Beauty's Barn — It's Built!
This is what our new barn for blind horses looks like.
Blind Beauty had come to us in the summer of 2003 from a Kentucky animal control shelter, where she had been impounded following years of mindless neglect. In the short year we had her, this girl made an enormous impact on us. It was because of her that we significantly expanded our work with blind horses.
On her last morning with us, just before Labor Day 2004, we promised this loving old mare that some day we would build a barn in her memory. Not just any barn, but one with a heated, insulated medical stall and medical room where we could treat old, blind horses like her. .. and do so in comfort on bitterly cold winter days.
When we made that promise to her, we thought it would take years to raise the $70,000 needed to build Beauty's Barn. Incredibly, thanks to the generosity of the sanctuary's supporters, the money was raised in just eight months and the barn is here today.
First Medical Procedure Performed!
In fact, our equine vet performed the very first procedure -- eye surgery on one of our blind horses -- in Beauty's Barn on Sept. 1st this year, just one day short of the first anniversary of her passing. It was a fitting way to inaugurate this new veterinary barn.
The barn holds six regular stalls for blind horses in addition to the medical stall. Big 10' covered porches shelter the north and south doors. On the right side of the barn, the small roof covers the outside entrance to the medical stall. There is an 8-foot door here so we can drive a tractor right into the stall if we have to move a downed horse with a sling. The gray door is the outside entrance to the medical room. There is also access to both the medical stall and medical room from the main aisle-way inside the barn.
Why the Medical Stall?
A stroke brought Beauty's long struggle with failing kidneys to an end. But in her last few weeks, as we desperately tried to save her kidneys, we ran IV fluids to Beauty around the clock. We could do this because it was August; in an unheated barn in winter in Montana, the IV fluids would freeze. That's when we realized we needed a special barn where we could do these kinds of procedures in any season.
Thank You!
This wonderful new barn is a tribute to an old, blind mare who captured our hearts...and a testament to the sanctuary's many generous friends and supporters. We are so grateful to the Cotswold Foundation and to all the unbelievably generous individuals whose fabulous gifts made this magnificent building possible.
Thank you. .. thank you. .. thank you!
