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| Sierra in November of 2007 upon arrival |
Sierra is a 21-year-old palomino that originally came from Texas but has passed hands many times.
She is one of the worst cases of starvation that we have seen in a long time. She was part of a herd of 16 horses and
her owners said that the other horses chased her away from the food and that was why she was so thin.
When she arrived at the sanctuary she had a large worm belly, and terrible diarrhea. We also saw something
that we had never seen before. The muscle tissue around her anus had been absorbed by her body. Because of this,
her anus stayed open a few inches and compounded to her diarhea.
She was also covered with rainrot (a fungus) and her face was swollen like a chipmunk due to extreme
dental problems that made it impossible for her to eat hay.
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| 4 months later in March 2008 |
Many HPS members wondered if Sierra would survive. She was given a special diet of pelleted feed,
soaked alfalfa cubes, probiotics, and MMS. She was gradually wormed in stages to avoid creating any impaction by killing
off the parasites in her digestive system too quickly.
Due to her extremely weak condition and a heart murmer caused by starvation, her dental work was done very
gradually. A 3-inch-long hook was slowly removed from one of her teeth. Her mouth is almost completely normal
now and she can graze and eat hay without any trouble.
She has gained her weight back and can now be seen galloping across the field with her friend, Inca.
She is shedding out and is almost impossible to tell from the other palominos, Goldrush and Aspen.
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