Fairfield Equine Associates Help Starving Horses
It is truly a grassroots group, if you count hay as a grass. Beth Helms of
Pound Ridge, N.Y., is a member of an online writers' board, a horse owner,
and a client of Dr Mark Baus of Fairfield Equine Associates in Newtown.
When another member of her writers' group recently posted a link to a
Los Angeles Times article concerning the plight of horses in the
drought-ridden southern United States, she and the other horse lovers in
the group realized that they had the opportunity to do something to prevent
horses from starving to death. "We realized we could actually do something
without government bureaucracy getting in the way. We could just buy hay
ourselves and ship it," said Ms Helms.
The months-long drought in southern states has created a feeding problem
for horse owners. Grass that horses would normally have fed upon in the
warmer months burned up beneath a hot sun and lack of rain; hay crops were
damaged by the long, dry spell, causing prices for hay to shoot up beyond
what many horse owners can afford; and suppliers have not been able to keep
hay in stock in the quantities demanded. This has led to a great number of
horses being fed inadequate amounts, to the point of starving to death in
some instances, Ms Helms said.
Ms Helms realized that in order to raise the funds to purchase hay,
however, her group would need the assistance of a nonprofit organization
to collect and process the donations for them. She approached her
veterinarian, Dr Mark Baus of Fairfield Equine Associates, who agreed
with her that this cause deserved attention.
A horse requires approximately two percent of its body weight in hay
each day, said Dr Baus. That means that the average horse weighing 1,000
pounds needs 20 pounds of hay. "Here in Fairfield County we are apt to see
more problems with horses being overweight," said Dr Baus. Many horses down
south in need of assistance are hovering around 800 to 900 pounds, he said,
substantially below what they should weigh.
"Our goal is to take an immediate action," said Dr Baus. After consulting
with The Humane Society of the United States, he determined that
drought-related issues were truly a problem for horses in several of the
southern states. "I'm sure that some of the urgency may be an emotional
itch. But I think that there are factors that make this a very likely
situation. One, the drought has caused a decrease in the amount of hay
available and an increase in the cost. Secondly, with the economic downturn,
you have to remember that a horse is often a discretionary part of the
budget. When things go wrong, the horse is let go," he said.
Whether "letting go" of a horse is to be taken literally, as professed by
various websites and news reports that horses in southern states are actually
being released to fend for themselves, Dr Baus cannot say. But certainly
when a horse becomes an economic liability something has to give, he said,
whether it is the quality of care or if the animal is actually disowned.
The third factor that may have contributed to the plight of the horses,
said Dr Baus, may be the outlawing of slaughter of horses in the United
States. Owners of horses with no residual or terminal value no longer have
that option available, as unpalatable as the thought may be to many
Americans. "These three things make it likely to see an increase of
starving horse," said Dr Baus.
The United States Equine Rescue League has noted a sharp increase in the
number of horses neglected beginning the winter of 2006-2007, said USERL
board chair Jennifer Malpass in a recent e-mail to The Newtown Bee. That
increase has stayed steady through 2007 and the case load continues to
increase as this winter wears on, she said.
The USERL believes that a cascade of events, with the drought being the
catalyst, has pushed horses' problems over the edge this year. A soft horse
market that has steadily declined over the past ten years, an increase in
responsible breeding on nonmarketable horses, and lower prices for horses
making them more available to the general public, compounded by a disregard
to the high cost of keeping a horse, has led to an oversaturated horse
market, Ms Malpass said. The drought, she said, has only exacerbated the
problems.
Keith Dane of Equine Protection, The Humane Society of the United States,
said that while there has been no verification of reports of large numbers
of horses being left to forge for themselves, it does not rule out that it
could happen. "We have had no cases reported to the Humane Society," he
said, and believes that rumors of abandonment have been propagated by
activists against the closing of US horse slaughter houses.
The problem, said Mr Dane, is that the drought has made hay unaffordable
for many horse owners, thus forcing them to release their animals to rescue
leagues. In 2006-2007, the Equine Protection provided assistance to horse
rescue leagues in the Dakotas, Idaho, and Montana to alleviate the effect
of drought in those states. "Now the drought is worse in states like
Tennessee, parts of Kentucky, the Carolinas, and Virginia," said Mr Dane.
The Humane Society of the United States has set up a Hay for Horses Fund
to assist nonprofit horse rescue organizations purchase hay during the
drought and to supply hay for hundreds of horses during the winter months.
All donations go to animal rescue programs for the purchase of feed for
the animals. "We have not seen starvation as a huge problem, but if hay
is not available to horse rescuers, they cannot take in more horses, and
some horse could go hungry," said Mr Dane.
Ms. Helms' small group is working to make sure that as many horses as
need hay will get it. Through donations to The Hay Fund, the Fairfield
Equine Foundation actually buys the hay and pays for shipping it where
it is most needed.
Growing up in South Dakota and a graduate of Kansas State University,
Dr Baus knew that he had connections to hay sources that could be utilized
for this situation. "Each shipment of hay will be between 20 to 30 tons,
and will be shipped directly to a reputable equine rescue organization
for distribution," he said. "This has all happened so quickly. We just
heard about this from Beth less than a week ago," Dr Baus said. But the
$5,000 needed for the first shipment has been received and he hoped that
the hay would be on its way to its destination by early next week.
"We will try to collect enough money for one shipment at a time," he
said. The project will be ongoing, so long as funds are received and so
long as there are horses in need of help.
He stressed that all of the donations go toward the purchase of hay and
the shipping of the hay. "Fairfield Equine Associates is not making any
money on this," he said.
Tax-deductible donations can be mailed to Fairfield Equine Foundation,
Attention: Hay Fund, 32 Barnabas Road, Newtown CT 06470.
