Rescued Belgians

[PestoPower]

We have rescued 4 Belgians from the kill pen at New Holland

If anyone would like to help toward their care, or follow their progress see their blog:
http://swbelgians.blogspot.com/

They are a wonderful group. Mostly aged Amish work horses.

Beth

[PestoPower]

Forgot to add. Please forward this info to anyone you know who might want to help with their care!

Happy Holidays from New York

Beth

[jen judkins]

Interestingly, I had my crew down there the very same day, rescuing a mini stud going to the slaughter track. Weird coincidence…

Anyway, will your rescues be up for adoption at some point? If so I might be able to place the big guy. It wouldn’t be a working situation, just a nice home. I have a friend whose wife has horses and he has always dreamed of having a older, big draft horse to call his own. He specified the ‘big’ and ‘draft’ parts. Jennifer.

[PestoPower]

wow! weird…which stud? they had a ton of minis go through.

The big fella is adopted 🙂 He will be doing logging with a good friend who just lost his old mare.
The dark sorrel is for adoption- he is about 17h

I will be headed back down to NH if you’d like me to look for a BIG fella 😀

It was a quiet day for the KB at NH, I think only one was there. The others were making runs to the slaughter house in Canada before they close for the Holiday week.
This Monday should be a rough one. A lot of people dump their horses right before x-mas to try and make a little $

B

[Plowboy]

Don’t get me wrong there is no doubt that you are trying to do a good thing. Healthy horses are cheaper than they have been in the 20 + years I’ve been around the business.I guess I don’t understand why you would want to bring home more than you can afford to take care of yourself? Relying on others to pay for the care of unhealthy horses may not be the best option with the current economy. Many people are dumping their own stock just because it is too expensive to feed and care for them all year. I just don’t want to see you get in too deep and left holding the bag for a lot of mouths to feed. Another question. Many horse rescues bring home the sick,elderly,blind or crippled horses. Sometimes it would be more humane to put them down but they use them for a bleeding heart program to get donations. Who rescues the good young horses ? Horse Slaughter I think is a necessary evil with so many equines in our country and nobody can afford to rescue them all. The Slaughter market used to set a floor for the horse market now some can’t even get a bid for a used up horse. Personally all our workhorses will probably be buried here but some don’t have the option or the desire to do that. In some parts of the country people are just turning there horses out to fend for themselves creating a nuisance to crop farmers. To top it all off many good intentioned rescues that run out of funding are starving their horses. Asking the several year old question, Who will rescue the horses from the Horse Rescue. What your doing may be a good thing if you can place them all where people can enjoy them but don’t get in too deep. Good Luck

[Iron Rose]

Iv’e been thinking about Pesto Powers thread on Rescueing Horses wasn’t going to voice my opinion as some people are not going to like it. But I think that it needs to be addressed.

I have no problem with you recueing the horse’s if you can afford to give them the care they need, but when you want others to help you pay the bills . Thats were I have I have the problem . With so many people out of work and lossing there homes, Food Selves running low and the general state of the economy. Asking people to help you to care for used up horses seems wrong.

Iv’e worked horses all my life both in harness and under saddle and at times had more horses then I could afford to keep but never asked anyone else to support my passion for horses. A lot of the real loyal horses lived there last days out on pasture till age or lamness was causing them to suffer then they were put down.

You people say that you rescued these horses from the kill pen. Really you did the buyers a favor because they don’t want thin horses . Enough younger fat horses that will yield better. Fact is its a common fact that many buyers laugh at the fact that they made the “Resuers pay through the nose”.

Again this is my opinion, and if you want to continue with your passion do what you will.

[jen judkins]

I’m probably not in good enough condition to weigh in on this right now.:( I have a cold, just took a man size dose of antihistamines and am working on a glass of wine…so please take that into account, particularly if my grammar is poor:D.

The issue of unwanted horses has been heavy on my mind lately. Its not that I would hope to find homes or rescue for all of them, it that I feel most horse owners (in contrast to most other livestock owners) are very limited in their choices with regard to horses that are no longer wanted, cannot be fed or cannot sustain their keep.:eek: And that poses a problem in regard to what can be done with them. Sure there is euthanasia, but the cost, along with disposal issues make this a challenging option.

The fact is, slaughter can be an option. I often wonder what a nice system we could have in place if horse lovers (and lobbyist…I hope they are the same) would channel their energy towards ‘humane’ slaughter protocols, instead of insisting that horses are not meant for meat and forcing the door shut for that option. Just like abortion, a ban does not reduce the number of procedures, just increases the risks.

I don’t like liver, but I sure won’t tell you not to eat it, if you like it. I love horses…alive and breathing and working. I wouldn’t eat one (unless I was starving), but I can’t find it in myself to condemn others for eating horsemeat, paricularly if it was slaughtered the way I would like my beef and pork slaughtered…with as little stress and duress as possible.

That said, there are alot of nice horses out there, people are just giving up on, so it pays to pay attention. I don’t think that Pestopower should take on the brunt of this controversy. There are some of us that have the room, the disposition and some extra cash around to ‘recirculate’ some good horses…and that is something worth doing. I’ll bet Beth would rehab these horses even if no one contributed. So lets not be hasty with our opinions.

Its complicated…Jennifer

[goodcompanion]

My in-laws bought me “Farm Sanctuary” by Gene Baur for Christmas–I have read as much as I could without jumping up and howling…the whole issue of animal rescue has been on my mind anyway.

The relationship between humans and horses is different from other animals in that horses, for the majority of farming cultures past and present, are not raised primarily for food. Setting food aside, you have the work and/or leisure sport the horse can provide, plus companionship.

But what to do with the aged or very sick horse? If any form of slaughter is ruled out, the only option remaining is to bring in a vet with a syringe and a backhoe. 100 years ago there were no syringes and no backhoes, so this decision wasn’t ethically fraught. Now it is considered by many to be borderline barbarism to elect not to go the syringe/backhoe route.

Because of the companionship aspect of the human-equine relationship it seems that the discussion gets emotionally charged in a real hurry. Personally, I’d prefer that any horse of mine that was truly unwell have a swift end and that its body be used for something, the horse won’t be needing it any more. I feel the same way about my own someday decrepitude and future corpse, for what it’s worth.

But if it comes to that pass for one of my horses, I might not feel safe acting on my feelings about the matter and sending a sick horse north to Canada to be knackered…I feel like my perspective is not widely shared, and that when it comes to horses, people are very quick to judge.

[J-L]

I was going to post about this in depth, but jenjudkins, Iron Rose, and others have covered it from my viewpoint very well.
It wasn’t too long ago that some of the big (very big) ranches in the west fed their hired men horse meat fairly regularly. The tended to cull out the real bad horses (they’re not all good ones) and cripples and recycle them, so to speak, in the cook shack, and tan their hides to make their tack.
I would like to say that it’s nice to see this discussed in a civil manner. Like goodcompanion says, this can get emotionally charged very easily.

[goodcompanion]

On the French draft forums this looms so large that one can scarcely discuss anything else…sheesh. So yes, things are pretty civil here, thanks for that.

Hippophagie, non! Un cheval, ça ne se mange pas!

[Rick Alger]

Another problem is safety. Some horses are simply not safe to be around. Recently a friend of ours was severely injured by a rescue horse with “issues.”

It would have been far better for her if this horse had gone to the killers and never found it’s way to the rescue market.

Some folks think that “natural” horsemanship training will cure anything. It won’t.

[SunshineAcres]

I have a couple horses I rescued from the kill pen. One is my Sunshine. I’ll keep her forever. The other is a 20+gelding I named Big Poppa Shugs. He was obviously no stranger to hard work. Brought him home and rode him. Smart fellow. Caught onto the cues alright. Sold him for what I bought him for to my friend Martha. Got a few others (not drafts) from there too. I take in unwanted horses, usually saddle horses. My friend and trainer get them retrained then we sell them, obviously not for a profit b/c the horse market sucks along with the economy but it makes me feel good to do it. I use my own money BUT do have a link on my website if anyone ever did want to donate for the cause. I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth! lol I’m not asking for donations, so don’t start that crap. I only take in what I can afford to take care of until they’re rehomed. I get offers from people to come help out at the farm. Help come groom/feed the horses, do chores, whatever. That’s neat too. I just figure whatever someone wants to do is great. Any help is a God send! If it makes them feel good to do it like it makes me feel to save them, then more power to them for offering to help! I agree that there is a need for the kill pens and slaughter houses. I’ve seen horses that need to go there. What kills me are the ones that don’t need to go there. I got a 10 month old gelding I named Lucky who I can’t figure out for the life of me how he ended up in there! So that’s my story and here are the horses I spoke of:
SUNSHINE:

LUCKY:

BIG POPPA SHUGS:

[jen judkins]

Sunshine is one gorgeous animal! Thanks for posting! Jennifer.

[SunshineAcres]

Thanks! I certainly didn’t know that when I bought her. Here’s a picture of her the weekend after I bought her. Can you believe this is the same horse?!:

[jen judkins]

You would never know it was the same animal! Nice job! Satisfying, isn’t it?!

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