The owner, Janet Greene, was put on notice in September that she had 30 days to fatten up the horses, but when authorities went to re-inspect them this week a number were skeletal, said Dave Walesky, a captain with Palm Beach County Animal Care & Control.
Greene’s husband, Craig Greene, said the horses are not mistreated, and that they had been nursing two that were unwell.
He said one mare had a foal recently and has a history of going into a depression and losing weight after delivering.
“The mare has put on weight but hasn’t put on enough to suit them, so they came and took all of our horses,” Craig Greene said. “To get one fat, it takes a whole lot more time. It wasn’t enough time for her.”
Greene said another horse lost weight rapidly, and the veterinarian suspected a neurological problem such as West Nile virus. Greene euthanized the horse Tuesday night under the vet’s advice, he said.
“Our horses were fat, dumb and happy,” he said.
That changed after they were evicted from their home near Beeline Highway and had to move in at a friend’s house on C Road in Loxahatchee, Greene said.
Greene, a general contractor, said they sometimes bred the horses, but it is “more of a hobby” than a business. The couple’s daughter, he said, is a champion barrel racer, but none of the horses in question is her racing horse.
Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control division was alerted by two anonymous calls to the horses’ conditions on Sept. 11 and 13, Walesky said.
The plight of Greene’s horses may have been exacerbated by flooding after Tropical Storm Isaac in late August, Walesky said. As veterinarians inspected the horses Wednesday evening, some had skin visibly down to the bone.
“There is at least one that is having some medical concerns,” he said. “But the rest of them, it’s likely that they’ll be fine. We’ve just to got watch them and time will tell. We’re going to feed them properly and we’re going to make sure that they put weight on them and we’ll go from there. There’s always a risk with horses that are this skinny though.”
Animal Care and Control will house the horses on its 13 acres on Belvedere Road near the turnpike. The site has a six-stall barn, but director Dianne Sauve was asking for help Wednesday afternoon.
“It can be very costly to take care of this many horses,” Walesky said. The division is seeking donations of grain and hay.
“No donation is too small; a bag of grain or a bale of hay will be most appreciated and will help offset the looming bills that this case will cost the county,” Sauve wrote in an email.
In the next month, the division will petition for custody of the animals in county court. If that happens, the next step would be to nurse them to health and find them new homes, Walesky said.
Meanwhile, the division will present a case to the State Attorney’s office to charge Janet Greene with felony animal cruelty for starving the animals.
Said Craig Greene: “I guess we’ll see them in court.”
(Palm Beach Post - Nov 7, 2012)
