#horses - #Advice for dealing with a local facility that isn't caring well for "rescue" horses

Advice for dealing with a local facility that isn't caring well for "rescue" horses

Hey all, apologies in advance for what will likely be a long, personal and maybe ranty post.

My wife is the primary rider of a horse we purchased at the beginning of the year and, until about 6mo ago boarded at a local barn which I will not name publicly. The barn is run by a person who we consider[ed?] a friend and who ostensibly knows a good amount about caring for horses.

We left the barn because our horse (originally on lease) was not getting good care -- missed feedings, not enough hay, water not filled regularly, etc. We're in a great place now and our boy is super healthy and spunky.

The problems with the facility are

• The owner has a soft spot for animals and so she takes in "rescues". She's got several in addition to her own 3-4 animals. One of the rescues is deathly skinny and has not been seen by a vet in over a year.

• There are a few other animals kept there - turkey, chickens, pigs, goats - all not really paid attention to (mostly) and hard to say if they are fed properly. The pigs have inbred twice now, maybe three times because none of them have been fixed. They are kept in small horse stalls and a couple have been eaten.

• The barn does not have enough money to care for all the animals that are there but the owner continues to believe she is doing the right thing by them and is open to taking more.

• There are hardly any boarders left who pay bills; i can't imagine the cost associated with even minimally keeping all the inhabitants alive.

• The fences are falling apart and horses have gotten out several times. There is a highway not far off...

Things we have done:

• Shared our thoughts constructively while we were boarding there; no action. In fact she couldn't believe we'd insinuate she is anything less than a stellar care taker.

• Talked with the local law enforcement, animal control and agriculture at various times. Others have done so as well anonymously before and after we left. Owner laughs it off and invites the officer to bring their family by on the weekend.

• Others have confronted her about her care and she is in complete denial that the horses are not being cared for.

She's of course aware that she needs a lot more money to actually do what needs to be done (she does fund raisers and asks for donation) but she won't even consider rehoming most of the animals and has recently talked about taking more horses in.

Obviously this makes us really sad and the way we left things when we departed kinda prevents us from directly confronting her. The worst part is that it seems that due to local laws, as long as the animals are given food and water once a day, no crime is being committed. But some of the horses are NOT well; unclear if coggins has even been done on time or at all.

We're at a loss. Help us out /r/horses? Happy to answer questions about the situation or what we've tried....

Submitted November 02, 2017 at 04:36PM by breddy
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Horses/comments/7af6nd/advice_for_dealing_with_a_local_facility_that/?utm_source=ifttt