On 3-25-08 our President, Michelle, received an email from a concerned volunteer. The email gave details about the living conditions of the animals on a farm in Fortville, Indiana. It also contained quite a few pictures of the farm. We’ve posted a few here, but please click here to view all the photos of this farm and the animals. We really want people to see what we were dealing with!

Michelle contacted the owner. He originally agreed to surrender 90% of the animals to our group. However, after talking with his wife, he changed his mind. At that point, Michelle called Animal Control. The officer told her she knew the people, and they were okay. Michelle forwarded the email to the officer. Once the officer saw the pictures, she sent Michelle an email and agreed the conditions were bad.

Animal Control spoke with the owner and obtained a report from a state veterinarian detailing the condition of the animals. The owner eventually agreed to surrender the animals in order to avoid facing neglect charges. Animal Control released all the animals, with the exception of one horse to A Critter’s Chance (view release letter here). Eventually, the horse was released to us as well when Animal Control determined the owner’s son didn’t have a suitable home for it (release for horse).

Michelle received the call from Animal Control letting her know she had permission to remove the animals. She had a group of volunteers at the farm within three hours. Following is a timeline of the rescue effort. Please click here to view the photos of the rescue.

• Wednesday, 3-26-08 from 4:30-10:30PM
  We removed 3 horses, 10 chickens, 4 roosters, 2 guinea hens, 1 rooster, 6 cats (of which 4 were pregnant, 5 tested positive for feline leukemia, and the 6th one tested positive for feline aids and leukemia). There were also 11 rabbits taken this day. Two were pregnant. One had 9 babies, and the second one had 6 babies.
  This day was very challenging. As we put these animals in carriers for transport, there were family members who opened the crate doors in order to let them out. We had to assign several volunteers to stand guard by the carriers in order to prevent this. It added more stress to an already-tense environment.
• Saturday, 3-29-08 from 3:00-6:00PM
  We removed 23 Domestic African Geese, plus 21 eggs. They were immediately taken from the farm to their new homes.
• Saturday, 4-5-08 from10:30AM-4PM
  We removed the last 3 horses. These horses were not social. They had never been bridled, haltered, saddled, rode, been off the farm or ever properly taken care of, so catching them was not easy! We had a “horse whisperer” along with other horse experts. We were not able to corral them to get them on trailers, due to the conditions of their living area. There were boards with nails sticking out of them, broken glass everywhere, fallen logs, and very large amounts of mud and feces, which made things very slippery. If the horses were to break their legs, it would have been detrimental, so we had to take our time.

On the last day, Animal Control was available to us but not on the scene. We had permission from the homeowner to be there. Unfortunately, there were some family members there who were opposed to us taking their family’s animals. There were threats being thrown at us. Some of the family members were trying to bully and intimidate the group, so Michelle called Animal Control. The officer wasn’t able to do anything to help. While she was on the phone, standing in the field with the horses, one of the family members threatened to go back to his house, get his gun, and shoot us! He then said he would call the police. Michelle told him she would do it for him! She made the call, and the Fortville Police arrived on the scene in about five minutes. The officer spoke with the family member. A few minutes after that, a K-9 unit was on the scene. From that point, it took us only about 20 more minutes to get the horses loaded and off the property.

The horses had to be transported to a temporary home in order to receive veterinarian care, clean housing, and proper nutrition. They stayed there for about two weeks. After a vet made sure they were free of disease, they were transported to their permanent home in Kentucky. Click here to view photos of their temporary home.

Unfortunately, they had been used to eating the wood from one of the barns in their previous home. This led them to eat part of the privacy fence that surrounded their temporary housing! Now, instead of just paying for the hay, our group also had to cover the cost to repair the fence. As you can see from this estimate, the fence repair added $6900 to the cost of this rescue. The total cost, including the hay, to house these horses for two weeks was $7275. Thanks to a very generous private donor, we were able to cover it!!

You may have noticed the cows pictured above weren’t mentioned. The cows were there on Wednesday. However, when we returned on Saturday, they had been removed. We were very concerned and asked everyone involved what had happened to the cows. Unfortunately, the only answer we were given is not to worry about them, and that they had been taken care of. We were not happy about this, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it.

After removing the animals, we obtained the necessary vet care. The total cost of this rescue was about $11,000! It was a lot of hard work, but well worth it to know these animals would be properly cared for going forward. Please click here to view photos of the animals in their new homes. It's hard to believe these are the same animals! You may notice the horses’ legs are darker from about their knee down. This is because they are stained from living in mud and feces for years. We hope they will not always be this way, but there is a chance they might. Other than that, they are living very happy lives and being cared for in the way they deserved all along!

After we dealt with the animals, Michelle made sure to send a letter to the Greenfield Mayor in order to show her appreciation for the Shelter Director at Animal Control who was instrumental in this rescue.

Shortly after the rescue, a news story appeared in a local paper. As you can see, by reading it, this story is very different from what we experienced. Michelle decided to email the paper in order to expose the facts of this rescue. Unfortunately, they never responded to her. Several news channels and papers were contacted, but none were interested.

A Critter's Chance would like to thank everyone involved in this rescue. It was a very difficult rescue, but seeing the animals happy and healthy really does make it all worthwhile! We will be adding a few more details and documents to to this story, so please check back. We will also add in any updates we get on the animals!



Update

At the time we were rescuing these animals, we had to find foster homes fast. Consequently, not all of the geese were able to be placed together right away. Recently, we were able to move the last four geese out of their temporary foster home in order to reunite them with the others! It was a happy moment to see them all back together again.