After inspection, Okie says that the ground is ready for mud wrestling. Wrestling will begin promptly during the next daytime rainstorm, which should be soon. Sigh.

They are here!  Shadow, Lottie Mae & Okie arrived 5/9/2022..  They are in great shape and have formed their own little herd.  They are currently in with Holly and we will see how that goes.  Don't they look great??

It was a really WINDY day when Kathy loaded Okie into her trailer to transport him a couple hours away to Reata Equine Hospital so that we could have his weepy eye and his teeth examined.  Okie loaded & unloaded like a champ!  As you can see from the picture, he has put on some needed weight.  Woot! Woot!

EYE EXAM NOTES From Dr. Sutherland:  OKIE has a mature cataract in his left eye with posterior pynechial of iris.  Eye is non visual but not painful.  Mild tearing, no treatment needed at this time.  May need to have occasional TX with tab and cortisone.  Recommend also potentiall putting on daily aspirin powder if tearing worsens or there is mild intermittent squinting.

Okie is blind in his left eye.  This is not a new injury and he seems to be well adjusted to the loss of vision in that eye.

His dental exam went well.  He had a mouthful of sharp points, but fortunately no mouth ulcers.  He does have a slight wave, but not as bad as we had thought he would at his age.

OKIE is drinking and eating well, but he does leave the stems and just picks out the leaf on his alfalfa.  He does have some sideways mouth action when he chews.  He also has a weepy eye.  Kathy did use some eye ointment for a couple days with no noticeable change.  We will be scheduling an appointment with Dr. Sutherland to do his teeth and examine the eye.

His registered name is:  RVA Lena’s Okie Dokie and he has some NCHA winners in his background.  We are calling him OKIE.

It got more expensive from there.  Due to fuel costs, transport costs were higher.  The plan was that he would overnight at the tranporter's facility and our short haul transporter would pick him up the next day to take him to Kathy's for quarantine.  Plans didn't work out.

The area around the quarantine facility was surrounded by the Eastland Complex fire which turned out to be one of the largest wildfires ever recorded in Texas history!  Then, tornados were passing through the area with lots of wind and rain which meant OKIE had to stay another day/night.  Finally, he was picked up and was able to be transported to quarantine. 

He's a little banged up from his encounters with other horses at the lot.  Otherwise, he appears to be in good weight-health and is a little guy! He will accompany the girls, Nancy Ann, Lottie Mae & Shadow when they come to TIER at a later date.

Just hours before he was scheduled to ship to Mexico for slaughter, there wasn't anyone willing to pay his high ransom.  Had he been younger, I'm sure someone would have scooped him up.  Fuel, Transport, Quarantine costs, feed, hay, vet bills, and everything in between have skyrocketing prices that don't appear to be decreasing anytime soon. In fact, they seem to be on the rise!  

At 21 years old this horse didn't deserve the horror that awaited him.   We paid his bail.