Hoofbeats ON our heart : Equine Endoscope for nL

As many of you know, we lost Ruben, our foal on September  2,2023 . Unfortunately, it sometimes takes a tragedy to spark change. As a community, we need to start changing and supporting our equine medical care more and we need to start to gather equipment and resources. We can’t just rely on the Provincial Vet Service to provide it all. 

This campaign is to fundraise for an Equine Endoscope.

Since the first week of Ruben’s life, I knew something wasn’t right. Sometimes when he nursed he would have milk come out his nose. The Vets were out multiple times. He was given blood work, antibiotics, X-rays, ultrasounds and we had consults with AVC, OVC, and a specialist of internal equine medicine in the U.S.  Even with all of this we were unable to figure it all out and the puzzle want adding up. Ultimately, Ruben needed to have a scope completed. I was willing and ready to travel to AVC to have a scope completed but he was never truly stable enough to be cleared for the journey.  As a result, his body shut down and he lost the fight.  

After Ruben’s passing it was confirmed  that he had  a cleft palate, something we couldn’t have confirmed without a scope .  Unfortunately, genetic defect contributed to his death and his little body couldn’t keep up. Regardless, having access to an Equine Endoscope scope would not have changed the outcome but it would have saved his suffering at the end.   

In addition to Ruben, we also have many horses in NL that are suspected of conditions and treated without diagnostics  due to the lack of equipment. An Equine Endoscope would solve these issues.

Horses requiring scopes must travel to AVC in P.E.I for the minor day procedure. The horse must also be healthy enough to travel from NL (by truck & trailer and boat) to the AVC and in addition, the owner must take on considerable risk of traveling and cost.

We have a wonderful team of vets in NL across the island, and I send my thanks to our vets who worked around the clock in addition to when they were on on vacation and days off for weeks to provide the best care possible to both Ruben and Maggie with the time and resources they had available. Unfortunately, the one diagnostic  tool that would have helped was a large animal/Equine Endoscope.

I’m going to begin a series of events and fundraising efforts with the plan to purchase an Equine Endoscope. The plan would be  for the scope to be available for usage/rental to our equine community with a requisition from a certified vet.

Once this goal is reached approx $35,000, then I will be also looking at other medical resources or tools  that are needed in our NL Equine community .

If you would like to help with events, host an event, take part in the fundraisers or make a donation towards an Equine Endoscope, I have set up a gofund me for direct donations or donations can also be e-transferred to  [email redacted]  

In addition, please feel free to reach out via this email too if you have questions or would like to support in other ways.