Wendis second chance

Hello, my name is Meaghan and I recently adopted a mare named Wendi.

Wendi is a beautiful mare I acquired from a sale barn in horrendous condition. I was lucky enough to learn some of her history.

Wendi was bought as a baby to a lovely breeding farm and used as a broodmare for her entire life. She has had 9 lovely babies who have all been very successful high end riding horses in dressage and jumper. When she was purchased as a foal she only had one eye. It is still unclear if this was a birth defect or if the eye was lost due to an injury at a young age. Wendi was well cared for by her new owners.

At some point the owner decided to sell her. She was bought with the intent of continuing her career as a momma but something went wrong and she was unable to get pregnant. The new owners turned their attention to re-selling her as a broodmare or a riding horse even though she was now 17 years old and had never been ridden. There goal was to just recoup their losses.

This is were I came in. I saw her add and fell in love immediately. I had recently had lost my foal to a premature delivery and was looking for a new broodmare to try again. She was perfect and looked amazing. She had everything I wanted in a future foal and she seemed like the sweetest girl. I wanted to take her home right then. This was in March 2021. Sadly her owners wanted more then I could afford so I had to walk away. I ended up leased a new mare for the summer, who was also unable to get pregnant and I was forced to give up on my hopes for a foal.

Then an ad popped up on Facebook, it was Wendi! But she was not the same girl I had saw 6 months ago. The ad showed this immisiated mare, fighting for her life. The pictures of Wendi were so bad the sale barn chose to take the add down after only 30 min because the comments were so unkind.

I feel it was a miracle I saw that ad and recognized her. I called the sale barn right away and arranged to adopt her for $500. This was more then I had left in my budget after spending all I had on breeding the past two mares, but I couldn't leave her. She needed help badly.

In that 6 months it was clear Wendi did not receive proper care. I'm not sure why she was so neglected or how anyone could let a horse get to this state. Wendi was at a point where if no one was willing to buy her then she would be euthanized to end her suffering.

When I went to pick her up, the horse that was handed to me brought me to tears immediately.

She is approximately 700 lbs or more underweight, she has an abcess in her face that was seeping puss out a wound, her missing eye socket and her nose, her entire body is covered in a fungal infection, she was full of worms, her hooves have not seen a farrier in at least 8 months and are completely rotten and falling apart, and she is very lame.

Wendi somehow went from a $8000 broodmare to a $500 rescue in 6 months.

But her one good eye showed a spark of life. She is not giving up! So neither will I.

So far; I have dewormed her, started her on a round of antibiotics and pain management, doing daily flushing and topical treatment of her abcess, we began a probiotic and prebiotic treatment, treating the fungal infection topically, giving her daily high fattening grain and vitamins, and she is in a lush grass feild that she can eat as much as she wants and we are currently waiting for the farrier to address her feet. She will need treatment to help with the hoof rot after she gets a trim and we are able to see the extent of the damage.

I've done all I can do and will continue to do everything within my power to get this girl back to a healthy life. She doesn't need to be sold again or have anymore babies. She just gets to be loved.

However her care will be ongoing and costly.

If anyone is willing to donate towards Wendis expenses it would be greatly appreciated.

Her food costs and vet costs will be high as she has a long road to recovery.

Thank you very much.