African Hoofprints: Of Biliary, Death and Sadness...

Friday 9 November 2012

Of Biliary, Death and Sadness...

Written on 16/10/2007

To all our friends,

It is with heavy hearts that we write this email. On Saturday, 15th September, our little Rahaal died. He had been struggling with a high temperature for a couple of days so we had blood tests taken but nothing showed up. In the week before the 15th, he kept going into shock and dehydrating. Each time we managed to administer shock therapy and pull him out of it. On Saturday afternoon, we realised he was going into shock again. We rushed off to the pharmacy to get a drip to rehydrate him and dexamethyzone to treat for shock. By the time we got back he was already dead. We did an autopsy/necropsy and found nothing other than jaundice. We believe it was biliary, but were never really sure because he did not show all the symptoms and the blood tests were negative. We also disected his legs and hooves and found that the pedal bones in the front feet were chipping. We were and still are very sad. He was a great horse and a very special member of our team and we miss him terribly.

Rahaal, beautiful, playful and loving.

The two other equine members of the team are doing well. Nali got caught in his rope a while back and had a sore hind leg but is recovering well. Chami had an allergic reaction to something and his legs and sheath swelled up. He looked a bit like the Michelin man. He too is recovering nicely.

The Michellin Man...

We are still staying in Khartoum on a horse farm owned by an English lady. She does riding lessons and hippo therapy so we have become really involved. We plan to leave on the weekend of the 26/27 and head South to Kenya.