When Jerry Ward found the orphaned foal, he didn't know she'd end up in surgery with an arthroscope built for dogs and a therapy still in clinical trials.
He got the call about a newborn alone on the mountain, somewhere across the 5,000 acres near Virginia's highest ridges where the Grayson Highlands wild pony herd roams.
She was nursing from a water bottle when he found her — the sign that her mother had been gone too long.
Ward belongs to the nonprofit that looks after the herd — volunteers who crowdfund winter hay and care for the ponies that need it, often out of their own pockets.
He drove up in a side-by-side, guessing she'd been on her own two or three days, then took her home and named her Little Bit.
Keeping the foal alive meant providing her with colostrum, antibody-rich first milk a newborn cannot go without.
Ward found a farm store in Marion already closed for the night, pleaded his case, and left with a bag after promising to come back the next day and pay.
He still needed water to mix it with, so he crossed the parking lot to a Starbucks and fed her right there in the lot while strangers stared.
"Man, I was getting the looks," Ward said.
"Hey, it is what it is." Back home, Ward built her a feeding station out of an equine leg wrap knotted to the tailgate of his Ford Ranger, holding a bottle at foal height, feeding her every three to four hours, day and night.
Week by week, Little Bit grew stronger.
The report adds to ongoing university-led research relevant to veterinary medicine, animal health, and clinical decision-making.
university website: Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine
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