All the Dying Horses: Neglect cases soaring in MinnesotaHorse neglect and starvation are on the rise in Minnesota, the result of a suddenly sour economy. Some experts call it the Hobby Horse Syndrome. Drew Fitzpatrick, who devotes her life to rescuing the animals, is less polite.
BY BOB SHAW
Pioneer Press
Article Last Updated: 01/31/2008 12:03:09 AM CST
Corndog, a 23-year-old mule (the offspring of a male donkey and female horse) is among the 90 animals Drew Fitzpatrick and the Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Foundation care for at her farm in Zimmerman.
(photo of mule in newspaper)
Drew Fitzpatrick trudged across her ice-covered barnyard and into a stable. Several horses whinnied to greet her.
"Yeah, yeah," she said, as if scolding her demanding children. "I know - you are all dying."
A few weeks earlier, the black humor might not have been appropriate. The horses were, in fact, dying - as part of a surge in cases of horse neglect and starvation in Minnesota.
Today, 90 rescued horses have stretched her rescue operation in Zimmerman, Minn., to the limit - and there are thousands of other neglected horses suffering though a bitter winter.
The horses are victims of an economic downturn. Experts describe what could be called the Hobby Horse Syndrome - rich urbanites move to the country, buy horses, then suffer an economic setback. Suddenly they can't afford the $2,100 annual cost of upkeep per horse, and the horses go hungry.
"I would call it the Dumb-butt Syndrome," snapped Fitzpatrick, as she patted the painfully exposed ribs of a horse named Rico. "You say you forgot to feed your horse? How could you forget that?"
CRISIS IN THE MAKING
Emergency calls for cases of neglected horses have quadrupled since last summer, said Wade Hanson, who handles horse-related calls statewide for the Animal Humane Society. He now answers as many as 15 calls a month - some for dozens of horses on a single property.
Minnesota's horse owners are now starving their horses to death at the rate of about 15 per year, said Hanson - also a fourfold
increase since last summer.
The latest is a horse named Libby, who died on Fitzpatrick's farm Tuesday despite efforts to save her.
Horses - like hemlines and Super Bowl winners - are an economic indicator. In the go-go '90s, thousands of Minnesotans moved to rural areas, bought multi-acre parcels, and then added horses to enhance the rural ambience.
"They thought they were going to be ranchers. They said their kids loved horses," said Hanson.
The new horse-ignorant gentry often put stallions and mares in the same pasture, he said. Soon, there were many more horses.
"They are so clueless. I have talked to people who didn't think horses needed water in the wintertime, because they would just eat snow," said Hanson.
The horse population in Minnesota and America surged one-third from 1995 to 2005, according to the American Horse Council. In 2005, there were about 180,000 in Minnesota and 9.2 million nationwide.
But today the nation is on the brink of recession or already in one. Thousands of horse owners are facing a home foreclosure or the loss of a job.
Add to that the spiraling cost of hay. Costs have tripled in the past eight months, because of two poor years of local harvests and soaring fuel prices. Hay - a mixture of dried alfalfa and other grains - now sells for $3 to $5 for a bale of up to 100 pounds. That's enough food to last three days for a small pony, or a single meal for a hard-working draft horse.
"Some owners have to ask: Who is going to eat this week - the children or the horse?" said Dr. Tracy Turner, chairman of the legislative committee of the Minnesota Horse Council. "The horse loses."
Broke and overwhelmed, the owners find they can't even sell their horses for slaughter, because the nation's three slaughterhouses were closed last year. That's when horses start to be neglected, say experts.
Some owners are even forced to give their horses away.
Mary Walker, 70, whose farm is near Rice Lake, Wis., broke her neck eight years ago and now can only move with a walker. She was unable to care for her 52 horses, even with help from her husband, who works 11 hours a day on another job.
"Two years ago, I stopped eating meat so we could pay for hay," said Walker. "I live on pinto beans and things like that. I don't miss it."
When the cost of hay spiked last summer, several horses began to go hungry. A veterinarian raised the possibility of sending them to slaughter.
Instead, Walker spent weeks on the Internet and was able to give them away. Only seven remain, which they can care for, she said.
To her, starving horses or killing them for meat are both unthinkable.
"They aren't the same as children, but they are the next thing to children," said Walker.
"People ask me if it is hard to see them go. Then they get me to crying."
AFTER THE RESCUE
The process of saving a dying horse usually begins with a call from a worried neighbor.
"It's a quiet problem. The more rural you get, the more protective (horse owners) are of their privacy. They don't parade that out," said Keith Streff, investigator for the Animal Humane Society.
Often, it's Hanson who first checks out a call of concern. He looks for the telltale signs - the visible ribs, protruding hips and shoulders, and a thin withers - the hump by a horse's shoulders.
Some horses are missing patches of hair from "rain rot," a skin infection resulting from exposure to wet weather.
He then calls Fitzpatrick. Her 10-acre Zimmerman farm, north of Anoka, is home to the Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Foundation, the state's largest group saving neglected horses.
The group spends about $100,000 annually, including much of Fitzpatrick's $24,000 annual paycheck from working at a saddle shop.
Fitzpatrick cares for the worst cases herself.
Earlier this month, she scrambled to get the stalls ready for a cold snap. As she passed the line of skinny horses, the clouds of horse-breath swirled in the frigid air, mixing with the pungent smell of straw and manure.
She gently approached a registered Arabian horse named Rico, still showing signs of starvation. His dish was bolted to the wall, because he remains so desperate for food that he almost attacks any other kind of food dish, knocking it over.
Fitzpatrick patted Rico's shriveled flanks. "We want to see chubby butt cheeks, not this," she said.
The work can be heartbreaking.
Since last summer, horse starvation cases seem to be cropping up everywhere - packing Fitzpatrick's stalls with horses from Forest Lake, Stillwater, outstate Minnesota.
Inspector Hanson talked about a recent case where 24 starving horses were seized in Mora. He grimly flipped through a stack of photos of dead and dying horses he has seen, then joined Fitzpatrick for a smoking break.
"We both smoke too much. It's a stressful job," he said.
Fitzpatrick has heard the arguments about the hard times, but has no patience for those who are cruel to horses.
"It does make me nasty-crabby sometimes," said Fitzpatrick. "But I am a nut job. I devoted my life to this."
She adjusted the blanket of one horse whose ribs stood out like zebra stripes.
"For this, there is no excuse," she said. "This is friggin' Minnesota."
Bob Shaw can be reached at
[email protected] or 651-228-5433.
HOW TO HELP
Want to contact the Minnesota Hooved Animal Rescue Foundation?
Address: Box 47, Zimmerman, MN 55398
Online: mnhoovedanimalrescue.org
Phone: 763-856-3119
ANNUAL COST OF KEEPING A HORSE IN MINNESOTA
Feed: $1,450
Veterinary bills: $200
Ferrier (hoof care): $350
Equipment: $100
Total: $2,100
Source: Minnesota Horse Council Horse lovers' dilemma: As starvation cases rise, many animal advocates want horse slaughterhouses reopened. Page 5A
