Our princess

Rebecca Block faces heartbreak in this second part of her story. She shares her story in the hope that the loss of her stunning cria Princess might help other owners plan ahead and prepare for the unthinkable. The first part of Rebecca’s story of her Princess was published in our July issue.

As we continued with the antibiotic injections after the vet’s second visit on New Year’s Eve, I realised how very thin and emaciated Princess had become – even in her face I could see the weight just slipping off. I knew in my heart that Princess was growing weaker as the days’ past.

She continued to be as calm and stoic as ever but I knew the light was gradually fading from her. It was not something a casual observer might notice, but I knew she just wasn’t right.

I phoned the vet again with urgency and pushed to have blood tests and a biopsy taken to find out what was going on. It was exactly two weeks after the vet’s first visit and I was told that we should wait another week to bring her to the surgery in order to allow for the paperwork for an Enferplex blood test (for TB). Richard and I both felt that under the circumstances this was such an unlikely explanation that it was hardly worth doing, but I reluctantly agreed in order to rule it out from the start.

All my herd had been agisted in an area of the country with very low TB risk and all had tested negative before travelling to live with us on the Isle of Wight two months before Princess was born. I knew we just needed to get on with the tests as soon as possible, so we booked her in first thing the following Monday. Meanwhile, we brought Princess and her mother Beatrice into the stables as the weather had turned cold and although Princess was adorned in a smart red coat we wanted to keep her warm and dry and close at hand.

Beatrice hated being away from the others and did her best to break out at any given opportunity. They were not alone as we had four newcomers in quarantine in the next stalls, but she did not consider them part of the herd or suitable company.

Princess and I rode together in the back of Erika, my blue Land Rover Defender, on the morning of her biopsy. She didn’t seem to mind being whisked away from mummy first thing and insisted on standing all the way of our ten minute journey, eagerly looking out at all the new sights and sounds. It was her first outing from the farm and she wasn’t going to miss any of it. Once home we settled her back in with Beatrice and she finally got to have breakfast.

The vet had taken bloods and a slice through the lump that had left quite a few stitches. With the fleece now removed we could see the extent of the hard mass we had felt. We kept them both in for the next two nights to allow the wound to heal a little. By this time they had been stabled for almost a week, the weather had turned a little milder and Beatrice really did not want to be contained any longer. We figured that the best thing for them both was to be settled among the herd, nibbling what little grass we had in the fields and munching on hay with the others. I phoned the vet daily to find out any progress on the test results. These came in dribs and drabs – bloods normal; vitamin levels normal; possible cell change indicated by the aspirate taken from the lymph node; nothing conclusive yet.

Sad days

Friday morning I set my alarm extra early to check on them, something had pricked my attention the night before on our final check before bed, maybe it was instinct. In the half light I could see from the bedroom some of the girls were outside the shelter but there was no sign of the little red coat.

As I got to the back door I could see all the herd outside the shelter, standing, staring inwards, alarmed. I ran over and found her under the hay trough exactly where I had seen her last – she had gone in the night. I was completely numb and I could not think straight – I couldn’t think at all. Reluctantly we phoned the vet and it was agreed that a post mortem (PM) should be done that day, but they would hold any samples and only send them for analysis if nothing conclusive came from the earlier tests.

I knew that we needed answers and I knew that a PM was a recognisable way to get them, but I couldn’t bear the thought of it and just wanted to get it over with. At the same time I was worried that once we let her go away from the farm we wouldn’t be able to control what then happened. Richard and I discussed what we might do with her and suggested the pet crematorium – we wanted Princess to be treated with the dignity and respect that she deserved. After the PM the vet called to talk it through with us and then suggested they would contact the fallen livestock person on the island to collect Princess.

I wanted to bring her home to the farm but reluctantly again we agreed, not really even knowing what that meant. My head was in such a fog that nothing was making any sense. Inevitably as it turned out, the answer had been there all along, waiting at the laboratory in the results from the biopsy, but we didn’t get those in time to be spared the PM and what then followed. All I could think about the next day was trying to recover her beautiful fleece – it seemed such a crime to let it go to waste. It was the most beautiful fleece I had ever seen and by far the best I had bred. I wanted to have a part of her that I could keep and remember her by and something I would always treasure.

I remembered a shearer that we’d met who is based locally and contacted him but he did not want to do it. My heart sank, everything in my world had turned upside down. Richard managed to contact the person who had collected Princess and left a message, we asked them to hold her while we tried to find someone to recover the fleece.

The next day Richard had a brainwave and suggested we should ask Paige, the young lady who helps us out with husbandry from time to time and has sheep and horses of her own. It seemed so obvious after the event that she would be the person to ask about all of this. She boldly agreed to have a go but to my great sadness it was too late – against our wishes she had already been taken to the mainland. Richard tried for nearly two weeks to make contact to find out what had happened to her but we never got a response. We had lost her and had nothing left, not even her ashes to bring back home to the farm. It was exactly six months to the day that she was born, that we lost our beloved Princess to a rare and aggressive lymphoma and we have been truly saddened by the loss of such a special one in our herd. Over the three and a half weeks from first noticing the lump to her sudden death, we had cared for Princess and naturally became even closer than before. As a relatively new breeder I was aware of, and had tried to anticipate many potential hazards along the way but nothing had prepared me for this. I know that breeding and keeping animals comes with potential risks and losses and having grown up on a farm with a herd of pedigree cattle and having had horses, I am no stranger to this. This time was definitely one of the toughest I have ever faced. Hindsight isn’t always a wonderful thing, it can be a cruel reminder of the things that you wish you could go back and do differently, but cannot.

It may not be at the forefront of all our minds, particularly when setting out as a new owner or breeder, to think about what would happen in the event of the unthinkable. But I would recommend giving it a little forethought, preferably on a bright sunny day when all is well with your herd. Think about who you might need to contact, who do you already know who might be able to help you navigate such tricky waters? Do you have their contact details? Have you thought about what you want to happen for your animals?

There will be times that no matter what you do, you cannot alter the outcome, but you can influence what happens subsequently and how that impacts the situation. Happy breeding and bonne chance!