Spring sprung early with a bang for us this week.
On Friday 12th August, we were contacted by a veterinary clinic who reported that an abandoned foal was wandering the Beerburrum State Forest (last seen on Red Lane), and passed on the number of a contact in the Forestry department, who had the details. Apparently, the Forestry department had been doing work in the forest when a wild mare and foal were frightened by machinery. The mare took off, leaving the foal behind and had not returned to get him/her.
- Bojangles
They believed the foal was only a couple of days old and still wobbly on its legs. This was a very concerning and urgent situation. In their first week of life, foals drink more than 300 times a day, so to be without fluids for so many hours is very bad. With the foal weakening by the hour, it would be more likely to lie down (they lie down and sleep a lot anyway) and very hard to see in the long grass, adding to the complications.
We received the news around 3pm, and spent the next several hours in frantic efforts to rescue the foal and take it into foster care and get it some much-needed fluid. Jo S and Eileen began the coordination. Many, many phone calls and emails later, we had a volunteer (Jane) on board who “just happened” to be heading up that way in the next hour. She hired a float and drove up there, where she met another volunteer (Clara) who’d “just happned” to be free and offered to go and help spot the foal and get him/her onto the float if they could. But although Clara had been searching for a couple of hours, the elusive foal was nowhere to be seen.
Night fell, and there was still no sign of the foal. Our spirits began to fall. To find a tiny foal in the dark in the middle of a forest, who may or may not be wandering, sleeping, reunited with its mum, in danger of dingoes or passed out from lack of glucose was a needle-in-a-haystack scenario! But Jane and Clara persisted. They agreed to have one last look before going home and returning the next day. They split up for their last check. Jane rounded a corner, and there the foal was, standing by the road, totally alone. He whinnied to her as soon as he saw her and she wrapped him up in her arms and carried him to safety on the horse float.
At this point, Clara had to leave to meet other commitments and Jane had two children and a newborn baby in the car. She had to negotiate some complicated management with the children before continuing her journey to get the foal into foster care, but she managed to do it with such calmness and grace. Meanwhile, foster carer, Jo M, was at home, frantically building a temporary stable off the bedroom door and finding an emergency supply of foal milk, bottles and teats, and preparing for the fact that she was about to become a new mum with a baby that required feeding every two hours. (Hello to sleep deprivation!) Fellow foster carer, Gillian, joined Jo M to help prepare and care for the baby. Tam, from Online Horse Supplies, who also lives in Samford, came through with a generous discount for a big supply of formula as well as donating a huge supply of Protexin (probiotics) for the little man.
It was many hours before the foal found his way into his comfy stable. Too weak to eat, they called the vet, who came out to administer fluids and glucose, tube-feeding the foal until he began to regain his strength and we all began an anxious wait, wondering if he would make it through the night. Jane and her newborn baby stayed the night in an impromptu sleepover, Gillian stayed until midnight, and Jo M got around twenty minutes sleep while tending to the wee foal to help him make it.
And make it he did. By the morning, “Bojangles” was eating like a trooper and had even managed a skip and a buck around his little stable. Thank you also to volunteer, Georgie, who brought around dog blankets for Bojangles to keep his tiny body warm.
This foal’s story is nothing short of miraculous. To have had volunteers who “just happened” to be able to drop everything when they did just to go and help, and to have the float hire ready and available, and to have been able to find him at all, and to have all the supplies ready for him to come home to, all in a matter of six hours from the time we got the call to the time he got home, is truly a logistical marvel.
We have such a huge amount of gratitude for our amazing volunteers who truly went above and beyond the call of duty, putting everything on hold, managing children and babies, brave a dark forest, and totally rearranging their lives to save this foal’s life. Bojangles is indeed lucky to be alive. But we are so very, very lucky to have him and have such loyal supporters who can mobilise at a moment’s notice to achieve such a rescue mission. We cannot thank these people enough for what they have done. You are all genuine Angels.
If you would like to donate to help support the intensive care of Bojangles, please visit our donations page. Every dollar really counts and is really appreciated.
We acknowledge that the best case scenario for Bojangles is to be fostered by a mare with milk. We’ve alerted all the vets in the local area that we are looking for a foster mum and Bojangles’s luck might continue yet.
