Rate Buckland Equine Rescue ZERO.
OUR HORSE WAS POISONED AND DIED AT THIS RESCUE. EIGHT OTHERS WERE POISONED THE NEXT DAY
Background: We boarded our horse here for four years. Over the past summer, 2014, the owner of Buckland stopped taking care of the horses. We would visit our horse out in the field where he grazed and didn't go to the barn from may through July. We live far from the farm so we only got to visit our horse once a week to twice a month. This was a full-care facility.
There is now a CRIMINAL case against Buckland.
The owner of Buckland texted me that my horse died. AFTER the horse died. He said that my horse died quickly and peacefully of cancer. Cancer? My horse had just had a full physical 5 weeks earlier and was somewhat underweight but otherwise healthy. Then we talked to the vet who was present when our horse died and she said that our horse was in extreme pain, very agitated, and shaking. He collapsed to the ground dying in pain.
The next day we went to pick up our horse's body and 8 other horses were very ill with the same symptoms our horse had before he died. They were in agonizing pain. Three other veterinarians and the sheriff had already been to the farm earlier and were trying to treat the horses. Our vet said that the horses, including our horse, had all ingested a toxin. As of now 8 days later they know the horses were poisoned. Our horse died but the others are still alive, but ill.
We had told the owner that we were going to move our horse five weeks earlier. We had a new place already and a week later we had a trailer to pick our horse up and the owner of Buckland refused to allow us on the property. He told us if we came on the property he would have the sheriff arrest us. He claimed he had papers stating that our horse was HIS horse and we couldn't prove otherwise.
We were shocked. We never got to see our horse alive again.
What transpired before our horse was poisoned to death at Buckland Horse rescue:
When we went up to the barn in late July, we were horrified at the conditions of the stalls, feed room, and entryway. Three of the stalls were flooded with water. All the stalls were full of manure one foot deep. The feed buckets for the horses had cobwebs in them; there were cobwebs between the rails on the stall gates; there were cobwebs from the stall gates to the wooden doorway. Clearly the horses had not been fed nor had the stall gates been open for a long time.
We went into the feed room which was so full of trash and filth we could barely get into it. There were cobwebs connecting the feed barrels to each other which meant that the feed barrels had not been open for a long time. When we opened them all four were almost completely empty. One barrel had just enough pellets to cover the bottom of the barrel. There was one bag of open feed that was molded.
We were very calm with the owner and encouraged him to get the barn ready for winter. We paid to have the roof repaired at the back of the barn where water was coming in. We hired a man with a bobcat to scrape manure out of the barn (the back part was open so he could do that). We hired a crew to shovel out manure from the stalls. In one stall the manure/mud mixture was over two feet deep. We cleaned the feed room and found all kinds of horse supplements on the floor under floor boards, in filthy black dirt. We reorganized everything.
Rather than be grateful, all of us who helped him clean up the barn noticed that he got very hostile. He accused us of attacking him. His wife did the same. They did NOT want us to move our horse claiming that the owner had sat up all night with our horse when he was very ill. That was FOUR years ago. WE were up all night with our horse that night too.
But according to the wife, we had no right to move our horse to another farm " because no one would take care of him as well as her husband would." She accused me of being very angry and of attacking her when I said that we were trying to get the barn ready for winter so that the horses would have shelter and food. She implied that the owner was doing an excellent job of taking care of those horses and he was under no obligation to feed the horses or take care of them any more than he was doing right now. She claimed that we should not move him because her husband sat up all night one night four years ago with our horse and no one else would ever do that. She forgot to say that we had sat up all night with our horse that same night.
She insinuated that one night four years ago made up for not feeding our horse now.
The wife and the owner both told us that our horse was the "alpha" and if we moved him from their farm, he would get severely depressed and die of depression.
Summary: We told the owner of Buckland that we were going to move our horse. When we brought the trailer to move him, the owner would not allow us on the property claiming our horse was his. WE NEVER SAW HIM ALIVE AGAIN. Now four weeks later our HORSE WAS POISONED TO DEATH AND DIED IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN.
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