I haven’t had a white horse for a long time. The last one was an old retired fellow we took in to put weight on, too. He went a whole day before I freaked out and bathed him to get the stains out of his coat. I’m getting the itch when I look at her. She also kinda smells. Not like she’s sick, just unclean barnyard. I’ll wait until after the vet check this morning so our vet doesn’t have to examine a wet horse.
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The seller told us that she picked up the mare at a really rundown old farm in a neighboring state. She got a Coggins for her. The guy she bought her from was a grump and didn’t say more than a few words to her. Just pointed to where she was and told her the price if she wanted to buy. With that in mind, I checked NetPosse, just in case. Nothing listed in a search for Medicine Hat or overo mare. Nothing matching in paint or pinto either.
The last extremely skinny horse I took in was a stolen Morgan mare (the owner signed her over to us when we tracked her down). The old retired grey fellow and the Morgan mare were both in their twenties. This is the first younger mare in this condition. It’s hard to believe no one is looking for her. Especially being a Pinto or Paint mare. Is her coloration associated with lethal white? From what I looked up, it wouldn’t be, but I might be mistaken. People love to breed for color, so I suppose I just wondered.
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You are wonderful for getting her. I hope she gives your son and the family years of great pleasure.
In the pictures of her at the last place she just looks so defeated (I know it’s not the place that got her in that condition) Looking forward to seeing a happy girl and young owner in a few months
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Hi Matilda!!
I’m sure she has to be so relieved in your care 
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Welcome Matilda!
I can’t wait to she her glow up!!
@moonlitoaksranch congrats on your new family member!
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Bo’s thread is massive at this point 
six months later. As far as his age, it’s anybody’s guess at this point 
based on teeth, two vets assessed him at “over 20”, nobody has really offered any more accuracy than that. I don’t really think of him as “old”, just mature.
Congrats on your new girl! Her build suggests she will likely be quite the stout lady when fully filled out. She will be stunning in a few months. Don’t forget to take lots of progress pictures! I find it so helpful to be able to look back a few weeks or a month, sometimes it’s easier to see the small progress that way. When you stare at them every day the gradual changes can be sneaky!
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Thank you! It was fun looking back on your boy’s progress. How much more energetic was he once he started to feel better? Was he still a little thin when it happened?
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Generally speaking, yes - he perked up noticeably once he started putting on weight. He spent the first month? or so? pretty much just standing around or sleeping between meals. When I started exercising him beyond hand walking after a few months, he was still on the thin side and as we went along he did start to have a little excess energy to burn. He’s not really one to expend tons of unnecessary energy, so it was mostly the odd crow hop or one circle of zoomy canter 
but these days at fighting weight, I do have to beware that he may do a little hoppy hop when I first ask for canter under saddle. And he can sometimes be a bit forward at the start of the ride. Nothing I would consider dangerous though.
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So lethal white is carried by the frame Overo mutation. If you breed two horses with the frame Overo mutation there is a 25% chance the foal will be homozygous for frame Overo which is lethal white and dies after birth. If you breed a frame Overo to another kind of pinto or a solid horse (that isn’t a low expression “solid paint” carrying a frame Overo mutation) there will be no issues. All living frame Overo horses are heterozygous, meaning they have one copy of the gene and may or may not pass it on.
The classic presentations of frame Overo, Tobiano, Splash, and Sabino are easy to identify. But they can all have maximum or minimum white expression. In the case of frame Overo, you can have a horse with just regular white “chrome.” Also you can get wild patterns when you mix different pinto genes. The frame Overo might not be visually obvious in a “Tovero” horse.
With a maximum white pinto like you have, you can’t tell visually what various pinto gene mutations are hiding in there. If you plan to breed her you should get a panel on pinto genes run, as well or course the stock horse inheritable genetic diseases like HYPP and PSSM etc. If you aren’t breeding her, not necessary.
Many nice horses fall through the cracks. Their owners fail them, they sit on a field, they are turned out for minor injuries, they are used once as a brood mare, they don’t get fully broke or they have quirks. Etc.
Is this one broke to ride?
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The seller saddled her up for a quick ride. She seems to know a little, but not very much. We rode her away from her buddies briefly but we really didn’t stay on long because of her condition. Just long enough to note buddy/barn sourness at a minor level (balking away and a slightly faster walk back). We turned her away twice to see what she did when frustrated and there was nothing much more. It was a horrible feeling sitting on a skinny horse. Even for 5 minutes. We had to know she wasn’t crazy.
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That’s promising. Keep in mind that she may never have been properly trained and start from zero ground work first. I’m sure you know all this. One of the big reasons horses fall between the cracks is they don’t get broke on a timely schedule and so no one wants them.
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Vet report!
BSC is a 2.
It’s looks like an amateur tried to float her teeth and did a lousy job. She even has a mouth sore. They’ll have to be redone later, but she isn’t quiddiing, just dribbling grain. The vet wants to wait on tranquilizing and vaccinating until she’s stronger. Her incisors don’t meet evenly but aren’t too far off, so that will need to be watched as well. Wear on her molars is uneven and could be from anything. She went from starving, to having a round bale, and then to us. Who knows what she has been through or what she’s been trying to chew up? Age is probably 12-14. She might be older, if they tried to alter her teeth, but not more than her teens. The vet that did the Coggins had her as a 2011 model. Our vet knows that vet and trusts him.
Deworming is with a mild dose this week (safeguard). Fecal results should be back later today. She’ll get a power pack next week and potentially a third deworming in 2-4 weeks depending on worm load and species.
She has some weird skin issues, tons of bites, scrapes, scratches, and possibly ringworm on her trailhead. Bath weekly with an iodine shampoo and use an anti fungal.
Hydroxyzine twice a day and then once a day to calm down all her fly bite bumps and rashes.
She has some sun damage around her eyes, but no sign of cancer. We’ll need to watch her eyes for uveitis because of her skin and exposure to sun. She’ll get her UV mask and nose flap.
Blood was drawn for CBC and basic chemistry. Results later today.
Vaccines next month, then in with the herd, if everything looks good.
There are some discrepancies between what we were told and how things are IRL. The sellers had a Coggins that shows her in poor condition, but perhaps with a little more weight, a month ago. The vet straight up told me that we saved her life.
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She might have Frame Overo (aka Lethal White Overo), but that is likely combined with a few other white patterns, splash, tobiano, possibly SB1. There are over 30 white spotting genes now, not to mention all the ones that can’t be tested for. Obviously if she has Frame, it isn’t a problem for her because she only would have one copy of the gene. Sometimes horses just come out with this much white, random mutations happen.
ETA: Glad to read the vet update. Hopefully you see improvements soon.
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Okay…fecal and blood work. Negative for worms (seller did say they dewormed, yay!). Vet still wants me to power pack considering her history and possible encapsulated buggers. Blood work: Anemia, high fibrinogen, high neutrophils. Positive for anaplasmosis. She starts on doxycycline to treat it. They get it from ticks. None have mine have had ticks. In fact, I haven’t seen a tick on our farm for a few weeks now. Likely she got it where she came from (originally). I let the seller know in case she wants to check her horses.
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She’s structurally pretty decently put together.
I bet once she gains weight and muscles up she’ll be lovely!
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We figure about a month of ground work to find the gaps while she’s gaining weight. We’ll work up to ponying her from my mare, once she’s out of quarantine. She doesn’t know laterals at all. No side pass. She did respond to a half halt, but some of that is just logical for them, rather than something she was taught.
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Vet raised the possibility of her being a pintarabian (sp?). She has a smallish head (size ‘small horse’).
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Sunscreen recommendations? She tunnels her nose into round bales, so no flap.
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I used Water Babies on my pony, because that’s what the BO had on hand for her kids. It took a bit of persistence to get him to stand still for it. It tended to stay on when he would immediately go dunk his nose in the trough after it was put on.
Rebecca
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I love you even more for the fact that you took this mare. 
She has a soft, kind eye and while she may not have a lot of “fancy training” I’ll bet she’ll be easy to bring along. Just remember the summer will be a challenge with all that pink skin and white hair, but it sounds like you’re pro-active on that front.
As an aside, I want to just scream, “WHAT IS WRONG WITH SOME PEOPLE?”
How can someone just watch a pretty mare-- or any horse-- starve to death? That requires a long process of selected neglect.
Good lord, there has to be a special place in hell for cruel people.
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