Anna’s Miracle

by Brenda Short, Short ASSets Ranch

On July 1, 1998, one of our jennets, Anna Maria, that we had purchased in March 1998 came down with hyperlipaemia. We had purchased Anna Maria in March 1998, a really pretty brown & white spotted four year old jennet. She was fat when we bought her, actually about twice the size that she should be. She had been fed grain and alfalfa hay. We knew that once had the foal, it would pull some of the weight off of her.

She foaled on May 20, 1998 and everything seemed to be fine. She accepted the jennet foal (her first), Lisa, and all seemed normal. We did notice that Lisa was always away from Anna and it didn’t seem to bother Anna. Normally new mothers want their babies right by their side and the other donkeys don’t get close. Lisa would wander away and when she got hungry, she would run back to Anna, nurse and off again. One morning Anna didn’t show any interest in grain and only wanted to eat hay.

After a month at the maternity barn, we moved Anna & Lisa to the big barn along with the other new mothers and foals. On Sunday (6/28), I noticed that when I grained the girls, Anna would get a bite and walk away and then follow me in the barn. I would give her a bowl of oats inside the barn. She would eat a bite and walk to the water trough, get a drink and walk away leaving the grain and go to the hay. I knew she had lost some weight since Lisa was born but didn’t realize how much due to her shaggy hair coat. This routine continued through Tuesday morning.

On Tuesday evening, June 30^th, Lonnie went up to the barn to check on all the donkeys. Anna was stumbling around acting really disoriented, head down and ears out. Lonnie leaned against her and she started staggering sideways. You could see her backbone. We brought her inside the barn. She started yawing at the jacks and her mouth was "spastic" looking. We gave her some sweet feed which she tried to eat but was so disoriented she got her mouth caught on the edge of the bowl and couldn’t get it off without help.

We immediately called a vet. When he came out and observed her he said that it was a toxin from Johnson grass in the hay causing neurological problems ie brain swelling and the symptoms probably would never go away.

We moved Anna and Lisa back to the Maternity barn. She seemed to like being back at a place she recognized. Apparently the first move could have caused her extra stress bringing on hyperlipaemia.

I emailed Bonnie at Miniature Donkey Talk Magazine as to what the vet said about Anna. She suggested that the problem might be hyperlipaemia and check MDT #75. The symptoms matched exactly.

Lonnie called another vet, Dr. Robert Judd, since we didn’t feel comfortable with the first diagnosis and also after reading MDT. Dr. Judd knew immediately that it sounded like hyperlipaemia!!!! He suggested that we bring her in ASAP. Hyperlipaemia has 60-100% mortality rate.

About 6:00 PM on July 1 we took Anna to Judd Veterinary Clinic. Dr. Judd ran a battery of blood tests. The Hyperlipaemia was not full blown BUT she was in liver failure, kidney failure and had very little gut sounds. Out of 13 blood tests only 1 was "ok". He kept her overnight to give her glucose, mineral oil and water through a tube. He felt that it was ok for Lisa to continue to nurse at that time.

The next morning Anna is "some" better. She did have a BM and had some gut sounds but still hadn’t urinated. He didn’t want to have to give her a diuretic and increase an already complicated situation. The blood tests that morning showed her glucose level was high. At this point Dr. Judd decided to give her some insulin for a couple of days. Later that night she finally urinated but still wasn’t interested in food. He didn’t want to force feed her at this time because if the liver hasn't healed it can't process the food and ammonia will develop causing the neurological symptoms again.

We went to his clinic each day and walked Anna & Lisa outside. They needed the exercise and we were hoping that she would try to eat some grass, but no luck. Dr. Judd was a little concerned about the amount of food the baby was getting. He said that sometimes they wean the babies but it can also cause more harm than good with the stress created in the mother. He gave her a shot to stimulate the gut. At noon, he made a gruel out of "Equine Senior" and water and tubed 12 oz into her stomach. She started breathing hard and shaking some. At 7:00 PM, she still hadn’t had a BM and had not urinated but once in 2 days.

The next day’s blood test at the clinic indicated some liver levels that were previously "off the scale" are now normal and other levels are still high but lower than when she first came in. He did find that her phosphorus & magnesium levels were low which could be from not eating, so he decided supplement those. Her white blood count was 22,000 on 7/1/98 now 8,000 which is normal and her glucose level is now normal. He gave her another quart of the Equine Senior gruel that night.

Since she still hadn’t urinated, he palpated her and found that her kidneys were ok and her colon had stool in it with no evidence of blockage. He decided to give her a diuretic which caused her to urinate.

On July 4^th, Lonnie & I went to the clinic to check on her. She still hadn’t eaten or drank anything on her on. We took them outside. It had rained the night before and there were puddles of water standing in the driveway at the clinic. After about 10 minutes of walking around, Anna bent down to a puddle and got a drink. We were EXCITED. Then she went over and started eating grass. Dr. Judd decided we could take her home because we could do the same things he had been doing and she was more comfortable when we were around. We loaded up the truck with medicine, IV’s and headed home thinking everything was looking up.

We had to keep Anna hooked to the IV most of the time because she still wouldn’t eat grain or hay. All she would eat was green grass. We would have to unhook her IV for a while and turn her out around our house to graze. When she was hooked to the IV, Lonnie would mow and bag strips from our yard and give it to her to eat, made for a funny looking yard. She would eat some but not enough to keep her alive.

After about 2 days of eating a little grass, Dr. Judd decided that we needed to tube her and feed her the gruel which we did about 3 times a day. It just didn’t seem to make any difference.

We took her back to the clinic for a check and more blood tests. About 2 weeks had gone by. Dr. Judd just didn’t know what else to do for her. He suggested then that we should try to wean Lisa. Anna’s bag was almost all gone, just a hard knot left. He didn’t know if Anna was going to make it. That day, I started feeding Anna every 2 hours. When Lonnie got home that night, I put Lisa in a pen with the weanlings and Anna was in the next pen so she could see Lisa. Lisa cried for Anna but Anna didn’t seem to care, she just stood there with her head down, you could tell that she felt bad. I asked Lonnie to give her some Banamine through the IV catheter.

While Lonnie went to the house to get the Banamine, I sat on the side of the trailer and prayed. I knew that it was definitely out of our hands, we couldn’t do anything else to make her well and neither could Dr. Judd, she was in God’s hands. Lonnie gave her the Banamine and then took her inside the barn to feed her more gruel. Lisa was still outside with the weanlings crying for her momma.

After Lonnie fed Anna the gruel, her ears immediately went up, she seemed alert for the first time and started looking for Lisa. Lonnie told her (yes, we talk to our donkeys) that he would take her out to Lisa but she didn’t have any milk to feed her. At this time, he reached down and felt of her bag. It was FULL.

We had to continue feeding Anna the gruel through the tube 2 times a day. Anna didn’t like the tube in her nose and kept pulling it out. Dr. Judd taught Lonnie how to tube her which he did before each feeding.. We would let her out to graze on green grass during the early morning but had to put her inside the barn under the air conditioning during the heat of the day. (Texas summers are HOT!) When it cooled off, we would put her back outside. She finally started eating sweet feed. Yeah! This routine continued about a month.