We would like to tell you the horrific story of our lovely Moonie.
Our aim with this, is to highlight the dangers of unlicensed breeders and ask for people’s help in getting Moonie through this.
Beware the photos below are very explicit. Please be mindful of any children or adults who do not like to see harm to animals or a weak stomach!
We were approached by someone claiming to know of a lovely stud who was standing for natural covering. They claimed the stud was licensed and even produced supporting documentation, including medical testing. They put us in touch with the owner of the stud and arrangements were made to drop Moonie off for a week’s stay, to be covered in hand daily & turned out with the stud.
We looked around the yard, checked out the other mares with foals at foot and did not initially see any red flags- the first was that the stud’s owner intended to leave Moonie turned out in a field with a broodmare who seemed foal proud. We queried this and the stud’s owner make claims that the mare was absolutely fine and would not bother Moonie at all.
We met the stud in question, some of his offspring, the yard was adequate and fields well maintained. So, we signed our agreement with the stud (written by us using the BHS template as he had no experience with such things), kissed Moonie goodbye, and left.
Three hours later, the stud rings us to tell us Moonie had a small injury to her right shoulder which she must have sustained during travel and none of us noticed it while unloading. We advised sudocreme after seeing some pictures of the injury. It was a long laceration but not deep- no worse than a horse being scratched by brambles. We thought no more of it.
The stud’s middle man kept us informed over the next few days- but they said that Moonie and the stud were not really that interested in each other. We knew Moonie was cycling when we dropped her off so we were unsure what this meant.
Lets get to the main point of this story… 3 days later, the stud’s owner rang us to tell us Moonie had been injured very badly and we needed to get our vet out too the yard to see to her right away. His middle man sent us pictures- it was the most horrific injury we had ever experienced in all our days owning/working with horses.
On a Saturday, an emergency callout vet was not willing to travel the three hours to her in case he was out of reach of other emergencies in the region.
(They would not call there vet.)
So, we arranged for the stud’s owner to transport her home. (He said that would be £100) We just agreed to get her home ASAP! They claimed Moonie had loaded into their trailer with no fuss- my vet suggested they had used cattle sedation to get her on- it took us 35 mins to get her on our ordinary trailer. This was a high ramp cattle trailer. No way would she have gone in that willingly.
Once Moonie was in the stable, we began asking the questions- how did this happen? Which horse was responsible? What insurance did the stud’s owner have for these kinds of injuries?
The outcome- they had no idea who did this to Moonie. They said the stallion was left out in the field with Moonie and the broodmare but had no idea which one did the damage. They also had no insurance, but they fully expected that ours would pay out so everything would be fine! When we grew outraged, he offered to pay for PTS costs and disposal, but had no money to pay a high vet bill. We told them that we would be in touch once the vet had determined whether Moonie could be saved- the injury was that serious, we did not know either way. (We did not pay him the £100 for bringing her home) what a cheek he even asked for a payment!
Once the vet arrived, he was remarkably laid back and handled us and our horse with kindness and skills. He did say he saw these kind of injuries in the stud world. He sedated Moonie, sewed her up in places, administered some antibiotics and left some painkillers with a list of further instructions on looking after her. We are flushing the wounds twice daily, slathering on vaseline to aid in draining blood, puss and dead skin from the wound site, then coating the sites in barrier cream. Moonie has had two courses of oral antibiotics and been on bute since that day. She has to be stabled, cannot run with her friends, cannot eat grass (though we walk her in hand to munch around our site), eats her straw bedding rather than a haynet because of stress and wolfs down two buckets of feed.
We have kept the stud apprised of the costs incurred and their response has been that they are talking to their insurance people- please see the comment above where they insisted they didn’t have any!
We still 3 weeks later do not know what happened and how such a thing could of been done. The vet says it was likely the stallion, but with a foal proud mare- it could have been either. We are just extremely grateful that Moonie is still with us. She is a firm favourite with women, children, riders, non-riders on our yard and it has impacted all of us greatly.
The stud has not offered any payment or help with the bills and ongoing costs! Makes us so mad! After posting a little about what had happened on a local horse Facebook page. Members said we should try a asking the community for help and support.
If after reading/seeing this, you feel that you would be able to help with the ongoing costs. It would be amazingly appreciated.
It has been over £1100 in vet bills so far. Over £3200 in extra straw and hay. She should be out not stabled 24/7. Its only been 3 weeks. 🙁 We have also got to do a blood test to see if she did take to the stud and then have to think about the plan if she did.
We have spent over £50 on creams to put over the area. It’s a horrific and horrifying. It will take over a year to heal and the costs to keep her stabled, feed and cleaned is only going up. Please help if you are able to.
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