Zee Ranch

The Miracle Mare

(Rasmoniet RSI x AK Shesarra)
1997 15 Hand Grey Mare

Straight Egyptian Hadban Enzahi Arabian Horses

SRF Shezada Moniet is the last born daughter of the beautiful Pritzlaff bred Rasmoniet RSI and is out of the outstanding AK Shesarra.

On September 29, 2002, Shezada did not feel well. She would lay down, get up, wander around a little then lay down again. Now, this might be ok for some horses but Shezada never did anything like that. I loaded her into the trailer and took her to the vet along with another mare who was having a bit of colic. Both mares were checked out and then tubed with water and oil. The vet said that one mare would be fine but keep a close eye on Shezada as she was a little more concerned about her. I watched her all night. I was very worried. She just did not act right.

In the morning I took her back to the vet to leave her. I was headed out to deliver a few horses and would be gone for three days. There was no one at home to watch her and help her if something should happen. When I arrived there were three emergencies ahead of me. Now I work for the vet, so I pitched in and helped out. It was noon before we could get to Shezada. She was quietly standing in her stall the entire time. I knew she was sick but as she was so quiet, the vet did not get overly concerned. UNTIL, we took her out of the stall and started checking her. Her heart rate was over 80, it should be around 40. The vet just looked at me and said this mare is very sick. We started her on IV fluids and went to tube her. Before the tube got to her stomach, she was refluxing. We drew blood to send in ASAP.

I left town, giving the vet instructions to put her down if she thought she needed to. Of course, this is the last thing I wanted but I would not let this mare suffer.

Shezada had Anterior Enteritis. They gave her a 12% chance of survival. It was not looking good.

When I got back, Shezada had been moved out of the barn and into an outside stall. She had been doing what we call the "Death Dunk". This is where the horse sticks his head in the water and just sort of plays in it. Flipping water with their nose, not drinking anything just dunking their head. If you have ever been around this, you know what is ahead. The horse usefully dies.

All of the employees kept a close eye on her and only went out to her stall in pairs, they were so afraid that they would find her dead and did not want to be alone if that happened. For those long, hard three days, Shezada got worse and worse but never did she quit. She would get up when asked and stand like a good girl and let everyone do what needed to be done.
When I returned, there was only one vet at the clinic. Being short handed I asked if I could take care of my own horse under the vets direction. Now this is something we just don't do at our clinic, the Tech's assist the vet, they do not take over cases. They do not run fluids and they do not tube horses. However, with only one vet to take care of all our clients that would normally be divided between three vets we were a bit short handed. So I was allowed to care for Shezada. I took her heart rate every hour and I discovered that when her stomach was full, needing to be refluxed, her heart rate would jump up to over 100. I started refluxing her every hour as I would get over 5 gallons each time I did this. She was one sick girl. Her intestines had shut down completely.

To make a very long story shorter, Shezada should have died. She should never have survived this. We used every ounce of fluids we had, we ordered the every day, we even borrowed them form other clinics. We used all the vitamin B we had, all the glucose, our drug room was emptied out several times. She was on every antibiotic available, we gave her Plasma, Hetastarch and enough Lactated Ringers to float a boat. She had IV DMSO, glucose, half doses of Banimine to hopefully stave off founder. She was on Gastroguard and Maalox in the vain hope of offering some relief for her ulcers.Her mouth was raw with them so we knew her poor stomach must be just as raw. For eight days Shezada did not eat or drink anything. You name it, we tried it. I had not left the clinic in five days. I was with Shezada 24 hours a day. I would reflux her ever hour and a half and run fluids every 3 hours around the clock. She was a pin cushion, shots of this and shots of that. There was not one place on her body that had not been stuck with a needle.
On the eighth day at 3 PM I refluxed her, nothing... I tried again... again nothing. Oh my gosh, I was frightened. Either her stomach had ruptured (which I did not think because her heart rate was 60) or she was getting better. The vet was due at 6pm so we waited... At 6 the vet arrived and I told her that she would need to reflux Shezada this time. She looked at me with this really funny look, kind of scared and asked what was wrong. I told her that I did not know but I could not get the tube to work.. She laughed and started to tube the mare. She got no reflux and we both started to cry. Shezada was not out of the woods yet but we were well on our way. We continued this treatment for over 30 days, we ran blood tests every other day. We changed antibiotics when we had given her the full and sometimes over the full course. She was eating small amounts of food, grazing on grass and drinking water. When her intestines started working again and she had her first bowel movement everyone was over joyed. Shezada came home, I was so worried about her. I watched her like a hawk.

Now remember, Shezada was in foal during all this...How and way she kept this baby is totally beyond me. Also that she did not founder was a miracle. One morning, I noticed that someone was down at the far end of the field. I was not worried until I saw that it was Shezada. I called my boss (vet)and told him about her. He came out and checked her over and said that had this been any other mare I would not have been so worried and that I problem would not have called him. He did his stuff and left, telling me that if she was not better in a few hours to bring her to the clinic. Well, needless to say, in two hours we were at the clinic. We gave her oil and water, more pain relief and watched her. She did not get better, knowing that she was in foal Doc did a rectal exam and found that she had a uterus torsion. Her rolling in pain had caused the baby to flip over. It took two vets and 5 tech's but we were able to hold the baby in place and turn the mare around it. Problem solved! Not!

By 10 PM, Doc said that she should be feeling better and she was still in so much pain that his best guess was that she needed to go in for Colic Surgery. So, off we went to surgery. Everything went well and she was able to go back to our clinic for her after care. She was there on IV fluids and antibiotics again. At 309 days gestation, Shezada aborted her foal. She had an infection from the deflation of her intestines. The injection site did not close and spread one of the worst E-coli strains you could possibly have. It was only susceptible to two antibiotics, and of course they were the most expensive antibiotics available. After this course of treatment, Shezada was able to come home.

Today, our Shezada is very healthy and getting fat! After watching her go from a healthy mare to painfully thin during her illness and then surgery, seeing her fat today is a wonderful blessing.

SRF Shezada Moniet will be bred to Meadow Mahonri this fall.

SRF Shezada Moniet's sire and dam!

Rasmoniet RSI
(Rashad Ibn Nazeer x Bint Moniet El Nefous)

AK Shesarra
(Ansata El Sharif x Bint Masarra)

Straight Egyptian Hadban Enzahi Arabian Horses