My husband woke me Saturday morning, saying “Darka’s down and I can’t get her up”. He called the vet who came right away and administered medications and took a blood sample.  There was frost on her and her body temperature was low. So we covered her with a horse blanket and a quilt and hoped when the sun came up she’d be better.  By afternoon, it was a gorgeous fall day with brilliant blue sky with not a cloud.  It was hot but she was no better. The vet came back two more times. Nothing in the blood sample to warrant what was happening, he took more to send to K-State on Monday. As the sun went down and it got colder, we covered her again and prepared to spend the night in the pasture with her to keep the coyotes away. Her continued struggles to get up caused her to sweat so she was soaking wet and it was important to keep her covered. We got snatches of sleep, me by her head so when she whinnied I would  reach over and pull up the blanket that had shifted. The sky was clear and the moon was so bright I could read the time on my watch. A breeze had come up at sunset and by morning it was cold with a little frost again.  The vet came back at 8:30 with a sling, we rolled her over and tried to hoist her up with the front end loader, but that didn’t work.  By then she was running a temperature and had been down over 30 hours. The vet said once a horse is down for over 24 hours they don’t usually make it and she was suffering so we decided it would be best to end it.

She was only in her 20’s, Dr C. had checked her and her mother the morning she was born, cared for her all these years and in the end was there to let her go. She’s buried here on the land where she lived her life with the others that went before.

Goodbye, Darka.

Tags: Darka