Our look at 24 hours during foaling season continues in this excerpt from the Eclipse Press book Equine ER by Leslie Guttman. Today, we visit the ICU. 

Earlier that evening, a Thoroughbred foal had come in for Dr. Bryan Waldridge after a difficult delivery on the farm that owned her. Although at first the newborn filly had stood well and nursed at home, she had since regressed, unable to do either.

She was a big baby, the largest foal I’d ever seen, with a heavy coat. (Dr. Bonnie Barr once told me that nature’s intelligence always impresses her: Foals born in the colder months always have the thickest hair.) The foal didn’t get enough oxygen during birth and her gastrointestinal tract wasn’t quite mature enough to move the milk through in a normal way. Her body needed a little time to catch up. She was being fed intravenously, and Waldridge was going to try to get her to nurse again. She had also been given plasma to help boost her immune system.

In the ICU Waldridge had just gotten the foal’s bloodwork back from the lab