This is a remarkable story of the sheer will to live that I share with you now.

For me, this story suddenly began mid-afternoon on Friday June 21, but for this valiant little soul it began on Saturday June 15 when he was born.

Hamish the Highland was born June 15th on a farm raising Highlands for meat, and he was with his mom Saturday and Sunday the 15th and 16th.

Then he vanished.

What comes next is hard to imagine.

Hamish's story becomes a mystery. His mother frantically called for him.The farmer's family looked for the missing calf, but they felt a predator had caught him. What really happened was much stranger during the heat wave we just experienced.

On Thursday the 20th, they somehow discovered him halfway down a ravine near the farmhouse. He was trapped by brambles, immobile. In the three days of the heatwave he was without milk or water, laying on his left side, wrapped in brambles and savaged by flies. Miraculously no broken bones

Sadly Hamish's mother no longer accepted him.

He did take in water and some milk replacer, but he was in a lot of distress from his injuries, especially after the flies had worked on him for three days.

They made the decision that he deserved a chance to survive, so they surrendered him to the Sanctuary. Brendan and I drove to pick him up. He was an absolute mess but still had the will to survive.

Hamish arrived at the sanctuary late Friday the 21st: we worked on getting more fluids into him by bottle, and we worked on the fly strike in his wounds but the seriousness of his condition made it clear by Saturday morning that we needed to get him to Tufts Large Animal Hospital after consulting with our vet clinic Equidoc.

He has pneumonia but that is stable and treated with Draxxin (tulathromycin)

He is completely shaved now, to allow full access to all the bramble wounds and fly strike. He has had supplemental oxygen but has been weaned slowly from this.

His appetite has really improved and his ability to stand on his own and explore the med bay has been promising. He has IV saline and dextrose to reduce his dehydration.

But all the skin on the left side where he was pinned to the ravine has signs of necrosis. That can be overcome medically if we can get him past this acute phase.

The team at Tufts will only continue forward as he maintains a good prognosis. They are examining a heart murmur to make sure that there is not an issue there.

They are encouraged by his good trajectory each day - he is improving.

He remains in critical condition right now, and we are reaching out to everyone to help us with this unexpected hospitalization. You know we plan for most things and do our best to budget. But we stepped up for this fellow and can't imagine doing anything else.

If you can help, Hamish says thank you very much, he will try his best to recover.

The original estimate at Tufts on June 22 was $6326, and of course we know once we can get him back to the Sanctuary, he will have a long road ahead, but we will do everything possible for him. To that end we have budgeted an addition $5000 in this fundraiser for after he comes home. And on June 27, the additional charge at Tufts was added on at $3879.

Hamish the Highland: Emergency Medical Fund

Help Hamish recover, with his best chances at Tufts Large Animal Hospital.

Team Members