A story of survival against all odds.

Kleo was born at Ricinda Ranch in the beautiful Canungra Area. She was a strong and healthy foal with a promising future.
At 3 weeks of age she was found having trouble getting up. We checked her over and found one paralysis tick on her. She could still walk and was on tick prevention treatment so we thought we had gotten it early enough. Our vet advised to keep a close eye on her and felt she would get better in the next couple of days.

Despite the fact we were onto it early, the paralysis spread quickly and she soon was unable to stand unassisted. We were gettng her up to feed every 3 hours. In the next 24 hours her legs became weaker though, so we used a sling to hold her up. This worked well at first, however, her paralysis kept
getting worse until she couldn’t even keep her head up to feed, so we stopped using it.

Watch Kleo's video below

We then started milking mum every 3 hours 24/7 and hand feeding Kleo. It was a very slow process. Luckily we were able to get a goat milking machine from a lovely local lady that only took about a minute to milk her. Her beautiful mum Sapphire was so calm and gentle with everything we had to do as she knew we were trying to save her baby.

Kleo was unable to reposition herself so we were moving
her from side to side every 3 hours to stop her getting pressure
sores. We were also still using the sling and hay bales to keep her upright as she kept toppling over on her side and would have suffocated if we let her lying flat too long.

Over the next 7 days her paralysis got worse and worse to the point she had no movement at
all in her legs and the paralysis was working its way to her chest and affecting her breathing. She was on antibiotics to stop her getting a chest infection and pain relief medications.

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All we could do was provide her supportive care and medications. There was
nothing we could do to reverse the paralysis except to wait for the effect of the
toxins to work their way out of her system so she could move again. This normally takes a few days or at the longest a week–– so each day we kept watching for signs.

A week passed and then another. We were up to 14 days since she first got paralysed and there was still no movement. She was bright and eating and drinking well though, so we continued with the 3 hourly care 24/7.

There was never a day or night we took a break. It was just a small team of us doing the round the clock care. My son Allan & his partner Seaona and Ricky and myself.

We spoke with our vet everyday on how she was progressing. Each time we
moved her we did physio on her by moving and stretching her legs so that she didn’t lose function once she started to get better.

After day 14 we gradually saw slight improvement in her movement each day.
At first just the tiniest movement in her legs.

Ever so slowly the movement returned over the next week (She had now been paralysed for 3 weeks)

We didn’t ever think it was possible that a foal could be unable to walk for that long and survive. At this point we had almost lost hope that she would ever be able to walk again. She was still bright and bubbly and trying to get up so while she was determined to keep going and keep fighting for her life we would also continue.

We then noticed as she started to get movement and strength back in her legs she wasn’t actually able to straighten them out. Now we were faced with her having severely contracted tendons so began more intensive treatment to try and fix them. The treatment was several doses of IV medications over the week, splints and bandages that had to be changed every 12 hours.

The 3rd week had begun and again the progress was very slow. We were finally able to stand her up however it was clear that she had to completely learn to walk again. She had half her life lying down and had grown so much during that time. All her muscles were weak and not used carrying this weight so we could only get her up for a very short time.

We tried a few different ways to get her up and in the end the best way was to pick her up ourselves using straps so we could put her down quickly if needed and support her as she tried to walk. She tried and tried and
tried and finally, by the end of week 4 she could walk and feed off her mum without us assisting her.

We finally had hope that she might make it.
We then put her out in the arena and this was the first �me in a month that her and her mum had been outside.
It was very exciting day.

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As she still had trouble with her tendons we moved her and her mum into a nice small grassy paddock. On week 5 we saw her run and skip with joy for the first time. All her bandages could finally be removed.

As she still had trouble with her tendons we moved her and her mum into a nice small grassy paddock. On week 5 we saw her run and skip with joy for the first time. All her bandaged could be removed.

Over the next few weeks she legs got better and better and she was finally able to be put back out with the rest of the herd who were all very excited to see her. She has now made a full recovery and gallops around with all her buddies.


Over the next few weeks her legs got better and better and she was finally able to walk and trot and move around normally again and without pain or strain.

It brought tears to our eyes to see her run for joy for the first time.

She is a miracle baby who, against all odds, fought so bravely, never giving up, and went on to not only survive but thrive.

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