‘A Queer Case’ – She is Now in Horse Heaven – 1903
She is Now in Horse Heaven
Mare That Attempted to be a Billy Goat
A queer case has been occupying the attention of and greatly puzzling Dr. T. D. Jeffrey, the Missoula veterinarian for nearly a month past, but this week he solved the mystery, and great was the revelation. On December 3, the doctor was called to a stable on the north side of the tracks to treat a sick mare, 18 years old, who had been in apparent good health up to that time.
He attended her every second day for about a week, but her symptoms did not respond to the usual horse remedies, and the veterinarian finally told her owners that he could not understand her malady as arising from natural causes or even from disease, and expressed the opinion that there was some substance of a foreign nature which was disturbing her internally.
It might be appendicitis, or it might be something else; in fact, only a post mortem could determine.
Several days ago the mare was killed by chloroform and the post mortem revealed the fact that she had tried to be a billy goat without having a billy goat’s or an ostrich’s digestion. Nothing of a foreign nature was found in either her stomach or the small intestine, but when the large intestines were opened a regular second hand hardware shop was exposed. The mare had swallowed in some mysterious manner a rat trap, a quantity of nails of assorted sizes, several historic and prehistoric pebbles and quartz samples, a piece of hoop skirt; which may have been in process of equine absorption since the days of crinoline; and a number of other articles which should rightfully have abided within the trousers pockets of a school boy or adorned the shelves of a junk shop.
No one ever saw her perform the stunts of eating any of these things, but she certainly was an epicure in the variety of the assortment.
The article above appeared in The Daily Missoulian on December 31, 1903.
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