The Story of Hewey - part 4
...and still there's more to come...
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By now, Hewey was happy for other people to feed him however I could not actually leave while he was awake. Nor could I return to the stable area unless I was staying. He recognized the sound of my feet instantly and of course knew my voice easily. When he was asleep I could creep out and could give a lesson as long as Hewey could not hear me. If he could, he would scream and go ballistic! This meant that the schedule had to be flexible and everyone had to work on Hewey time.
Another issue to be overcome was the flies! Wherever there are horses there are flies. Add in milk and they become a horde. Hewey had a very, very, very fine coat so he hated the flies but he was also very sensitive so the hunt was on for something that was effective against the flies but safe for baby. We were not completely successful but not for the want of trying. One reasonably successful solution was using a net sweat rug which was big enough for a tent for Hewey. This could also be used in later weeks over the table of milking paraphernalia.
It was about now that we started thinking about a name for our colt. He was a week old and it now looked as though he was here to stay. We were watching a large amount of TV and thankfully the Australian Open Tennis had started. Lleyton Hewitt was playing and surviving some amazing 5 set matches at the same time as our boy was struggling to survive the first weeks of his life. We decided that if Hewitt won we would name our amazing foal after him. Sadly on the 30th Hewitt lost the final in 4 sets however we felt that they had ‘shared’ such a good fight that Hewey would be the name.
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We still had problems with the very delicate skin on Heweys legs and we had to weigh up the risk of infection due to loss of skin under the splints versus the risk of his legs being unsplinted. During his early days we consulted not only with our regular vets but also with those from Scone neonatal intensive care, KER, and Werribee. On the 24th of January in fear and trepidation we decided to leave the splints off his back legs. He was now gestationally about 315 days and so hopefully his hocks would cope. He was of course still very restricted in movement and in his padded cell. He now weighed 27.5kg (inc front splints) and was averaging about 4 litres of milk per day. On the 30th of January we swapped Heweys front splints for very bulky bandages. These still substantially restricted his movement and gave some support to his knees. |
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Hewey really seemed to appreciate hisThere were many interesting times with Hewey. Some exceedingly frustrating and some just funny. Also they gave terrific insight into the way horses see things. A lot was not new, but many instances confirmed what we already knew. As we were always trying to keep the bed clean, I would have to change my boots for ‘slippers’ or just socks when getting in with Hewey. I would of course wear boots out to milk Gloria, then remove them to get in to feed Hewey. One time I took them off and left them under the table against the wall instead of just outside the straw bales. I could not work out what was wrong with Hewey until I realized that he was absolutely transfixed by the ‘feet on their own under the table’! On another occasion a similar thing happened when I was sitting in with Hewey with a blanket over my legs. Suddenly his eyes were out on stalks and he was frozen. I realized that my feet were sticking out from under the blanket and apparently detached from my legs!
| Like any good toddler Hewey also had an uncanny knack of requiring a feed or the toilet when I was trying to have a meal myself or was on the phone. He would often stick his nose into what ever we were having for dinner but did not find anything that he liked the smell of. He really seemed to disapprove of coffee and would smell it on me well after I had a cup. Gloria on the other hand decided that reaching over the stable door to the dinner table was well worth a try and on more than one occasion shared some of our meal with us.
The stable had gradually acquired more ‘mod cons’. We had a TV, library (mostly veterinary and breeding texts!), electric jug, walkie-talkie(!) then the kitchen table and chairs. There was already a fridge in the feed room next door but this was supplemented with esky and ice as I could not always go next door when I needed to. The heating and air conditioning remained pretty manual though. |
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| Hewey was now just over 2 weeks old and it was time to get some idea on how the legs were progressing. So the decision was made to go to Werribee as they have state of the art equipment and the results can be checked and assessed on site while you wait. There was no problem about not taking Gloria as Hewey still thought that she was too scary and she thought that we were doing a great job raising her son! So on the 1st of February we packed up the car with his bed and bottles, lifted him into the back beside me and headed off. We drove right into the breezeway and parked outside radiology then lifted Hewey out and took him in for x-rays. These showed that he had small rounded bones beginning to form in his joints and that no damage had occurred. |  |
This gave the all clear to remove the bandages from his front legs and meant that in a few more days he could have a slightly larger area, but still no more than 1/4 of a normal stable.
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Hewey showing what he thinks about these funny brown sticks! |
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| It was the most bizarre summer in terms if weather. One day it was 40 degrees and the next it was freezing. Hewey did not know whether to bake or freeze! It was a challenge to keep both the milk and Hewey warm or cool. On the hot days I had to use ice packs inside his legs and around his neck, as although our stables are relatively cool he could not cope. |  |
| Because we wanted to keep the equine association going, the top door was always open to Gloria. This was until the weather turned really foul and dumped inches of freezing rain and hail one night. We literally had 150ml of rain overnight on the 2nd of Feb. This was the night I almost carried him into the house as we just could not keep warm. |  |
| I was reluctant to use an electric blanket from the safety aspect and could not find a waterproof heating pad at short notice in the middle of the night. As I said before we had a greyhound rug that fitted and also he wore a couple of my polar fleece vests, back to front of course with the zip along his back. At one point he was wearing the polar fleece vest, two dog rugs and cuddling me under a blanket as it was so cold! |  |
By now Hewey was up to around 7 litres of milk per day and weighed over 30 kg without bandages! He was getting close to the point where he should have been born and so on the 4th of February was able to stop his 8 hourly benzyl pen injections. I was glad of that but he really hadn’t appeared to mind them. We also dropped the ulcergaurd to twice per day. The strength of Heweys skin had now increased dramatically and on the 5th he made the huge change to straw. This was an amazing advancement but meant that I now slept outside the ‘bed’ and he was not thrilled about this. We had to increase the height of the walls to 2 bales of straw, but Hewey still managed to ‘arrive’ in my bed at regular intervals. He was now 36.5kg so this had to stop before one or both of us was injured.
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Following are some video clips of Hewey's growing up in all of this excitement. These were taken on a small digital still camera so the quality is a little grainy, but they're interesting none the less. Hewey's tiny size is even more apparent in video than in still shots and at this stage he was 3 weeks old.
Thanks to Richard's brother Mike for the camera work!
| First up is a clip where Hewey shows his concern at Mum's departure (Mum being me). We were in the process of changing his bed.
Click on the image at right to view the mpg file. 2.8Mb, 41 seconds |
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Hewey wants the TV guide so he can check what's on TV tonight! Click on the image at right to view the mpg file. 3.3Mb, 48 seconds |
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Sometimes you need Mum's help to lie down! Click on the image at right to view the mpg file. 4.1Mb, 59 seconds |
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You guys might want to sit and talk but I wanna play! Click on the image at right to view the mpg file. 1.6Mb, 23 seconds |
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