Owners shoot horses

Hamish Heard
Horse owners and farmers are destroying their animals as a feed crisis in the region continues to run local RSPCA inspectors off their feet.
And the animal cruelty watchdog expects the situation to worsen in coming weeks as cold weather sets in, forcing more owners into the tough decision to put their animals down.
RSPCA Victoria senior inspector Lisa Weston said more than 150 animal cruelty complaints stemming from the drought were investigated in the region last month.
Local inspector Jason Nicholls said the complaints resulted in numerous warnings to owners to improve their animals’ condition or face criminal charges.
Two separate complaints about emaciated horses at properties around Wallington had already resulted in three horses being put down after their owner was unable to comply with an RSPCA order to provide adequate feed.
“In a lot of these cases the animals have the ability to recover but it comes down to whether the owner has the resources to properly commit to the animals and in that case the owner decided to destroy them,” Mr Nicholls said.
“There are other horses (at Wallington) where we are working with the owner to either put in place the necessary feeding programs to improve their condition or encourage them to dispose of the animal.”
RSPCA was also monitoring the condition of droughtaffected horses and miniature ponies at a property near Winchelsea. Mr Nicholls said several farmers around Geelong had been forced into making the agonising decision to destroy sheep and cattle due to an ongoing lack of feed.
“A lot of these cases can be very distressing for the owners, so there’s human welfare issues, too, and we’ve referred a number of cases involving severe hardship to rural counsellors,” Mr Nicholls said.
Complaints about starving horses and livestock were still inundating the RSPCA, he said.
“Rather than getting better with a bit of rain, it will actually get worse.”