Six horses, some that had hip bones and ribs showing, were taken from Julie and Adam Near. The complaint was filed on August 9, 2012, according to court documents. Julie confirms that she is a horse trainer and sources say that Adam is a Farrier, or a person that cares for a horse’s hooves.
The couple must each pay a $400 fine and cannot have horses for six months.
“Originally we thought that it was a nutrition issue and we were working to correct it, we kept upping their feed, and we were medicating for parasites because there are multiple parasites that cause not only weight loss, but muscle wasting.” Julie said in a phone interview.
J.J., a pure bread Arabian, was the worst of the six horses. Julie said her now husband, Adam, bought the horse for her as an engagement gift. The person they purchased it from verifies that date was on September 17, 2011.
Julie claims that J.J. did not “winter” well and was pretty thin in the Spring.
“Late June, he was still putting on weight, late June early July, he started to go downhill pretty quickly and we suspected a pretty serious parasite problem.” Julie added.
She said that they had planned on calling a vet, but animal control took them before the vet came to their home.
“If we were negligent it was only in not calling a vet out sooner.”Julie admits.
Adam Near’s ex-wife, Staci Towersey, is now fostering all six of the horses at her Morley home.
“I received a call from animal control from Newaygo County because they knew that two of the six horses that were in trouble were mine at one time, so they figured I was the one to call to be able to help with the history.” Staci said.
J.J. was actually born on her family’s farm.
“He was in really good condition, he’s quite chunky normally.” Staci said, J.J. nuzzling up next to her.
“As soon as I saw the photos, I knew they were in trouble by the way they looked.”
Staci claims that J.J. usually weighs near 1,000 pounds, but weighed in at around 680 when he was taken from the Near’s home.
“The vet did say that his vital signs were normal when he examined him and he did not believe there was any permanent damage but he will continue to be checked on a regular basis by the vet.”Staci said.
Even though she is the ex-wife, Staci said this has nothing to do with her contacting the media.
“My concern is that you know, from what I understand, they are not allowed to have horses for six months, but then after that they are allowed to have animals they are allowed to have horses,” Staci said. “My concern would be that somebody that, you know that I know, or somebody that loves their horse and thinks that it’s going to a good home, because the market is terrible right now, the hay is expensive, we’ve had a drought, a lot of people are going to be getting rid of horses, and several people trusted them to take care of their horses and that did not happen.”
Staci is going to keep a black horse named Rajja and J.J. will go back to the woman that Adam Near purchased him from. The others, Staci said, as soon as they are cleared by the vet, will be adopted out to good homes.
When asked if she will have horses when the six months is up, Julie responded, “We’ve kind of realized at this point that anything you own can be taken away from you so we’re not really sure if we want to put ourselves through that again.” She went on to say, “We were doing everything that we knew to be right and all of the research that we’ve done being professionals in the horse industry told that we were doing the right things and the horses still weren’t improving so, then we decided to call a vet.”
(FOX17 - August 31, 2012)
