Horse rescues?

[big brown horse]

Hey SA!

They can't give horses away up here. I see lots of CL ads for free horses.

I'm at my limit with three, I wish I could take in more. Heck every animal here is a rescue of some sort, even my pig.

 

[ducks4you]

I thought I'd add another point. Horse care at the rescue. DD pointed out that "Buster" (below)

had a rough, winter coat when we got him, and started to look and feel sleak after we had had him for a few months. I don't want to look down on the rescue, but I know that they feed what they can get, and they currently have over 20 horses, though they keep them on 35 acres. I own 3 and they wander 4 acres of grazing during the warm months.
Also, his back feet have both had problems, and are now almost completely healed.
On the other hand, he very sociable from all the handling from their volunteers.
My horse, "Corporal" was a rescue of sorts. I bought him in 1986 at an auction. He was the last horse to bid on, and I was bidding against the meat market for a skinny four year old Arabian, showing with no tack and no harness. I paid $145.00 for him, which was $5 more than the price of his hide.
I have done everything with this horse, including chase cows back to their paddock, shot guns off of him, survived stepping in a yellow jacket's nest, rode a 26 miler (it wasn't planned) after a 1/2 week grueling campaign, taught people to ride on him, took him on lots of vacations--even rode double with my daughter on one trip when I was thin, and DD was about 6 years old. Best horse that I've ever had. (Corporal, Owned August, 1986 to June, 2009, RIP)

 

[big brown horse]

Aren't those nice looking horses?

That is how I ended up with Twinky, I was bidding against the slaughter guys. Thank goodness I won b/c she has been the best darn children's horse ever. Worth her weight in gold. I'll dig up her photo in a bit. She is a golden palomino ex-quarter racer.

eta: here she is:

Here is Joe (my big brown horse). He was starved by a crack head. I got him from her for $200 cash. He is out of Poco Bueno's line...well all horses in TX practically are. He has been my horse for the last 4 years and after a bit of retraining and rehab, he is now the best horse (for me) that I ever owned.

It is hard to loose a horse, I'm sorry about Corporal.

 

[Shiloh Acres]

Hey SA!

They can't give horses away up here. I see lots of CL ads for free horses.

I'm at my limit with three, I wish I could take in more. Heck every animal here is a rescue of some sort, even my pig.

Hi BBH!

Guess I'm not surprised. I suppose the economy has hit a lot of folks. A young man from up the road knocked on my door a few days ago, trying to sell me his horse. I guess he came cuz I have the barn, pasture, animals. I think I just saw the horse appear over there a few weeks ago.

Typical price on CL is $200 or so. They talk about how well bred they are. I'm asking myself whether it's worth it to the owners to breed a horse if they're only going to get $200 for it, and that for a yearling or so.

Most of my goats were rescues of a sort. Good job of you to do that.

 

[Horsiezz]

I know exactly what you mean about how these people claim to be rescuers. Just recently, we have been scanning the area for good,broke,OTT Thoroughbreds,at Rescues,as well as just regular people. We called this one woman,who claims she rescues thoroughbreds. She is a friend of a friend.She keeps giving us lame excuses why we cant come see the horse she has advertised for sale. Well we were in the area one day and decided to stop by and see if shes home. We park on the street and walk up the hill of the driveway,and see that nobody is there. We take a look at the horses from the fence,and my gosh,these horses are cramped into small fields,no clean drinking water,all skinny,barely any grass left to munch on. Plus,no shelter. These horses have rain rot,and some even have terrible bad pasterns,probably because of racing but I dont know. They have 2 stallions,lots of mares,and about 3 geldings,along with a pony and miniature. They are in separate fields by gender it seemed. Some of the mares had foals,and some looked pregnant. Clearly,she hasnt been feeding them right,and has been breeding her "rescues"!? WHAT?!?! So anyways,we are disgusted and leave immediately.

Then we came across an ad on craigslist,a family giving a
way a free Morab. We go and look at it,the family tells us that they are new to horses and they bought a morgan mix mare,and didnt no she was pregnant.They later found out from previous owners she has been running in the field with an Arabian stallion. The wife then had a son who was terribly ill from birth and ended up dying,so they havent handled the morab colt since he was born,and he is now 4 years old. He has only been wormed once,and never had his feet trimmed,and not even halter broke. We didnt blame the people,they are good people and just didnt know what they were getting into,and its understandable at times. They feel terrible about it,but they said they were scared to death of him because they couldnt go i the field to handle the other horses without him trying to chase,bite,or kick them. So they really couldnt do anything. Other than that he was a good healthy weight tho. We consider him kind of a rescue. We have only had him 3 weeks,and we already have him undersaddle. Yes,I know we rushed into it,you dont have to tell us. haha but he is taking it all in well,only bucked once so far.He actually seems to enjoy having a job. He is one of the most beautiful,smartest,most graceful horses I have ever seen in my life,in my opinion. You will be amazed how much we have gotten this horse to do in only 3 weeks. He is going to be an AMAZING horse,and if we end up keeping him I am hoping to start breaking him for jumping!
Here he is:

Under Western. For a horse that has never been handled,he is very willing and is taking a liking to us.

Under English.

Here he is again!

 

[dianneS]

Then we came across an ad on craigslist,a family giving a
way a free Morab. We go and look at it,the family tells us that they are new to horses and they bought a morgan mix mare,and didnt no she was pregnant.They later found out from previous owners she has been running in the field with an Arabian stallion. The wife then had a son who was terribly ill from birth and ended up dying,so they havent handled the morab colt since he was born,and he is now 4 years old. is going to be an AMAZING horse,and if we end up keeping him I am hoping to start breaking him for jumping!
Here he is:
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit4.jpg
Under Western. For a horse that has never been handled,he is very willing and is taking a liking to us.
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit5.jpg
Under English.
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit6.jpg
Here he is again!

Wow, looks like you did luck out and so did that horse! Sounds like he's going to turn out great!

I just read an article in our local paper about another horse siezure. something like 58 horses and two cows starved, plus seven or eight horses dead and one that had to be put down because it was dying.

Well, guess where these horses were being kept? A so-called rescue! The owner surrendered all of the horses, the starving thoroughbreds as well as her own personal horses who were nice and healthy and well cared for!!

 

[Horsiezz]

Then we came across an ad on craigslist,a family giving a
way a free Morab. We go and look at it,the family tells us that they are new to horses and they bought a morgan mix mare,and didnt no she was pregnant.They later found out from previous owners she has been running in the field with an Arabian stallion. The wife then had a son who was terribly ill from birth and ended up dying,so they havent handled the morab colt since he was born,and he is now 4 years old. is going to be an AMAZING horse,and if we end up keeping him I am hoping to start breaking him for jumping!
Here he is:
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit4.jpg
Under Western. For a horse that has never been handled,he is very willing and is taking a liking to us.
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit5.jpg
Under English.
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/1097_spirit6.jpg
Here he is again!

Wow, looks like you did luck out and so did that horse! Sounds like he's going to turn out great!

I just read an article in our local paper about another horse siezure. something like 58 horses and two cows starved, plus seven or eight horses dead and one that had to be put down because it was dying.

Well, guess where these horses were being kept? A so-called rescue! The owner surrendered all of the horses, the starving thoroughbreds as well as her own personal horses who were nice and healthy and well cared for!!

That is just HORRIBLE. Those people distgust me. I hope she gets some serious jail time!

 

[ducks4you]

Funny you mentioned that--just heard about another rescue with starved horses, not all that far from where I live.
Wouldn't you rather have these horses slaughtered to feed you dog, instead of suffering? I just DON'T get it....

 

[w c]

I think a lot of people think they'll pick up some cheap horses and say they're a 'rescue' and sell the horses and make some money.

Most of them aren't really doing rescue work at all. They're actually 'pinhookers'(i think for the thin pin bones jutting out of the hind quarters, or the cheap auction tags that used to go on the horse's rumps), people who buy up cheap horses, keep them very cheaply, and try to sell them at a profit.

Generally, they don't do very well financially and keep the horses in very bad conditions.

It doesn't always work out well to buy an untrained, unhandled horse out of a field. Hopefully it's the right type of horse that adjusts well.

 

[dianneS]

Well, here we go... this is one of the rescues in my area that I've been suspicious of for a long time. One of the reasons I posted this thread in the first place.

This rescue posts horses all over Petfinder.com and Horsetopia. I've contacted them in the past and really got the run around. I got the impression right away that the rescue doesn't have an actual farm where one can go visit. The one guy I did speak to, didn't even know which horse I was inquiring about. No one ever got back to me and they didn't seem very motivated to re-home these unwanted horses.

This is a long article, but worth reading. The word should be spread about people like this. And that New Holland auction! Ugh, just such a shady miserable place!

http://fuglyblog.com/