This is the story of Sparky, an orphan foal, a foal of the great AQHA sire "Rugged Lark".

Sparky the Orphan Foal May and June 2006 - Whispering Winds Ranch, Northfield, WI

The first mare “Miss Leo Ship” that we bought to start our venture into the world of AQHA horse breeding was about to have her 4th baby for us.  We could not be more excited as we had bred her to a son of the great Rugged Lark.  Having 6 mares bred and 4 of them already had their babies out of our buckskin stallion “Leos TopDeck Buckeroo” we were really excited.  Gary went down and checked out the all of our horses before we retired to try to get some sleep.  Knowing that Sparkle was getting very close to delivery we were anxiously awaiting our new arrival, hoping for a buckskin but just wanting a healthy baby.

At 1 AM on April 24, 2006, Buckeroo our stallion started to make an awful ruckus, as he is just outside our bedroom window, Gary jumped out of bed and ran to see what was wrong with him.  Little did we know that he saved our little “Sparkys” life.  His mother was giving birth and having a hard time.  Gary went down in the field to check her out and came running back up the hills to have me call the vet as Sparkle’s intestines were hanging out and one foot of the foal was out.  Just having moved to the area we had only had the vet out once the day before, lucky for us as he was the same vet that was on call that night.  I called Nate and he said he would be at the house ASAP.  I told him we would be in the pasture.  It seemed like an eternity until he arrived.  He drove through the pasture while I closed the gate and ran after him. 

We were lucky as we had taken on line classes from Dickinson College in ND, one of them was about problems with foaling.  Gary was able to push the foals fool back in and with the help of Sparkle he pulled him out as she pushed.  Little Sparky was born and trying to get up.  I told the vet I had a baby bottle and sterile jar in the house if he thought we could get some milk from Sparkle.  He told me if I could get it and be back in 10 minutes we might be able to keep him alive.  I started running up the hills to the house as Nate yelled at me to bring some towels also.  I don’t remember when I ran so fast.  I drove our pickup back down and was back in less than 5 minutes.  I know I’ll never be able to do that again!  I held Sparky by his mom’s head, while Nate held her neck and rubbed it and talked to her while Gary was able to milk almost a quart of milk from her before it started having blood in it.  Then Nate did what he had to do and gave her a shot as we all said good bye to our beloved mare.  Sparky was picked up and put in the back of the pickup with Gary holding him as we rushed to the barn with the milk and Sparky wrapped in our good bath towels.  We got him in the barn and started giving him some of his mothers milk in the bottle and teaching him to suck on the bottle.  I was never happier to see a baby start sucking on the bottle.  Then Nate gave him his first shots to help him out. 

We had milk replacer at the house but that is one thing I could not find so I drove the 10 miles following the Nate to the Vet Clinic to pick some up.  The next few days were pretty hectic.  Sleeping in the barn was not an unusual sight for us.  We were getting up every hour on the hour feeding our little man.  I remember calling my daughter at 2am (her husband is in the military and they were stationed in Hawaii) she asked me if I was awake and I said I was calling her so she could keep me awake and talk to me as I fed Sparky and talked to him.  (I had also called her while I was waiting for the vet to come.  Waiting for him was really difficult.)  It was good to have someone who cares to talk to when you are tired and just want to talk to stay awake.

For the first 3 weeks we were up every hour on the hour feeding Sparky.  Poor little man had no one to help him learn how to be a horse.  The first few days Sparky would not lay down by himself.  We figured that it hurt the first couple times he tried it himself.  We would help him lay down until he figured it out.  Then we had a really cold spell and bought him his first blanket.  Poor guy, we had it on just a little tighter than we thought and he could not get up after he laid down.  Getting everything right the first time is really difficult.  Of course after buying the blanket I read an article about how a lady used an old sweatshirt with a zipper up the front, would have saved a bunch of money for sure and made just a really nice blanket for him. 

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