Whiskey's Humble Beginning

This is Whiskey-River,Whiskey or Whisk for short. He is a Quarter Horse Paint and 3 months old at the time of the photo.

Not much is known about Whiskey's short past. But we know that sometime in 2018 both he and his mother, whom we call Momma, were sold at an auction to a Kill Lot Buyer in Louisiana. At auctions horses are sold to the highest bidder, and this is a Kill Lot Buyer dream, because they can buy horses for cheap, then they turn around and sell them to meat companies outside of the United States such as Mexico and Canada. There is a community of people that try to stop these Kill Lot Buyers by trying to raise money or donate full funds to save these horses and find them new forever homes.  This is how Whiskey and his mother came to Wyoming. An angel bailed both Momma and Baby (at the time didn't have a name), and she sent them to my Sister-in-law in Afton, Wyoming. 

Both horses were devastatingly malnourished, Mama more-so than Whiskey due to him still nursing her. 

Welcome to Afton, Wyoming Whiskey and Momma. 

After the first week of being in Afton, Whiskey and Momma was moved over on a 10 acre plot of land, that belonged to my sister-in-laws friend, just a few miles away from home.  They were there to help eat down the field and were there until Quarantine was over for the other horses that we had on the property back at the house. Horses there were under a 90 day quarantine due to a horse that was exposed to Equine Infectious Anemia or EIA which is also known as Swamp Fever was brought to us.

EIA is a horse disease caused by a retrovirus, which is transmitted by bloodsucking insects, contaminated surgical vet tools and recycled needles and syringes. Mares can also pass it to their foals.  To learn more about Equine Infectious Anemia click here.  It was very serious, because a kill lot in Colorado that the one horse who was exposed came from allowed a different horse infected with the disease to come to the lot, crossing multiple state lines to get to the Lot without proper medical waivers and coggins test.  This exposed hundreds of horses on the lot, and those horses left the lot which then exposed other horses.  So all who had horses that came from this particular lot in Colorado and all horses that it came into were under quarantine for 90 days.

After the quarantine was up in November, Whiskey and Momma, along with four other horses were allowed to come home.  During this time we wanted to separate Momma and Whiskey, so that Momma can continue to regain her weight and Whiskey was at the age of being weened. Those first few days after being separated were quite hard on everyone, because Momma and Whiskey cried for each other.  Welcome home again.