Virginia Tech's Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center saves Chanceland Farm foal

[00:00:05] >> Lucky Dance we bought as 2-year-old in the 2-year-old in training sale. Some friends of ours had bred her. But I had actually trained her mother for a client, and we won a stake with her mother and so we kind of knew the family. Robert Manfuso and Katy Voss brought their mare, Lucky Dance, with her newborn foal to be treated for Neonatal Isoerythrolysis. [00:00:31] And that's a disease where the antibodies produced in the mare's milk actually start attacking the foal's red blood cells. The foal wouldn't nurse. She was born early in the morning, and when the vet checked her, you know her various values were dropping and she was very concerned about her so we rushed her straight to Leesburg. [00:00:52] Took her right to Leesburg. I think they've done an incredible job as the facility has matured. She was quite young, she was only about 12 hours old when she came to us. and the birthing had been normal; she had stood up and nursed appropriately, but it was noted pretty soon after that she was pretty weak. [00:01:11] She was so anemic that she was becoming lethargic and could not oxygenate her own tissues; therefore, she couldn't stand appropriately. She couldn't nurse. Our newly designed foal box, which was a really generous gift from the Backer Foundation... That allowed us to keep the mare and foal separated while maintaining a physical bond between them so the mare could reach over through the window, touch the foal, still have that physical bond with her while keeping the foal separated to get all of the critical care fluids and blood transfusion that it needed. [00:01:46] It also kept the foal from ingesting any more of the mare's milk that contained antibodies which would further cause red blood cell destruction. Your new setup with the separated stalls worked great. Worked fabulous up there. Particularly with a mare like Lucky Dance, who is a stall walker. (laughing)