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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is a huge market for this in "horse rescue."  Kill buyers set up a shell and post on the internet that THESE HORSES ARE GOING TO SLAUGHTER IN 3 DAYS UNLESS POEPLE DONATE AND BAIL THEM OUT.  The bail price is substantially more than the kill buyers paid, hundreds of dollars more.  People's heartstrings are pulled, but the next week there is another pen full or horses GOING TO BE SENT TO SLAUGHTER TUESDAY UNLESS BAILED.

I think they are mostly send to slaughter anyway.  Who knows where they find hundreds of homes for lame, useless, half starved horses once they are "bailed."  They probably get sent to a private farm for a few days then shipped to Mexico.

It is a known scam.  The FBI recently raided one of the big operations (Another Chance 4 Horses).  sleezy.  I don't deal with "rescues."[/quote]

I could write a book on killpens, this is an issue near and dear to my heart.  Now, I preface this with I am a long time horseman and advocate with decades of riding, showing and training behind me and I mostly know what I am doing with horses. I have a great veterinarian that I work with too.  Most of the ninnies on those killpen sites are women who never got to have a pony when they were little girls and have absolutely NO idea what goes into rehabbing a horse, both time and money.
 
I have pulled horses from killpens; the pens are real, some are better than others, the horses that land in my pasture after I bail and ship them here are real.  I usually deal with Kaufman in Texas ( I refuse to deal with Thompson or any of the Stanley brothers lots), mainly because I have a friend from my horse show days who goes into the pens 1 or 2 times a week and looks for good horses that are in a bad situation through no fault of their own, that can be bought and rehomed.  The kill pens do send horses to slaughter, but those aren't the horses you see on their web pages.   And the USDA highly regulates what horses are allowed to cross the border (no blind, pregnant, minis, lame, etc).  The KB has found a better market through marketing to the rescue industry and bleeding heart women, creating a vicious circle.

Horses get sent to auction, it's a sad truth.  They get sent because their owners die and relatives don't care, there is a divorce, the kids outgrow them, or go off to college, or someone loses their job and can't afford to keep them, or the horse develops a health issue that then erupts into a behavior issue and bam - off they go to the Friday night auction in Elkhart TX.  Kill buyers are at auctions and that's where they get their horses.  Usually, the first 10-50 horses at auction are bought for good prices by good buyers.  Those buyers will pay and pick up their horses and then leave since they got what they came for.  That usually leaves another 100-200 head of horses to be bought for pennies by the kill buyers who have contracts with the slaughter houses in Mexico and Canada.  Most of those horses are good horses that weren't lucky enough to be ran through first.

Horses on the east coast are outrageously overpriced, it's much cheaper (if you know what you're doing and have a reliable quarantiner and shipper) to buy them in Texas or the midwest and have them shipped to you - which is what I did/do.   We have a horse property so I have room to quarantine and assess them for rideability/resale in a round pen.  My last pull is a registered Appendix gelding that is probably worth around 15K out here as a Dressage or Hunter/Jumper after I sort him out.  I paid $800 +500 shipping, and then my time and some vet expenses.  He has ulcers and I would bet money that is why he wound up at auction.  He started bucking when saddled because his belly hurt and his owner dumped him at auction instead of calling a vet to see why he was cinchy.   A month on ulcer guard (omeprazole) and horse metamucil and he will be right as rain again.

There are shady horse rescues out there - AC4H was one, and Hicaliber out in California is another one I would not touch with a ten foot pole. [/quote]

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