Yesterday, BITS aided in the castration of two more stallions. Their owner contacted us to be part of our April 3rd gelding clinic; however, Jamie felt it would be better to castrate them at their home because the 6 year old stallion had not been handled in a while and the 3 year old had never been in a trailer and was not halter broke. Thanks to the donated funds from the Sammie’s Friends Horse Fund, we were able to do just that.
The stallions owner was a very sweet woman who due to the recent economy has had to cut back and without a stable job is having a hard time making ends meet. She was concerned for her horse’s welfare and open to Jamie's suggestions regarding the care and feeding of her herd. It has been her life’s dream to breed beautiful horses, but without the proper breeding stock or funds to support her horses she is beginning to understand that she needs to shut down her operation.
The life of a stallion is not very luxurious; many times, they are kept in smaller pens and are unable to be turned out to socialize with others. They are often assumed to be dangerous; therefore they get little handling from inexperienced stallions owners. This was one of those cases. Lotto a 6-year-old Polish Arabian is living in stall with a 20x20 run with no pasture time or hoof care because his owner is apprehensive when it comes to his handling. He has helping in the tearing down of his stall out of frustration and boredom and there is evidence of atrophy.
As you can see, his hooves where overdue to be trimmed and his mane has gone without combing for a long time.
Yesterday was Lotto’s first day as a gelding and hopefully his procedure will help him find a new home and a new life. If you are interested in Lotto please contact Jamie at Jamie@backinthesaddleproject.com, his owner has agreed to sell him.
Next up was Star, a 3-year-old Arab cross. Star was breed and born on this property and for never being haltered or having much handling, he was a gem. As with Lotto, we are hoping that after being castrated his owner will feel more confident handling him and hopefully this will lead to a better quality of life for him.
BITS is not here to judge, condemn, or ridicule horse owners; we are here to educate and shed light on the 100,000 unwanted horse epidemic. For every stallion we geld, we can save an infinite number of unwanted horses by stopping them from potentially producing another foal. Please consider the unborn horse before you choose to breed. Breeding horses with poor confirmation, undesirable genetic traits, and unproved performance will most likely result in giving them a one-way ticket to Mexico. Breeding to improve the quality and integrity of the breed should always be the main objective; we can all help the horses before they need it by promoting ethical and responsible breeding. Thank you again to Sammie’s Friends for their generous pledge to our gelding project. If you are interested in helping us continue our fight to save the unwanted horse, please consider donating to our much needed program. We have a goal to aid in the castration of 100 horses in the year 2010, so far we have completed 23 and with your help we will reach our goal!
