Nikki the blind foal
Little
Nikki was born blind in May 2004 in New Jersey. Her owner
didn't want the blind foal and planned to "donate"
Nikki to medical research at a veterinary teaching hospital.
A neighbor intervened and contacted Best Friends in Utah, who called all the equine rescue groups they knew of on the East Coast. No one would take the blind foal. Finally Best Friends called us. We agreed to take her if we could get assistance with the transportation.
We and Best Friends began working out transport arrangements, and looked for a professional horse hauler who could bring the blind foal out West. The owner grew impatient and finally gave the neighbor a week's ultimatum to get Nikki off the property or she'd send the filly to the university.
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The foal was only 4 months old and hadn't even been weaned yet. It didn't matter, she had to go. In fact, the owner had already bred Nikki's Momma again.
So Best Friends contacted the wonderful folks at Last Chance Ranch in Pennsylvania for help in getting Nikki to temporary safety. They rushed to New Jersey with a horse trailer, picked her up, and brought her back to their facility.
That's when we decided to name the foal Nikki, as in ‘saved in the nick of time.'
But the hard part was only beginning. In a single day this blind baby girl had been suddenly weaned, put in a trailer for the first time, and transported to a new environment. She thrashed about, panicking. Nikki was terrified. Our friends at Last Chance Ranch had to sedate her to keep her from injuring herself.
Then they spent countless hours with Nikki, wrapping their arms around her and holding her. They reassured her that she would be okay. Gradually the frightened foal calmed down. Yet she still wanted her Momma.
Last Chance had another sighted foal who was recovering from an injury, so they put him in the same stall so Nikki could have someone to bond with. It worked. Nikki grew attached to the other foal, and stopped worrying so much about the Momma who had suddenly disappeared.
For the next few weeks, the Last Chance Ranch folks took great care of this little blind girl for us until our own transporter could make his way there. To make sure Nikki could have a friend go along on the trip with her, they found a goat for Nikki to bond with. Blue the goat took over from the sighted foal. Soon Nikki and Blue were inseparable.
Finally, the big day arrived. We were all very concerned how Nikki would do on the long trip out West. We needn't have worried.
A week after leaving Pennsylvania, the big horse trailer pulled up to our main barn. We climbed up to look in the trailer window. No sign of Nikki. Then we looked down. There she was, sound asleep on her bed of wood shavings. So sound asleep, in fact, that we had to call to her inside the trailer before she finally woke up. Now that's a relaxed little foal!
Nikki has settled in just fine. She's learning how to be a horse by hanging out with a few of the grown-ups -- Lena our blind mare and the best "nanny mule" ever, Lonesome George.
Thanks to Best Friends and Last Chance Ranch, this blind foal was able to head West to a new life with lots of other blind horses.
