that we typically see in off-the-track Thoroughbreds. She was exceptionally playful, and the more noise her toys made, the better. The most social horse in the barn, she insisted on greeting everyone who came into the barn and demanded as much attention as possible. And in her paddock, she entertained herself by digging enormous holes. We’d fill them in, she’d dig them back out again. She seemed to love making people laugh, and she definitely loved being scratched and petted as much as possible.

But there was something not right inside Raven. We’ll never know if it was caused the neglect she suffered at a young age, but her digestive system could never seem to keep pace with her spirit. She had frequent colics. Most were short-lived and passed relatively quickly but sometimes she was uncomfortable for longer periods of time. She was seen by vets from Rainland Farm and Pilchuck and tested for every digestive condition we could think of, to no avail. The only way we found to minimize her symptoms was through control of her diet. Again we tried numerous combinations of feeding for her: different hays, no hay, no grain, only grain, only pellets.…Raven would do well on a particular diet or medication for a period of time, but the colics would return.

This past May, Raven went to Pilchuck for an extensive diagnostic workup with internal medicine specialist, Dr Wendy Mollat. She was given a full abdominal ultrasound, which only revealed one abnormality: the location of Raven’s spleen. Was this the cause of her colics? It was hard to say. But our friends at Pilchuck came through with an incredible solution to Raven’s feeding woes. They donated an iFeed automatic horse feeder to us, a device that could be set to dispense small meals to Raven in her stall all through the night. The idea being that keeping her eating more or less constantly throughout the night would help neutralize stomach acid and more closely mimic the natural grazing behavior of horses. She would also receive timed feedings of grain while outside in her paddock during the day. This system provided the best results for Raven, and allowed us to add one more thing to her routing: grazing.

At the beginning of summer, we started the long process of getting Raven acclimated to eating fresh grass. She started with 5 minutes on grass, no more, no less. This was increased to 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, and so on…an extra 5 minutes longer on grass each day. We watched her carefully…no sign of colic. Soon she was spending an hour every morning on the grass…then two hours…until finally she was out on grass for half the day, every day. This was when Raven really took flight. Nearly every morning, before taking even a bite of grass, she would run…and run..and run. She would buck and fart and leap into the air. In these moments, she was pure beauty, pure joy. And everyone would stop what they were doing to watch her, to take in the beauty of her movement as she pounded the earth and flew through the air. It was magical. Every single day, it was magical. She could be a real horse.

All grown up

We had a wonderful summer with no colics. Raven was put back into the Horsemanship program to start ground work in preparation for being saddled. Not a moment too soon, because this horse had grown up big and energetic, and she could be rather full of herself! Some days she was an angel, and some days she would challenge her handlers. Some days it was as if all of the life and spirit inside was ready to come bursting out! But throughout it all, she was a good girl, with a lot of try, who really wanted to please. It was a huge moment for all of us when we watched Joel Conner saddle her up and climb aboard for her first rides. She was a superstar. She was ready to become a riding horse, and someday have a home and a person all her own.

But it was not to be. Last Tuesday, she seemed off when she was brought in for the evening. The evening crew noticed that she wasn’t eating, and we realized that she was colicking. Dr Lewis from Rainland was called out to see her, and she was tubed with fluids and given banamine to make her more comfortable. But she continued to act agitated…lying down in her stall, getting up, going back down. When these symptoms did not get better, Dr Lewis was called out a second time. Raven was very sick, and she was hurting. Dr Lewis advised us that the best course of action was to transport her to Pilchuck, where she could be put on IV fluids and monitored throughout the night. So at 2:30am, we hooked up the trailer and drove our girl to Pilchuck. Thankfully, the veterinarian on call that night was Raven’s good friend Dr Mollat.

Dr Mollat started by doing an ultrasound, and what that revealed was not good. Several loops of Raven’s small intestine were dilated, and nothing was moving through her system. The fluids she had been given earlier in the evening remained in her stomach. She was tubed again to drain the liquids in her stomach and hopefully make her more comfortable. But because she wasn’t digesting the water in her stomach, she was becoming dehydrated, so she was put on IV fluids overnight as well as medication to manage her pain. We left Pilchuck at 5:30am and went home to pray for a miracle.

Unfortunately by morning she was showing no signs of improvement. Another ultrasound had revealed more dilation in her small intestine. She was still in pain. The next step would have been exploratory surgery…but Dr Mollat did not feel that Raven’s issues would be resolved with surgery. It was not the right choice for her. There was nothing more that we could do.

So we made the very difficult decision to let her go.

Saying goodbye to any horse is painful. To say goodbye to one so young is devastating. But it was the right choice to make. We loved her too much to let her be in pain. And as hard as it was to let her go, we knew that we couldn’t let her face another colic like the one she was battling. There comes a point at which you have to face the hard reality that you’ve tried everything but some things are just not possible. But what we could do was ensure that she would never feel this pain again. So we let her go. She passed peacefully, surrounded by people who loved her.

Here at SAFE, we’ve been struggling to deal with this tremendous loss. We take comfort in knowing that we did everything we could possibly do to give her a good life. She had a lovely wonderful summer in which she got to run on the grass every single morning, and live life like a normal horse. Without the careful and loving care she received at SAFE, she might not have had that time.

We only had a short time with her, but the time that we had was precious and wonderful. She flies free now, and she lives on in the hearts of everyone who loved her.

rest in peace, sweet baby
we miss you so much

To our delight, Raven is getting ever closer to being a “normal” horse. We have been getting her out on fresh grass little by little to see how her digestive system handles it, and she’s doing well on it. She’s off all medication and now the only additive we give her for digestive needs is a probiotic supplement. We continue to watch her closely for colic signs, but so far so good. She also really seems to enjoy her iFeed automatic feeder and is very comfortable with her routine. When we first took her off of hay completely, she seemed very annoyed when her neighbors were getting hay but she was getting skipped. But now she just waits calmly because she knows that hers will soon be dispensed.

Terry has also started Raven back up with groundwork, and with basic things like dealing with fly spray. We had stopped working with her on this while we tried to get her GI tract figured out, but she is back at it and learning quickly! Her personality is sweet and amusing, and she has become a volunteer favorite. She has come far in becoming a well-adjusted equine citizen, although she is still a baby in some ways. We’d like to send her out for training soon to get her started under saddle, but have a few things to figure out first with logistics on how we would set up a feeder system for her while she’s away.

Many thanks to our vet partners at Rainland Farm Equine Clinic and Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital for helping us get Raven farther down the road to wellness, and closer to being able to find her forever home.

Raven’s colic saga has unfortunately continued since her last update. Although her colics are usually very minor, we still want to get to the bottom of the problem and find a solution if we can. We hauled her into Pilchuck Veterinary Hospital last week for an internal medicine consult with Dr. Mollat.

Checking out the machine while being prepped for her ultrasound

Dr. Mollat performed a full abdominal ultrasound on Raven. There was nothing found that would indicate an inflammatory bowel condition, as her intestinal walls all looked normal. Everything looked normal, with one exception. Raven’s spleen is out of place. On exam, it was discovered that she had colon in between the spleen and the body wall, which is abnormal. It’s unknown if this is the cause of her colic episodes, but it potentially could be.

Investigating her new feeder

The bad news is that, short of exploratory surgery (which was not recommended at this time), there aren’t really any more options for diagnostics to determine the source of Raven’s colic episodes. The good news is that we have some ideas to try going forward that will hopefully help decrease her stomach aches. Pilchuck donated an iFeed automatic horse feeder to us that we have set up to give Raven frequent small meals throughout the night. These frequent meals will help neutralize stomach acid and more closely mimic the natural grazing behavior of horses. We will also begin offering Raven fresh grass to see if her body tolerates it. Fresh grass was not a new idea, but we have been waiting for a cessation of her colics before trying it.

Ulla from the iFeed company came out to help us set up our feeder specifically for Raven. It was incredibly useful to have her guidance in figuring out the system since none of us here had used one before. Raven figured out quite quickly that this nifty little grey thing outside her stall spits out little portions of food 15 seconds after it makes a noise, and that it does that 12 times every hour and a half.

We are hopeful that we’re getting ever closer to finding the best management plan for Raven with the help of our support team of veterinarians at Pilchuck and Rainland Farm. It’s likely that she will continue to have minor colic episodes throughout her life, but keeping them as minor and as infrequent as we can is the goal.

Our sweet Raven got to go on her first overnight sleepover last week. We have been trying to figure out her digestive issues and the next step was to have a gastroscopy performed to rule out stomach ulcers as a source of her intermittent colics. We had not had a colic episode in several weeks, but she has recently begun grinding her teeth, which can be a sign of ulcers.

Raven loaded into the trailer like she had done it hundreds of times before, and the haul there was uneventful. It took her a few minutes to settle into her temporary stall at the clinic, but she did great overnight and enjoyed having a pony as a neighbor.

The results were good news–the scope showed no signs of ulcerations in her stomach. As much as we were hoping for this good news, if she had indeed had ulcers at least it would have given us an answer. Some additional tests were run including bloodwork, which showed a low protein level. She has been started on a temporary medication regimen to see if we can adjust a few things. She will get a recheck in a few weeks and based on the bloodwork and progress at that point we will hopefully have some answers and a game plan.

This week Raven got a dental as she is preparing to start training. Our little girl is growing up! Dr. Fleck found nothing in her mouth that would be causing her to grind her teeth, so we’re leaning toward it being just behavioral at this point.

Our weekday barn manager, Lori M, introduced oral medications to Raven with applesauce when she had to be on a long course of antibiotics several months ago. Thanks to this, Raven is a pleasure to medicate. One of her current medications is given three times daily, so this is a very nice trait for a horse to have! Luckily we won’t have to do this medication routine for very long. But in the meantime it makes life a little easier, and also a little amusing.

Stay tuned for an update on the recheck in a few weeks!