Glad I am not the only one who thinks along these lines. I was gong to ask about what kind of life this foal would have and just can’t understand the amount of $$ spent? I guess because I don’t have money like that.
They make income off of posting videos?
To be fair, there’s no way the income from the videos offsets the vet bills enough for that to be her motivation. I think she’s just young. I made a lot of decisions when I was younger about vet care that I wouldn’t make now.
I would really be interested in more experienced breeders opinions. I’m horrified (and yet, I keep following…), but I have limited experience with babies. I feel like at this stage these defects aren’t correctable like they are in a true newborn. I feel like there must be pain management that’s not addressed. I can’t see a good quality of life ever for this baby, and a ton of risk for it ever to go outside or with others. It looks one misstep or uneven ground away from snapped bones. But she keeps a mare on limited turnout who has a severely compromised DDFT, so maybe she’s more comfortable with that quality of life than I would be. Maybe I’m not optimistic enough about the chances of correcting severe deformities in a 3 month old foal. But google isn’t helping and there’s no way to tell from the comments on the page when 90% of her followers can’t recognize a fly mask.
Put more politely and succinctly than I could manage. I find it appalling on a visceral level when the emotional attachment to an animal is prioritized over their ability to live a mobile and pain free existence. The comparisons to a human with limitations is a false equivalence. We are their guardians and are tasked to hold ourselves to standards that include making hard decisions. If basic mobility can result in a catastrophic DDFT failure or broken bone a decision should have been made a long time ago.
Oh, yes @GraceLikeRain ! That’s the other thing that is so interesting and also so frightening about the comments. So many people projecting their human struggles onto the foal’s situation. It’s bizarre. I think that’s part of what I find fascinating in a way. I’m always interested in animal social media because I find the current trend towards anthropomorphism so scary and so dangerous to horse sport. But this really is an expression of that new public mindset that I haven’t seen before. People who think physical disability in an animal is the equivalent of physical disability in a human and who are unable to grasp that an animal might have a different definition of quality of life, or that it might be a very different experience without a human understanding.
To give a little insight on being in the creator fund on TT.
She as a huge following 3.6 million people on TT (which is considered a Mega Influencer) , and that is not counting YouTube/Facebook, and she has a merch shop (which I am sure just drop ships from a fulfillment business) (I supply fulfillment businesses with printers and promo decorating machines, people make money hand over fist).
Simply interacting; by hearting, sharing, commenting and watching a video for over a minute on TT will give the creator funds. She’s got plenty of money. The hearting and commenting do not earn a TT’er money, views do, but to get on the For You Page, you have to have high intereaction which you get by having lots of hearts, comments, sharing etc.
The majority of her posts garner over 500,000 views. On average a creator with over 1million followers can make $2,500.00 per post. Let’s say she does a post a day for a month, 2500 x 30 = $75,000.00 A MONTH! and of course taxes are withdrawn, but still that’s not to shabby. I which I was more out going and wanted to share every aspect of my life and put myself out there under a microscope.
All of the baby Seven posts have well over a million views each.
We are watching in real time what is happening to Seven. The good, the bad and the ugly. She even stated a few videos ago that she wants to show the “ugly middle”. Instead of reading about his case in some medical journal or paper presented in Vet medicine years after his birth. We get to watch his journey. Would I do it? Most likely not, I am not an over sharer. So I appreicate her efforts, yes.
THEN the other side of the coin is that I don’t know (even if I had the money to do it) would I continue his journey. We are not there everyday, we do not see his willingness to live. She has stated that she knows he will be a pasture puff for as long as he lives. And she has said that she will PTS should his progress stop and her vets suggest it.
Whether he lives to be a yearling, 2, 3, 4, 5 yr olds or beyond… His life will help premature foals in the future. His case will help shape what to do and what not to do should this happen again.
I blame Disney/Hollywood on anthropomorphism more than social media.
Thanks for the ‘influencer insight’ 
I was hesitant to post that update as he does look like his legs are about to break, but I said I’d keep posting her updates so I do. Maybe shortly there will be one where she says he’s been put down. I don’t know, just as we all don’t know the hour by hour of his life.
She posts a lot more than 7, if anyone wants to find out, they’ll have to look for themself. I know she posts on FB, probably instagram too. Whether that brings her money, I don’t know; although I believe that she’s not keeping him almake money from views
I might look at the first screen of comments but since they’re just regular folk expressing their opinions, I’m not interested. There’s very few videos that I watch for longer than the time it takes me to swipe to the next one, I guess social media has done that to me.
Anyway, as I tried to do when I posted this one, I’ll make mention if it’s possibly upsetting so you can decide whether or not to watch it
I am for sure not an expert. But I did have one premature foal born at 312 days. She stayed on my farm her first two months. I have also raised dozens of foals. It is not abnormal for full term foals to be born with angular limb deformities. The majority correct on their own with minimal or no intervention. But the timeline for surgical intervention closes from the ground up. The window to correct fetlocks is much earlier than knees.
Premies have not only the angular limb deformities but also laxity in their soft tissue. This makes it just about impossible for the joints to straighten without knowledgeable intervention.
I have not followed this foal closely. Just watched the last video. I don’t know how the foal’s legs are kept at this point. But I would not allow the knuckling over 24/7, except maybe in the water. The size of the left front fetlock is concerning.
There is still time for the knee joints to get to a more normal angle. Dynasplints now would be a huge help. Surgery before six months if they don’t improve. The premie I raised had Dynasplints on both fronts. It was years ago, but I will try to find pics. The before and after is impressive. I am grateful the owner never gave up. Was she as bad as this guy, no. But she was bad. And they had a huge bill even with me doing all of the care on my farm.
My vet told me, when the baby finally was ready for full turn out and to go home. that he never thought she would make it.
Wow. Those dynasplints really work
Thank you for sharing Bing!
Those Dyna splints are awesome!
To save you some time, Seven has been in casts since his joints were totally open. If you can, I would go back and look the X-rays are amazing watching him grow bone. Katie does knees and hocks quite often to mark his progress.
They recently changed him to splints but I am not sure now long ago. The swimming is fairly new to his program and he also gets PT and other therapies to help him grow at the vet clinic.
The legs are straighter but those knees & fetlocks are still very abnormal? I hope they were different when the horse was sold.
Yes, they were. Thank you for your concern.
My customer is at the top of the sport. They sell horses suitable for the job and at prices where there would be a thorough vetting.
I had her until she was two months of age. The knee valgus still had months to improve. I would not call her fetlocks “very abnormal”. And not her knees either at two months of age.
I posted to show the early and impressive progress with dynasplints. If Seven ends up with the “very abnormal” knees and fetlocks you see in her early corrective pic, he will be lucky.
I am watching at work so reading the subtitles and it cracks me up that the auto-subtitles keeps using “hawk” instead of “hock”…poor unhorsey AI…
Heartbreaking…
Here’s the latest. She mentioned he’ll be getting splints for his back legs. He’s got attitude
There was no video Friday, but here’s today. Some changes and she has some news so you might want to take a watch. Probably not another till Thursday
Hopefully the little guy is doing better. I don’t/won’t watch her videos, just follow occasionally on this thread.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
