O.K. What would you do????

[twister]

Such a sad situation whether it is due to ignorance or finances. The horses don't have a voice or can't help themselves to food and water. Yvonne

 

[Songcatcher]

As hard as it would be, I would walk away from the purchase and call the authorities.

Just like puppy mills, if there is no market for their 'product' they will stop. It is very hard not to take those animals, but sadly in doing so you justify that there is a market and that having them in that condition pays.

I am sorry this was her first experience.

I have to agree with this wholeheartedly! Production is based on supply and demand. As long as people are willing to pay for inferior, uncared for animals, others will continue to produce them. Meanwhile good, well cared for animals sell for peanuts, if they sell.

I have no idea what quality the horses mentioned would be if well cared for, but I have seen people (many on this forum) buy poor quality, uncared for horses, and spend more money on them than they could get a good horse for. As a result, the good horse goes unsold. The good breeder goes out of business. More poor quality, uncared for horses are produced.

 

[Riverdance]

I had this happen to me from someone who is no longer breeding but was fairly well known. I purchased four horses from them based upon pictures that i later found out were heavily doctored.(these horses were by far not cheap) When i got down there, she showed me her horses. All were really thin. She said she wanted to keep them on the thin side so that they would not get sick.

That she had bought and lost several mares because they arrived so fat, that when they started to loose weight they came down with that liver disease.

Then she shows me the horses I bought. Non of them had much weight on them. Their feet were like skis, none looked at all like the pictures (as a matter of fact, when I got the papers and saw the pictures she had on the papers. I know I would have never bought them if I had seen those pictures to begin with. Needless to say I was shocked.)

The barn had only one entrance, the other entrance was piled high with old dry moldy hay that she was feeding them

The barn had almost no windows, so dark inside one could hardly see anything in the middle of the day. Foals and their moms were in these dark, dirty stalls. No signs of any kind of grain.

My first thought was. I wish I could get my money back, but that was never going to happen. I did not turn her in. I did end up fattening up the horses and reselling all but one (lost my shirt on them). The one I kept was so wild, so skinny and her feet where so long that they curved up. It took me quite a while to gain her trust and fatten her up. But, since she had been through so much, she will stay here. one of the others was sold to a friend who just loves him.

I am not sure what I would do today, but I am sure glad that this farm is no longer in horses.

 

[Magic]

Well, since your friend had already paid for the horses in full,there isn't much she could do but to take the horses, sadly.

I definitely would have asked why the horses were so thin, but that wouldn't do much. I would take pics of the horses to show the extent of how thin they were at the time of getting them, and also take them straight to a vet as you advised her to do.

I was talking to a friend who lives in Missouri and she said that there are severely underfed horses all over in her area, and when she mentioned a specific group of under-nourished horses (what am I saying-- the poor horses are like skeletons, she said!) to an official of the state, he actually told her that he "didn't want to hear about it". Apparently there are so many starving horses that they are already swamped with cases.

Still, I think that reporting these things is the right thing to do.

It may take quite a number of people reporting before something actually gets done by officials, but it's worth trying.