Since we have purchased the 23 horses recently there has been some controversy with some friends of the guy who sold them to us. We have been monitoring the situation for months and one thing we are very strong about is even if you have a lot of horses, and most of them are doing OK, it doesn’t give you the right to have a few that are emaciated.
If you have animals, you have to take care of all of them. You must have adequate, safe pens. You must have food. You must have vet and farrier care. That level of care goes for all of your animals, not just your favorite ones, or just the easy ones. This photo was taken back in June of a poor horse standing in a very small pen, and as you can see, its fencing was far from safe.
Tuesday we purchased the horse, shown above. It was nice to be able to rescue him from the situation that clearly wasn’t safe for him.
From the photos in June, it was easy to see there were horses with prominent hip and rib bones. This is what we, or anyone else, could see from the road.
Some folks said the emaciated horse in the photos were not from the guy we bought the 23 horses from. Here is a photo of the emaciated horse on Tuesday at his place, which is clearly identifiable with his marijuana fence. We believe that she was one of the skinny horses from the photo above back in June.
Here she is at our shelter. One of his friends posted that we had rescued this horse 3 months ago. We assure you this is not a horse from a photo we had taken 3 months ago. This is one of the horses where one of his friends reffer to “99% of his horses are fine.” The 1%+ sure doesn’t make it right, even if you have a large number of horses, you should NEVER allow one of your horses to look like this. You might think “Well, maybe it has cancer or liver failure, or is just really old.” To the contrary, this mare is only 12-14 years old.
Upon examining her our vet quickly determined the reason for her emaciation. She desperately needed dental work. It was easy to see even from the outside of her cheeks that there was something wrong with the inside of her mouth.
Her front molars were not matched to her bottom molars, and a very long, sharp spike had been growing for quite some time. The sharp spike was literally cutting into the sides of her cheeks, her tongue, and into her jaw bone every time she tried to close her mouth or chew. On the outside of her cheeks you could clearly see where her teeth weren’t shaped right where the scar tissue was built up so much. Every bite must have been agony for this poor girl. The arrows indicate the sharp spike, the holes it cut into her cheek and the scar tissue on her tongue.
Here you can see the sharp spike more clearly. Can you imagine having that in your mouth? Every time you tried to eat, the incredible agony would overpower the hunger pangs.
Yes it was it was bilateral, both sides had the long, sharp spikes tearing large holes into her cheeks, tongue and jaws. It was horrible seeing the nasty open wounds in her mouth. We can’t imagine how long this poor horse was suffering at the guys hands when a simple dental procedure by a vet would have solved her prolonged misery and agony. There is never an excuse for forcing an animal to live in this condition.
Once her tooth work was done and she woke up from her sedation, she was so excited to start eating pain free. At first she was hesitant, but then she realized the sharp spikes were no longer in her mouth, no longer tearing into her sensitive flesh with every bite, and she can eat pain free. She just buried her head in the feed trough and started enjoying nice yummy food with another horse that we bought from the guy that is only 8 years old. There is no excuse for this level of deliberate animal abuse and neglect. Depriving an animal of simple medical care when the animal is clearly suffering, is inhuman and inhumane.
We cannot possibly thank you enough for your support in the rescue of the 23 horses, and our ongoing rescue efforts. Without your support, the horses like the ones in today’s blog would still be there, still be suffering.