It seems to be a tough week for animal abuse, unfortunately.  You have
connections in the horse world and maybe you can get word out to people who
might be interested in helping a herd of starving horses.

You can find this story on the front page of www.ajc.com
but basically, animals were discovered last week that were being starved.
There were dogs, rabbits, cows and goats that have been placed with rescue
groups (the cows were sold).  Unfortunately, the horses are a different
story.  This is a herd of 100 horses with about half of them in such bad
shape they have been given a score of 2 on the equine body scoring system of
one to nine which means they were skin and bones.  Many of the horses have
strangles which is highly contagious so they can't be moved into barns with
other horses.  The pasture where they are being kept doesn't have any type
of shelter and we're having temps in the low 30s this week.

Something has happened since yesterday when the Agriculture Commissioner
said that the state didn't have the resourses to feed these horses and they
were trying to force the owners to buy feed and hay.  He said any money
contributed to the Commission would go into a general horse rescue fund but
would not be used on these animals.  Today he and his agents are out there
feeding and vetting the horses and a fund has been established to pay for
the necessary expenses. Our governor is a veterinarian so maybe he applied
some pressure. Volunteers are helping to care for the horses as well so
maybe the public put extra pressure on the Commission as well.  Anyhow,
there is now a fund that has been established expressly for these horses and
a phone number is in the article.

Julie