We would like to thank everyone who donated to the auction fund. At the previous auction we went to this month we rescued 6 horses. Tuesday morning the truck and big rescue rig were headed out to the auction in Nevada.
Mile after mile slipped under the wheels, bringing them closer to the state line. It’s sad how little snow there was across the top of the mountains.
Over in Fallon our rescue team drove by the feedlot. In 2006 we started rescuing directly from this feedlot. We rescued some pregnant mares and foals. They told us that they never knew what to do with the foals, and they would often just put them in a pen in the back and they would die. They were just a byproduct of the slaughter industry and were worthless for slaughter. At that time they said they were shipping out about 300 horses a week to Mexico and Canada. The feedlot property was owned by a Canadian slaughterhouse and all the prime horses were shipped to that slaughter house, and all the skinny, sick, pregnant, all the less desirable horses, were shipped to Mexico. In 2008 we worked diligently to pull as many horses as we could by networking with folks in other rescues. We rescued over 200 horses from the feedlot that year, keeping them from shipping to slaughter! Sadly, it seemed that the more horses we bought from the feedlot, the more horses they had that needed to be rescued, and the prices kept climbing. By the end of 2008 they were wanting over $800 for each horse, even though auction prices were 5-26 cents a pound. We decided that we would stop funding the feedlot, and outbid them directly at the auctions, keeping the horses from ever going to the feedlot. We focused the majority of our attention on California auctions for the last few years, keeping those horses safe from ever going across the border to slaughter.
This little piece of property in Fallon Nevada is where thousands and thousands of horses spend their last few days before making the brutal trip to Mexico or Canada to be brutally slaughtered.
The feedlot has now bypassed working with rescues and has their own Facebook page where they post pictures and offer some of the horses for sale. They are not ashamed to say the horses are going to be slaughtered if no one buys them, shipping horses to slaughter is legal in Nevada. Of course it is extremely heart wrenching to see horses that are slaughter bound posted for high, exorbitant prices. If no one buys them, you know they are going to be killed in a most cruel way. They are still selling horses for over $800 even though…
…the Fallon Livestock Exchange auction yard posts up the market report, and horses right now are 10-31 cents a pound, depending on the size of the horse. The feedlot is buying horses for $100-$300, turning around and selling them for over $800, and using the extra money to go get more horses. To us, we cannot understand enriching the killer buyers and feedlots by purchasing horses for high prices. Why not just go to the auction and outbid them?
So, that is what we did on Tuesday. We want to begin attending every auction we can, hopefully every week, and purchase the horses so they will not end up at the feedlot and get shipped to slaughter. As you can imagine, it is quite a bit more costly rescuing in Nevada. The horses have to be quarantined, given a coggins test, and get a lot of paperwork in order. We have been working on a permanent solution and we have obtained an adequate quarantine facility for Nevada horses.
We rescued this beautiful stud colt, who will become a gelding after his quarantine and paperwork are in order.
This is a beautiful QH type mare about 4 years old.
We also rescued this horse that was going to go to auction if we didn’t take her. She was living in this small pen for almost a year. She is almost completely untrained.
Her hooves are sadly extremely overgrown and very long. She seems to have a hard time walking on one of them as the toe of the hoof rotates up and down unnaturally. We will definitely get her checked out.
The horses were all transported safely to their quarantine facility, and are waiting for their coggins and paperwork to get in order.
We would like to thank everyone again who donates to our auction fundraiser. We would like to have your feedback about how you feel about us going to Nevada to purchase horses at the auction who are, without a doubt, going to ship to slaughter if they are not rescued. It is more costly, but their lives are in the balance, either rescue or slaughter. That is the only two options for horses at the Nevada livestock auctions. People rarely go to their livestock auctions looking for a good horse, in Nevada the mentality is “If it’s at the auction, there’s a reason.” We will, of course, continue rescuing at California auctions too as those horses are a simple 2 hour trailer ride from Nevada, and going on to slaughter.