Horse problem: Abandonment up in rough times

Brand inspector Mike Walck won’t soon forget one of the worst cases of animal cruelty he has seen. In mid-November, between Rulison and Parachute, someone shot a horse in the head, leaving the gray gelding in his late teens or early 20s for dead. But the horse didn’t die. “I don’t know why they were trying to kill the horse, but they damn sure shot it in the head,” Walck said angrily. “It’s a tough deal.” Walck said the horse has been nursed back to health and is recovering. No arrests have been made in the case. Unfortunately, Walck said, similar cases are on the rise. Walck, who oversees brand inspections from De Beque and Aspen, said he normally handles one or two abandoned-horse cases a year. He handled 14 or 15 last year, which he said is becoming a trend that is mirrored nationwide. There was a time when people could buy horses with the intent of feeding and caring for them for resale. About 10 years ago, horses were sold at sale barns for a minimum of $500 to $600, said Jim Brach, co-owner of Western Slope Cattlemen’s Livestock Auction of Loma. Better horses fetched $1,500 to $3,000. At that time, slaughter prices were about 40 cents a pound, he said. But these days, it’s likely folks will get at most a couple hundred dollars, and in some instances may owe money to the sale barn to sell a horse, Brach said. Slaughterhouses have disappeared in this country because it is illegal to buy or sell horses for human consumption in the U.S. Videotaped reports from Mexico’s slaughterhouses, however, indicate the practice is more brutal than any former U.S. plant. Some people cite an increase in abandoned, neglected and abused horses as one drawback of the ban on U.S. slaughterhouses. Costs for a veterinarian to euthanize a horse can run from $75 to $150, not including a disposal fee, which may be prohibitive to some hard-up horse owners. Selling an older horse for slaughter formerly added valued to the animals that weigh between 900 to 1,600 pounds. Horse owners selling for slaughter now often end up paying money to be rid of them. “Instead of doing that, they’ll abandon them and turn them out into the wild,” said Keene Rayley, brand inspector for Mesa County. “There’s getting to be a glut of horses on the market. This is the tip of the iceberg, and it’s going to get worse.”...read more