Rescue a Mare, Save a Foal

*The following is written by Rasta's Rescue Ranch's youngest caregiver.

My name is Lilli. I am 12 and my parents and I run a small ranch called Rasta’s Rescue Ranch.  We rescue disabled horses, farm animals, and dogs in Santa Fe New Mexico. We currently have 5 horses, 3 goats, 1 sheep, and 6 dogs, and just the other day I read some very cruel things that a lot of American horse owners that put there horses in auction do not know about.  This is why Rasta’s is trying to start a fund to rescue one of these horses from slaughter, kill pens and feed lots.  I know that rescuing a horse does not seem like it would make a difference, but it would make a huge difference to the horse that we rescue.

The horses that they put in auctions are most likely to get auctioned off and then sent to Canada or Mexico for slaughter. Then the meat from the horses is shipped overseas and served on European and Asian dinner plates.  In 2009 over 70,000 horses were slaughtered and every 5 minutes one more is slaughtered.  Most of the horses that are slaughtered are pregnant mares because in the time that the mare is pregnant she is hooked up to collection devices that collects the urine that is turned into a very popular medical drug.  After the mare does not produce the urine that they want anymore she is auctioned off.  

In 2006 the U.S. banned horse slaughter for meat. But still every year hundreds of thousands of American horses get slaughter in Mexico and Canada. But just recently in Montana it has been legalized for the slaughter of horses to be practiced there. The congress wants to reopen slaughter houses for horses in the US.

A lot of the time slaughter is done very inhumanly because a lot of the time the horses are not completely unconscious during slaughter.  In other words, they are still awake while being slaughtered because the stun gun doesn’t usually hit the horse in the correct place.  It is also illegal for people to not feed the horses in the kill pens because of slaughter regulations, but the feedlots and kill pens refuse to feed the hundreds of staving horses a piece of hay.

These are the reasons Rasta’s is looking for a sponsor that will make it possible for us to rescue a pregnant mare or 2.

Chloe is a fourteen year old pinto pony. She went blind from moon blindness and is completely blind in both eyes.  She is a retired barrel racer, whose owner took her to an auction.  A man offered to buy her, but her owner realized the man was a broker for a slaughterhouse in Mexico.  Chloe’s owner said no and found Rasta’s Rescue Ranch. 

Chloe
Photo by: Chandon Banning

**Chloe was our first rescue after losing Rasta in December of 2009.