|
|
Onondaga Rescue Mission
|
On August 20, 2011 I received a phone call from a person who said she just went to someone’s private farm for the first time and found two severely emaciated horses on their property. The pictures she texted me were appalling, definitely enough to make me want to investigate.
The following day we went to take a look. There were four horses on the property, all separated from each other, two completely starved, not a stick of hay, one in decent weight, but obviously very wormy. None of the three had any shelter. The fourth horse was in good weight with a turnout shed for shelter. The short version of the story is basically a family feud with horses caught in the middle.
The two mares were by far the worst ones. They were completely starved and had terrible rain rot. They included a 13 year old mare and a two year old filly. The filly was the worse of the two. She had no body fat and her rain rot was so bad, most of her hair was missing and she flinched when I touched her, indicating I was causing her pain. The older mare was also starving and had rain rot.
Like the mares, the five year old gelding had no hay or shelter. However, apparently one of the other family members had been feeding him and his weight was not nearly as concerning as the mares. His scars were deeply emotional. He was terrified of people and they told me they were only able to catch him once since they picked them up in April. There was obviously no way we could leave him there.
The fourth horse was owned by someone else, and was in good weight, didn't look wormy and had shelter and hay. How in God’s name they can feed their own horse every day and watch the others just starve is simply beyond our comprehension. It is impossible to NOT be completely furious with these people.
But, that being said, our first priority was to get the horses out of there and safe. They were backed into a serious corner financially and we did not have any problems with picking them up and starting their rehabilitation process.
The following day we went to take a look. There were four horses on the property, all separated from each other, two completely starved, not a stick of hay, one in decent weight, but obviously very wormy. None of the three had any shelter. The fourth horse was in good weight with a turnout shed for shelter. The short version of the story is basically a family feud with horses caught in the middle.
The two mares were by far the worst ones. They were completely starved and had terrible rain rot. They included a 13 year old mare and a two year old filly. The filly was the worse of the two. She had no body fat and her rain rot was so bad, most of her hair was missing and she flinched when I touched her, indicating I was causing her pain. The older mare was also starving and had rain rot.
Like the mares, the five year old gelding had no hay or shelter. However, apparently one of the other family members had been feeding him and his weight was not nearly as concerning as the mares. His scars were deeply emotional. He was terrified of people and they told me they were only able to catch him once since they picked them up in April. There was obviously no way we could leave him there.
The fourth horse was owned by someone else, and was in good weight, didn't look wormy and had shelter and hay. How in God’s name they can feed their own horse every day and watch the others just starve is simply beyond our comprehension. It is impossible to NOT be completely furious with these people.
But, that being said, our first priority was to get the horses out of there and safe. They were backed into a serious corner financially and we did not have any problems with picking them up and starting their rehabilitation process.