Spring fever is starting to hit the herd and there’s been a lot of running around and play fighting. Even the long-eared beast is getting into the fun.
Mick and Milo did a little play fighting yesterday, pretending that they were big bad wild mustangs fighting for their herd of mares.
When in reality, they’re just a couple of dirty little geldings that get bossed around by the mares on a daily basis.
Just keep dreaming, boys!
The Fairmont saga is still continuing. The deputy and vet that went to check out the horses did nothing, other than tell the guy to worm his horses and fix up the shelter. I’m sure the asshat has jumped right on that and those horses will be picking up weight in no time.
NOT.
Crazy breeder down the road still had blankets on today, even though it was almost 70 degrees and sunny. I guess the next deaths will be caused by a combination of starvation and heat stroke. Perhaps if enough of them die she’ll eventually be down to a number that she can actually take care of. That seems to be the only option since Tyler county has no one in authority that actually gives a flying fig.
In the good news section of the blog, these two horses were successfully rescued about two months ago. They were skeletons then and still have a couple of hundred pounds to go. The person that rescued them originally was having trouble handling them as they grew healthier and would really prefer a nice, well broke older horse instead of these two young hooligans. He’s adopting Timmy in another few weeks and I picked up Lakota and Thunder from him yesterday.
Thunder was a stallion when he was originally rescued and was just castrated about eight weeks ago. Of course he and the mare had been turned out together before being rescued. Ugh. Let’s hope the Lutalyse shot works on Lakota better than it worked on Willow!
That’s most of Thunder above, and Lakota is below. She’s going to be a stunning mare once she’s cleaned up and fatter.
These two are supposed to be fairly well broke trail horses, so once they’re back up to a healthy weight I’ll be getting on them for evaluation.
I apologize for the crappy pictures. I was trying to hold on to an excited and nervous Thunder and work the camera at the same time. I wanted to get better pictures today, but it just never happened.
Once I have better pictures of Lakota I’ll post about her over on Rescue Recoveries. She’s a big mare and needs at least another 250lbs before she’s back up to where she should be. Judging from what she looked like when she was originally rescued, she’s already put on about 200lbs! Poor girl!
For months I’ve been wondering why I keep finding the salt blocks dumped in the mud and their holders yards away, upside down, and stomped into the mud. Today I caught the culprit in the act!
It wasn’t me! Sky did it!
And you just know if I spend money on a real horse toy, he probably wouldn’t touch it.
Marilyn the pig was killed in her pen last Tuesday. She had long clean gashes in her sides and her haunches had been chewed on. There were no wounds around her head or neck. I’m thinking our friendly neighborhood big cat that attacked Sadie last year is back. Something had to have jumped the 6’ dog kennel panels that had surrounded the pigs. Bacon Butt escaped by breaking one of the boards on their shelter. I found him loose with the main herd on Wednesday morning. Until yesterday, he’d been hanging out in the yard with Timmy. Then I came home from town yesterday to find the neighbor’s starving inbred pack of dogs surrounding Bacon Butt, who was lying on the ground grunting, twitching, and bleeding out. The dogs took off when I got out of the truck and I used one of Glenn’s rifles to put poor piggie out of his misery.
I have still not been able to get any answers from Marion County about those horses in Fairmont. Has anyone else called the sheriff’s department and had any better luck? I’ve asked PETA to get involved by putting pressure on the sheriff’s department and hopefully that will make a difference.
Crazy breeder down the road is keeping blankets on her horses in this beautifully warm and sunny weather, just to hide the fact that they’re starving. Maybe I should throw a blanket on Jolie to hide the fact that she’s filthy. Damned grays. They always have to roll in the mud.
Doc is coming out next Tuesday to castrate Maverick and Sky, even if the weather sucks. Mav is getting a little too horny with the warm weather coming on.
Traveler and Timmy finally have some updates over on Rescue Recoveries, so please go check them out. Those will probably be the last updates until they shed out in another month or so.
As usual, West Virginia police have astonished me by not lifting a finger to help horses in need. I have still not heard from the Marion County Sheriff’s department about those starving horses. I’ve called several times, but the dispatcher has transferred me to the records department voicemail each time. Records? Does that mean the deputy went out there, said everything looked good, then closed the case? This is exactly what happened with the breeder down the road. The deputy said the horses weren’t thin because “their eye sockets weren’t sunken in”. You have got to be kidding me.
But wait, there’s more! On the same road as crazy breeder you find this poor horse:
Old? Maybe. Sway backed? Yup. Poor thing still shouldn’t be that thin. *sigh*
This week has been really tough on me mentally. I feel the need to curl up around a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia and suck my thumb for awhile. But instead, I hugged a Sky pony. By the way, he says Hi.
He would also like to know if you’d help me out and call the Fairmont Sheriff’s department. The more people that call about this asshat, the better. Maybe if enough of us complain, someone might actually take an interest in the wellbeing of those horses. The Marion County Sheriff’s department non-emergency phone number is 304-367-5300. Tell them you’d like to report horse neglect on Straight’s Run road near Barrackville and the name of the owner is Jimmy Simons.
Back on the 27th I mentioned nine starving horses outside of Fairmont and was hopeful that the owner would give them up willingly since he constantly complained about how hard it was to feed them. He is willing to give them up, but his drug addict girlfriend is not. So I drove down there today to see for myself how bad things were and get pictures so we could go to the authorities (again) about these horses. I’m just now getting home, and what I saw made me sick.
Out of the nine horses that are left, only three are starving. The others look very good, considering how they are kept. This is their only shelter, and not one horse has access to it. Perhaps it’s just there to add some class to the landscaping.
Five of the nine horses are permenantly tied to the barbed wire fence. Most of those five had no water buckets that I could see, or they had one, but couldn’t reach it.
This little guy was penned up behind the house and my camera could barely zoom in far enough to get a clear shot. But you can clearly see he’s in need of help NOW!
These guys were not tied, so they could at least get to the stream of snow melt coming down off the hill into their paddock. The one in the middle is the worst of the bunch and also needs help ASAP.
Here’s another shot through my truck window. Poor thing!
This youngster is thin and wormy, but not as bad as the other two.
There was a stack of about 15 poor quality square bales by the road, but I saw not one piece of hay in front of any of these horses. There was one other horse tied up behind the house, but I couldn’t get a good enough angle for a picture. He looked ok as far as weight, but I still didn’t see any buckets near him.
I just got off the phone with the Sheriff’s department and they knew exactly who I was talking about. They have had many complaints before about this asshat, but no place to take the horses if they’re seized. The dispatcher said he’d send a deputy out there today and give me a call back. Keep your fingers crossed that we can at least get the two starving horses out of there!
California is the next state trying to create an animal abuse registry, much like the current sex offender online registry.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/state&id=7292221
Other states have tried and failed, so I’m crossing my fingers that California pulls it off. If so, it may take root and spread across the country. We can only hope!! What a great tool that would be for shelters and rescues!
On a local note, the crazy breeder down the road has now lost SEVEN horses since December! A friend and I did a drive by last week to get pictures, but most the horses had blankets on even though it was sunny and warm that day. But you can still see hip and back bones sticking up under the blankets, and neither of us saw ANY hay in any of the paddocks. A few of the paddocks had no shelter of any kind, nor did we see any water in some of the paddocks. We’ve contacted the local Barney Fife that takes care of animal control issues (or pretends to), but he’s really not interested in doing anything about it. He says he’ll talk to Doc and go out there himself, but we’ll see. I’m not hopeful. At least he’s on the bottom of the authority pile and there are plenty of people above him that we can harass until something is done.
This is one of her draft broodmares. She had no shelter, hay, or water.
This is one of her stallions with a bad heart murmur. Check out those hip bones! He’s wearing two blankets and you can still see his back bone. He also had no shelter, hay, or water.
These two had a trough, but we couldn’t see if it had any water in it. They also had a cheesy shelter. But hey, cheesy is better than nothing. The horse in the background is still in pretty good shape, but you can see the back bone of the grey and there’s nothing much left of her neck.
I hate to think of how many more horses will die before this winter is over!
*****UPDATE! This mare has found a home!!
I’m trying to help someone find a home for her 10yo 15.3h TB eventing mare, and ever since I saw her pictures I’ve been drooling. The mare is located in Delaware, however the owner is willing to transport her anywhere in PA, VA, WV, or MD for a good home. She’s sound, healthy, up to date on her vaccinations and free to a great home.
It’s so sad that our economy has tanked so badly that this mare can’t even find a home when she’s FREE. Back when I was eventing (dinosaurs still roamed the earth then), this mare could have sold for 5 grand in the right area. I’d take her in a heartbeat if I were still eventing! There’s got to be someone out there looking for a ready-made eventer that would give this girl a good home. Please help me find them!!
With the snow. Done, done, DONE. Will it ever stop? Will it ever melt? Ugh. Oddly, I’m so ready for mud.
At least there’s one “person” on this farm that enjoys the snow.
I have some things to catch you up on, so here goes.
1. Doc was out on Tuesday to do some teeth floating and examine Genesis, who has returned due to financial and health issues. He also checked Maverick, and much to our surprise, Mav has dropped his second testicle!! Woot! We’re hoping the weather will cooperate next week and we can get both Mav and Sky castrated.
2. In yesterday’s post I asked for help identifying a farm in Prichard and getting some pictures of the supposed neglect. Someone with relatives in the area stepped up to the plate and things are in motion! Wish us luck in at least getting living conditions improved for these horses and dogs. It’d be nice to close the place down completely, but another farm will just take it’s place. Horses are going to be shipped to slaughter, it’s just a fact of life in this world. As sad as it is, the goal is to just make sure they are treated well until the end.
3. Not five minutes after I published yesterday’s post, I got a call about nine starving horses in the Fairmont area. The person that called me is trying to convince the owner of the horses to give them up. If he doesn’t do right by these horses, we’ll get the authorities involved and hope for the best. Here’s the thing -- no way can I take all nine horses on a permanent basis. I’ll bring them here for Doc to examine them, vaccinate, float if necessary, and pull blood for Coggins. Once Doc certifies them as healthy, I’ll be looking for foster homes. If you’re interested in fostering one of these horses, please let me know! Once I’m down in numbers again here on the farm, they can return here, or you can choose to adopt them. Each foster home will be checked out and go through the typical criteria that I use for potential adopters.
I could also use some help building another run-in shed if anyone can lend a hand!
… if I’d stop blogging about animal neglect? Trust me, I’d love to run out of things to talk about! But alas, it’s that time of year. The time when people realize that hey, maybe they haven’t fed their horses enough this winter because they’re looking mighty thin right about now. Or they’ve run out of money because this winter has been harsher than usual (will the snow EVER go away???). Whatever the reason, ‘tis the season for starving horses.
I received an anonymous letter in the snail mail today with no return address. I can only assume it’s from someone who cares about the way these animals are being treated, but does not want to get in trouble when (and if) anything is ever done about this farm. Here’s the deal:
There’s an auction holding farm and puppy mill located outside of Prichard, WV, about three hours from here. According to the letter the horses and dogs are starving and being held in deplorable conditions. A trailer comes monthly to pick up horses to, presumably, haul them up to Canada for slaughter. There are 25 or more horses being held there in a small corral with no shelter and not enough hay. Most of the dogs are on short chains with no food or water.
The source also states that the WV Dept of Agriculture, PETA, and the sheriff of Wayne county know about this place and nothing has been done. Does anyone live in that area? Do you know of this place? Would you mind doing a drive by and getting pictures? If this letter is true and this place really exists, I may know of someone in authority that can help, but as always, pictures really are worth a thousand words. Authorities typically won’t lift a finger unless there are good pictures clearly showing neglect. Email me or leave a comment with your email if you can help.
