The “free to good home” horse

Social media post: “Free. 22 years old, registered. Trail ridden before we got her. We have had her 8 years and have never ridden her. She could probably still be ridden if you wanted to. She has never been bred but could be as far as we know. She is sound as far as we can tell from looking at her in the field. Free to good home.”

And the well-meaning people who have no intention of offering the home proceed to freak out in the comments. “Give her to a rescue,” they cry, with no intention of facilitating the transfer of the horse from current home to rescue farm. Because certainly, it is a rescue's "job" to "save" this horse.

The reality is, it is incumbent upon the owner to be a responsible party.

“Giving” a horse to a rescue is not a gift. Full stop. Rescues accept horses as they can afford to (and if this is not their primary concern, they are not rescuing responsibly). So, when you tell someone to “give” their horse to a rescue and leave it at that…consider this: The rescue has to consider the space and resources it has, and often owner surrendered horses are at the bottom of the priority list; neglect cases are often prioritized, and take up more resources. Intaking an owner surrender like this will cost upwards of $500 in the first month: transportation to the rescue, vetting (vaccinations, Coggins, dental); farrier; deworming; feed and hay. Then, a horse that hasn’t been ridden in almost a decade will need to spend some amount of time with a professional, which will cost $800 or more per month, in order to determine how rideable and sound the horse will be – and make an accurate determination about the horse’s future placement.

Let’s just say, $1,500 in the first 60 days, assuming the horse doesn’t stay in training beyond an evaluation period, and before the horse can even be offered for adoption, and somewhere between $200 and $500 thereafter until the horse is adopted, which may take years if the horse is determined to be a pasture-sound pet. And if the horse is unsound and uncomfortable, euthanasia may be accompanied by yet more outcry in a "how could you" fashion from people who think a pain-filled life is somehow better than crossing over with a full belly on a warm day.

Clearly, rescues don’t recoup intake costs on adoption fees.

Without a rescue to intervene, there are about 5 possible scenarios. Least likely is that the horse will land softly with someone who will keep her and do right by her no matter her soundness, for the remainder of her days. More likely, someone will pick her up and run her through the local sale to make a couple hundred dollars selling her to a horse trader. 3, once a horse goes to auction, she’s more likely to return to the auction and be bounced sale to sale, or sale to Facebook “bail” group to sale. 4, if the horse is of a certain size and weight, she may be sold to a real kill buyer for per-pound, to ship to Mexico, or 5) If it's a mare, someone picks her up with the express intent to breed. After multiple attempts to breed her with no success (or after managing to get a foal out of an older maiden mare and then failing to get another), she's dumped at auction and into one of the above scenarios.

Three important take-aways:

1) You may not think you will ever need the help of a rescue, but you can make it easier for them to assist by keeping up the care and training on your animals. Trained animals that have received veterinary/farrier care are easier to network into new homes. Some tips are in a previous blog here.

2) Rescues depend on donations to be able to assist in these situations; in fact, if everyone who comments “give her to a rescue” would commit to donate toward that initial $500 or monthly costs thereafter, the outlook and outcome could be different.

3) Without donations, rescues cannot intake these “free” horses – it is incumbent upon the current owner to proceed with caution, use due diligence, vet the horse, pay a professional trainer to determine training level, and rehome (or euthanize) the horse as the situation dictates rather than put them in danger of auction or slaughter.