Common sense is not so common…
Dec 27 2007
I have observed in the past that Columbia Basin Equine Rescue is not, in my opinion, a rescue as they will gleefully hand out horses to anybody with cold, hard cash – including most notably last year, a bestiality practitioner who starved them (this fact could have been discovered in 30 seconds by googling the same e-mail address she used on their message board – but hey, why investigate your adopters? Then you might have to turn someone down and that might cut into your profits!). Well, today we have yet another story of a horse who went out of the frying pan into the fire, and it’s a really good example of something I’d like to address here:
In 32 years with horses, I have never lost a horse to an accident or had one permanently damaged in any way by an accident. Sure, I’ve had typical injuries – horses who stuck their feet through relatively safe fencing and got cut, horses who got cast, horses who got bit by another horse. But I have never (yes, knocking on wood) lost a horse to a stupid, totally preventable pasture accident like this – and I’m curious to hear how many of the rest of you have a similarly good track record thanks to using your common sense about horses and herd dynamics, as well as property maintenance.
The reason I’m going to come down on this guy is because HE HAD WARNING. The mare had ALREADY gotten kicked in the head. When you know you have an aggressive horse, what you do is you march your ass down to the farm store and you pick up materials and you make him his own pen. You do NOT wait until the following happens and then desperately try to ditch Satan Horse.
Post #1
I went out Monday to find Hyacinth dead. It appears that she got tangled up in a gate in tight quarters and killed herself. We believe that another horse we have, a half blind gelding named Westly, was probably the cause of her death. We think that he probably kicked her, knocking her down and into the gate, panicking her and causing her to get tangled up in the gate trying to get back up. I do not have any real proof of this, but he has always been pretty bossy and aggressive with the mares around food, and there was food nearby. I have seen him lash out at the other horses before. And a couple months back Hyacinth mysteriously was injured, kicked in the head by one of our other horses. Again we had no proof but were pretty sure it was Westly, because our 3 mares all get along. Hyacinth was the top mare and the other two were always deferential to her, so I simply have to believe that it was Westly that injured her a couple months back, and at least indirectly caused her death this week. So far Hera, who we got along with Hyacinth and was clearly bonded with Hy, has taken this well, much better than we expected. My wife and I OTOH feel so bad about this, and we miss Hy so much. She was an exceptional girl, a nearly perfect horse, and a very sweet girl who loved attention and hated apples. She is sorely missed.
Post #2
Okay, first thing everyone needs to know is that we believe that Westly has attacked one of my other horses, twice. The last time cost her her life. We believe he kicked her, knocking her down and/or into a gate in tight quarters, and that she got tangled up in the gate killing herself thrashing around trying to get untangled and get up. Westly has always been food aggressive and there was food not too far away. We also had snowy/icy/muddy conditions in the area. So there were a number of things that went into causing her death, but I am certain that Westly started the whole incident by trying to chase her off or outright attacking her. He really needs to be an only horse. We got him through this board. Some of you may remember him, he was a former 4H horse who blinded himself in one eye on an olive tree. He is super sweet around people, though he does not respect personal space the way he should. Never aggressive or anything, just in your hip pocket anytime you are around. We are giving him one shot at finding another place where he can live out his life without putting any other horses in danger. His time is limited, because I am not willing to put my other horses at risk and I can not keep him separated from them, they all go nuts when I try that. If we can not find him someplace to go very soon, I am going to have him put down, which I really do not want to do. But I am just not willing to let him injure or kill another of my horses. I can be reached at XXX-XXX-XXXX. We live outside of Oakridge, OR (and no Amy can not take him, she is not set up to keep a horse that can’t be with other horses). We do not want any adoption fee for Westly, we just want him to go to a good home. Any potential adopter/foster would need to be approved by CBER or some other reputable rescue, of course.
(FHOTD in: Back in the olden days, when I had not yet caught on to the $cam that is CBER, I contributed $150 to “bailing out” Hera, or more accurately, to CBER President $amantha Milbredt’s disposable income since I am sure Hera’s meat price was around $200 and they collected three times that for her. Hera is a Thoroughbred mare with DSLD. Now she’s apparently out in mud and snow (that’s great for those dropped pasterns) with an aggressive horse chasing her around. Awesome. Can I take my percentage of her back and move it to a more appropriate facility?)
All right, so what can we learn from this? For crap’s sake, if you’re seeing injuries, GET THE AGGRESSIVE HORSE OUT OF THERE. Buy some goddamn panels if you can’t do anything else because it’s winter. Put the nasty little fucker in a pipe corral for now. Or euthanize him. I don’t care. You don’t just leave him out and cross your fingers and HOPE nothing happens. This was a really nice mare, a quality mare that someone dumped, and the entire story makes me ill. I can only imagine how she died (how do you actually die from being tangled in a gate before anyone finds you? Blood loss? Broken neck? Whatever it was, it sounds horrifying.)
Just sad. Sir, you have all kinds of room on your property…one cross fence could have saved this mare’s life. Common sense? Anyone? You had warning. You knew you were allowing a dangerous situation to continue. Saying this is an accident is like drinking a half bottle of vodka, getting in the car, taking out six people and then saying whoops, it was an accident. Nope, it wasn’t. It was something that you knew about and took no steps to resolve, and now are crying to all of your online pals because you lost the luck lottery and something awful happened.
I feel bad for the mare. You, not so much.
224 comments to “Common sense is not so common…”
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Grainne Dhu
Now you are just babbling.
Sorry, if it’s so difficult for people to use their heads and learn a few basics.
If you can’t find your county or college extension in the phone book, there is google. This isn’t rocket science. Most people have the internet and a cell phone with cheap or free long distance. A few phone calls and a few questions, and maybe a few bucks to a professional wouldn’t be the end of the world. I am not talking about dog training, I am talking basic equine husbandry. And again, USPC or other basic text is not hard to find if you WANT TO LEARN.
Safety isn’t a gray area. Making it one is really just irresponsible.
And Taldara, no I have over 30 years of experience with horses. 10 as a paid professional. That means that I didn’t have the luxury of stupid decisions with my employer’s clients.
Excuses are many. I am fully aware some horses have a death wish, as a human you have the skills to mitigate the risks.
Shit happens, but what the guy in this particular case did was idiotic.
Johanna – im in agreeance with you 100%…
Ignorance in this day an age is no excuse.
Ok so say ignorent person has no internet. All public libraries do , many coffee shops now have them.
An guess what? They are FREE. So is the advice of the feed store owners which I know the old store we used to use was always ready to dole out advice haha
Theres no excuse for ignorance.
Hopefully this fella learned somthing from this an never has a tragedy like this happen ever again…
Johanna said…
“Sorry, if it’s so difficult for people to use their heads and learn a few basics.” and
“…I am talking basic equine husbandry.”
Johanna…sorry could have sworn with all that criticising you were doing that you were much younger.
You say you are referring to basic equine husbandry. That if this guy had done some homework this accident wouldn’t have happened. Well a) we don’t know for sure what did happen and b) we’re really talking animal behaviour here NOT just basic horse husbandry. Definitely NOT something you can google and then be proficient at judging without several (many?) years of hands on experience. NOT something you can learn on the Internet.
Around here with 30 years experience you are still just a newbie (some of our learned Blogees have twice that). I myself have 30 years experience with horses including 5 years as a paid professional as a groom/strapper and coach. Polo ponies, racehorses and eventers – even a short stint as a working pupil for Gillian Rolten, dual Olympic eventing gold medallist. Not bragging…who am I kidding I AM bragging…I’ve even ridden Peppermint Grove, the horse Gil did it on. Followed by 13 years as a professional zookeeper/species manager in a large (largest in Australia) open range zoo) but I’m still willing to humbly admit that I have more to learn about husbandry and animal behaviour.
While I prefer to turn my horse(s) out without their halters, I have boarded at a couple of barns where halters on in the turnouts was required. At my current barn, they have safe wooden fencing but some of the horses manage to get out, so the halters stay on.
I buy the $17.00 all leather Hampton halter from the Dover sale catalog. Believe me, it breaks. The Noodle has broken two on the cross ties in highly unusual stall-rest related breaches of normally impeccable grooming etiquette (the halter went before the baling twine did), and many other have gone by the wayside in unexplained scenarios. When I left for Europe I put two brand new halters in The Noodle’s trunk, just waiting. It’s not a question of IF he’ll break his halter, but WHEN.
I’d much rather have it that way and be replacing halters left and right than put him in a nylon one that will break his neck. Maybe when he’s 30 he’ll give his equipment a break.
Accidents? A beloved 24 year old Polish Arab in his 12×12 stall with door open to his 12×16 pipe corral partially roofed horse porch breaks his right rear leg at the stifle. I went over the area, not a scuff mark, nothing. Same horse had followed another thru a 4 board fence when boarded. Halters and accidents? Boarding at a wonderful training eventing facility, daughters 20 year old eventing star dominated 35 acre field of geldings, all much younger. Unfortunately, he could not be caught, except by me (old, fat, shes no threat was what I believe the star thought) Finally we said leave on his halter(fancy leather). Yep, next time I snuck up to catch him halter was in pieces and he had laceration from the snap. I do not halter in the field, but do so reluctantly, as I have heard the local law enforcement has a shoot to kill clearance for unhaltered horses on the road, and are supposed to make an effort to catch any with a halter.
Shoot to kill any un-haltered stock?
Holy shit! Where do you live that the law thinks thats ok?
trickroperdeluxe:
I’m with you, where the hell does nagonmom live where the law would shoot anything that was unhaltered? Sounds like AC might be just a weensy bit out of control.
I live in Virginia out in a very rural county (hence the name CharlesCityCat) and there are critters all over the place. One evening I was on my way home from work in Williamsburg rolling down Route 5 and there were cars in front of me going very slooooowwww. I finally figured out why, there were 2 horses, 2 ponies and a large goat meandering down the middle of the road. No one seemed to be doing anything so I passed them and herded them over to a neighboring plantation (there are also alot of 18 wheelers that use that road to avoid the scales on the interstate and I was afraid one would come around the bend and take all of the critters out). I called the Sheriff’s Dept and they sent someone out but apparently this was not an usual occurence. No one had a halter on of any kind but our lovely Sheriff’s would never have shot any of them. I am horrified that anyone would do such a thing.
CharlesCityCat, I’m not a vet and not an expert. I’m just an experienced dog owner who has owned a dog who had seizures, have seizured myself and so have done some reading about it.
Three seizures in one day sounds more like something ingested than something neurological. There’s no hope they took blood at the time, is there?
That being said, epilepsy is unpredictable. If it happens repeatedly, a lesion forms on the brain and each seizure raises the risk of yet another seizure.
Since horses are typically unobserved so much of the time, I think it could be easy to miss occasional seizures, particularly absence seizures (what used to be called petit mal). In fact, absence seizures can be missed even by witnesses if they don’t have training in spotting seizures.
My guess would be that he does not have epilepsy but it’s just a guess.
I did once know a horse with a brain tumour. Gorgeous five year old chestnut TB, was originally supposed to be a teenager’s hunter. She was diagnosed with brain cancer, horse was pasture ornament for a couple years until the owner died. Then a friend bought him.
Everything went normally for the first year, then he started to have episodes of weird behaviour. Every now and then, he would attack something. Started with a barn cat, then another horse, then a human, then a cooler. The cooler showed what was going on: the horse attacked anything that happened to be moving when the “fit” came on him.
Owner decided to have him euthanized and necropsied at a vet teaching hospital. He had a brain tumour. Sad but creepy when his background was considered.
The timing of the attack in your case is suspect to me, though. Four weeks after being turned into pasture buddies is just about the right amount of time for the bloom to be off the rose and for every being involved to lose their party manners. Is the Percheron a horse that likes humans and tends to be a bit jealous?
Plus, he has a previous history of attacking another horse.
He sounds to me like a big horse who has already learned he can use his size to bully other horses.
If the Percheron doesn’t mind living alone, that may be what he needs. He’s just too big and could be a very real threat to your other horses. Perhaps Charles and Spunky would like to be pasture buddies?
For your own peace of mind, I suggest a vet visit, do a blood panel to see if there’s anything abnormal. Murphy’s law says all findings will be normal and then you’ll have to decide if you want to keep this horse around given the conditions.
Taldara, please save your condescension for someone who doesn’t think it’s hilarious.
Horses are horses. If one is aggressive and herd dynamics make it apparent, then you do something about it.
I worked for a sales/hunt barn in the UK as well as a teaching boarding facility, then in the US a teaching/show barn.
I don’t need to name drop, that would be uncool.
Newbie or not, that really doesn’t matter.
Trust me, I’ve seen pure idiocy on message boards with people with thousands and thousands of posts. Nothing new here.
The guy had resources. Period. One of those was using his head for something besides a hat rack.
Yeah, CBER are a bunch of winners, for sure. I have a friend who has adopted quite a few from them and done wonders with them. I can’t imagine the prices they slap on some of the animals though. I mean sure they need to tack on something to support the operation, but damn, $800 may be broke, may not be, often injured, underfed, slaughter bound horses.
Speaking of the beastiality broad, I actually looked at one of the horses she had. She was back in foster. She’s been there over a year. I applied to adopt her and almost two months later, after we bought a damn nice baby sitter QH mare, they finally called saying they couldn’t reach one of my references. *sigh* The best part is that they have all these horses that must be rescued or die die die in like, two days, but they have the same rediculous prices strapped on them, and then you have the forever and ever approval timeline. Weee!
Pretty much the only people I’ve seen with horses from them have more money than brains and adopt these horses to watch them eat.
Firstly I would like to say this is mostly a great site that I have learnt heaps off. But in this case I feel that people are being overly harsh. I hate the group persecution mentality.
This guy seems like a nice person. He is giving horses that no one else wants a good quality of life. Nice big pastures, water, food, friends….what more could a horse want ( I bet there are some cotton wool wrapped, boxed 24/7 horses that would love to trade places with these horses in an instant!!!).
Did he make a huge mistake? Yes. People make mistakes. We are not perfect.
I get that the point of the post was to learn from others mistakes. But what is being achieved by brutally verbally bashing these people? They made a mistake, they are genuinely remorseful and I am sure they have learnt from their mistake…so GET OVER IT! I’m sure there are a lot worst people out there that you could gang up against and bully in this schoolyard fashion.
Sorry Johanna. Will leave the condescension to you shall I as you’re so good at it.
And the name dropping was ‘SPOSED to be uncool and therefore goofy/funny. Only trying to let you know I’m not some had one horse for 2 years know-it-all (I’m just your standard run of the mill had lots of horses for lots of years know-it-all)
Was responding to your statement that books, internet advice etc are available to those with very little knowledge of equine behaviour. Once again I will state MY opinion (and that of grainne dhu and others) that a knowledge of ‘herd dynamics’ and ‘animal behaviour’ are not skills you can aquire from books or the internet. As you yourself just admitted the internet is definitely no place to find it (and I quote “…I’ve seen pure idiocy on message boards with people with thousands and thousands of posts.”). Good consistant advice re horse husbandry etc is hard to get, even books and professionals vary in the advice they give. So sorry will stick to my theory that there ARE grey areas.
Do I think this accident may have been avoided if the gelding was separated – probably (remembering we are only surmising what really happened anyway). Do I think the guy’s an idiot for not having the knowledge – No.
The guys an idiot for not attempting to gain more knowledge..
It aint hard to figure out that if a horse is getting mean to seperate said horse.
trickroper…my mini mare gets mean at dinner time. So do lots of horses. Doesn’t mean that she will kick the others heads in. A little mean at feed time is NORMAL behaviour in a herd of horses. That’s how they sort themselves out. Telling the difference between normal pecking order tension and real aggression may be beyond newbies if it’s subtle.
grainne dhu:
Actually, he did have bloodwork drawn at the time of the seizures, all was normal. Everyone was talking brain tumor but his owner at the time couldn’t afford the several thousand for an MRI. I wouldn’t blame her for not doing it anyway. If it was done and it showed a tumor what are you going to do, put him down sooner or later. If it was negative, there is no guarantee that he would never seize again. We took him on the chance that they were caused by him eating something poisonous or maybe he whacked his big ole head on something and that it was a one time thing.
My agreement with his former owner is that if the seizures reoccur freguently enough or cause him any problems, I will have him put down.
I wouldn’t call him jealous but he is a treat pig. Yesterday he ate three bananas (peeled).
He has been out with Chase for a month and Chase can be a bit aggressive but Buck treated my 25 yo Spunky well, never a mark on him. Only problem was him pushing him off his hay, but that was easily dealt with. They were together for 3 months.
Maybe Buck just doesn’t like Chase. I just have that nagging worry that he does have a tumor and that it will start affecting his behavior.
I do have the ability to separate them and am doing so. I think the problem is Buck trapping Chase in the stall, so he will no longer be given the chance.
Will just be very Vigilent (?) in watching for changes in his behavior.
Thanks for your response and to horses4me as well.
Here’s my stupid accident story. It was our first winter at a boarding stable with an indoor. We had about 5 inches of snow on the grown, all covered by an inch of ice. The horses were getting turnout but weren’t willing to do much while outside except toddle from one hay pile to the next.
I was there in the middle of the day to meet the farrier and no one was using the indoor. After the farrier finished her trim (barefoot horse), I took my girl to the indoor and turned her loose to actually move a little. With the turnouts as icy as they were, I was letting her run around the indoor whenever I got the chance. Others at the barn did the same thing. Most of them still do.
Now the indoor at this barn is very horse proof. No sharp corners, no random pokey bits, all nice sanded wooden walls and excellent footing. It had been freshly raked and there weren’t any other tracks in it yet.
My girl bounces around a little, nothing worse than she’d do on the lunge line though and does her “I’m an Arab” trot and generally has a good time. After about 15 minutes, I call her over, snap on the lead rope and go to walk out. I glanced down and her lower right front leg was covered in blood. Turns out she had sliced it open right in the front from knee to hock, clear to the bone.
While waiting for the vet, the barn owner and I walked that indoor over and over again, following her tracks. We couldn’t even find where she’d done it at. She never got close to the walls, she never fell down anywhere. Somehow, just bucking and playing with freshly trimmed hooves, she managed to give herself one of the largest slice wounds I’ve seen.
Luckily, she healed completely sound with only a little scarring. She would have had none at all if she would have left her stitches alone.
Needless to say, I don’t ever let her run in the indoor free any more. Now when its icy, she just gets lunged and has to behave herself. That’s my stupid accident story.
grown = ground
stupid typo
Awful, just heartbreaking and awful. That poor sweet horse…
I am probably too late to add my horsey accidents but I will anyway.
2 nasty accidents.
First
5 week old filly playing in her round pen. 5 foot horse panels(like powder river brand) about a 40′ pen, shredded bark footing. Light rain that morning and she was running, rolling back at the fence, bucking, basically having a good ol’ time. Ran up to the panels, lost her footing, did the splits, broke her stifle.
I would call that an accident and insert “Shit happens”
It was the hardest thing I have ever had to do putting her down, very bad day.
Second,
My fault on this one.
Mare hung her leg in a wire fence, took off running and severed all the tendons at the front of her right hind hock. 3 months of daily dressing changes, it healed beautifully(thank god it was winter, no flies).She can still run like the wind. Nice pasture ornament(the one pictured on this post)I have. But hey she is a granddaughter of Seattle Slew and her mother is by a stakes winning and producing stallion. So at least she is nice to look at. She has a forever home here because I created her unsoundness.
SInce I’m not totally “In the know” of what is acceptable for a rescue… I have a question. I went to the CBER site to check it out. On it, on their “in memory” pages, I found a horse “Candy.” They had a photo of Candy being ridden on 10/4/07. And her description:
18-20 15’3hh red roan appy mare. Really cute with a great eye. She was good to tack up and ride. She was quite energetic, so she might have been a barrel or pole horse. She is not 100% sound, but it is very slight, and her feet are not in good shape.
Then these entries:
Update: 10/6/07
I saw Candy again today. She is quite lame possible abscess as there in no swelling but she is lame.
Shipped to slaughter: 10/9/07
I don’t understand. is this a horse they had in their rescue and THEY shipped to slaughter? Do rescues ship horses to slaughter? I thought the point of “rescuing” was to “RESCUE” – or am I wrong?
Actually as I continue to read there are several noted as “shipped to slaughter” … can anyone shed some light on this? Are some rescues actually feeding the slaughter houses? Since I’m not that knowledgable about how things should go, I just wonder.. should you be ‘rescuing’ horses if you can’t afford to humanely euthanize?
CBER is not a rescue exactly.
What they are is a group of shady private individuals who go to a BROKERS place an try to sell off some horses before they get shipped off to slaughter…
CBER is as much a legitimate rescue as I am the pope.
Unfortunately, while I think a good number of their volunteers have their hearts in the right places, the management is all $$$$.
Horses end up in all sorts of crappy situations…and CBER does little to nothing to get them out. One of our pictured friends in the post had a few CBER horses adopted out to her.
When people were asking CBER to step in to help, they didn’t.
One horse that I know of was later rescued by someone else (and is doing well despite his lost eye)…another? Euth’d when AC got involved.
Lovely group.
That was sheer negligence…but certainly, if you turn a horse out in a 40 acres pasture and there is ONE hole to step into, they will find it…
My recently retired horse got injured within the first month of his pasture retirement, but it seemd to be a freak accident and while he was hurting, he wasn’t even actually lame – a puncture wound high on the shoulder. The place’s fences are good, they searched the entire pasture and could not find anything upon which he could have impaled himself, and it certainly was not from a kick. Maybe a tree branch, since broken off? Anyway, they brought him in t0 a stall/paddock arrangement and cared for it conscientiously, the wound healed quite nicely, and they gradually re-introduced him to pasture. They very carefully watch all the horses and re-arrange the groupings to be sure that the various pasture groups “get along.” Funny one though: I trailered a friends old horse up to be retired at the same facility. They kept him in the first night, then introduced him into the same pasture as my horse. INSTANT BUDDIES! (Both Apps, for what it’s worth). Even funnier, my very passive, “just leave me by myself” horse now “protects” his new buddy. Nothing nasty: Just makes nasty faces and lunges at any other horse getting near. The other horses are very mellow and just basically “shrug” and walk away. LOL