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PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Call it July "Foal-th".
The smallest Salt River Horse ever is on the mend this Fourth of July holiday, and a phone tip may have saved the premature foal's life.
Volunteers say if they didn't find this horse when they did, it would be dead by now. After getting a tip from their hotline, the salt river wild horse management group was able to find a premature baby horse fighting for its life
"We sent our field team out right away and we found that this was a tiny, tiny premature baby, just born, and we found out from some bystanders that it had been there for six hours" said Simone Netherland.
The male horse's mother was nowhere to be found, and because of the triple digit temperatures, survival was no guarantee. However, a stay inside Netherland's living room is helping the horse get back to a healthy weight.
"He's inside in the air conditioning, but then we cover him up with little blanket and we monitor his temperature with a thermometer," said Netherland. "If we put him outside right now, he'd probably be dead in an hour."
The group has to feed the baby horse substitute milk because its without its mother
"He's actually already grown four pounds," said Netherland. "He was 33 pounds when we found him and he was extremely small. We've never seen one this small."
As for a name, that's where you come in. The group is hoping the public can help out by sponsoring and naming the horse through their Facebook page.
Salt River Wild Horse Management Group's Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/saltriverwildhorsemanagementgroup/