Animal control officers were also forced to remove another 14 emaciated horses found wasting away on Larry Browning's mud and manure-covered property.
Authorities say Browning didn't have enough hay to feed the 81 horses on his farm, before charging him with 14 counts of animal cruelty in the second degree on Monday.
He has also been cited with 49 counts of not disposing of an animal carcass within 48 hours.
'In nine years, this is the worst case of animal cruelty I've seen,' Pendleton County's equine investigator told Cincinnati.com.
Browning, who claims he has been in the horse business for 50 years, admitted some of the horses on his Butler property looked sick and malnourished.
However he said he had so many sick horses because people abandoned them on his land in the middle of the night.
'In the last two years, I've probably had close to 100 horses dropped off. Now, some of them straighten up. I mean, I worm them all and I've got, well, this winter I spent two or three thousand dollars on hay,' Browing told Fox19.
'This didn't happen until they (US authorities) stopped the slaughter. Once they stopped the slaughtering, people didn't have an outlet for their old horses, crazy, or mean horses.'
While Browning describes himself as a 'horse trader', industry observers call him a 'kill buyer' - someone who sells old and infirm horses to slaughterhouses for a profit.
Pracht said slaughterhouses are not allowed in the US, so 'traders' such as Browning truck the horses to Canada or Mexico.
However Pracht said, during his investigation last month, Browning failed to provide paperwork showing prices or transactions for each of those international trips.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture requires that livestock be officially identified and have a certificate indicating that a veterinarian has examined the animal and determined it is disease free.
'I don't think the general public understands about where they are selling their horses - people like Mr. Browning and the condition these horses end up in,' Pracht told Cincinnati.com.
'He buys them and I assume tries to sell them for a profit and takes them to slaughter if he can't sell them.'
Meanwhile, animal activists claim there have been problems at Browning's farm before.
Animals’ Angels Inc, a non-profit organization that investigates cases of US animal abuse, found about 100 horses 'very thin, emaciated, lethargic and coughing' on Browning’s farm in 2011.
'Some were penned in an area used for manure disposal, standing on ground covered with manure and urine, their hay thrown on top of the filth,' the distressing report states.
Investigators included in their report, photographs they said were taken at Browning’s farm on June 15, 2011 showing 'extremely emaciated horses'.
The report adds that a Kentucky Department of Agriculture inspector who later visited the property reported there was 'nothing alarming' and complaints were 'unfounded'.
WLWT reported that 10 horses were found in bad health in 2011 and had to be euthanized, but Browning was not charged.
Kathy Rice, Browning's friend who lives near the farm, said Browning has owned the Butler property for more than 20 years and has a good reputation.
She told WCPO she's bought healthy horses from Browning in the past.
'He's been doing this a long time… it’s his livelihood,' Rice said.
'Any horse that I have bought from him has been healthy, strong and everything... He has hay out here all the time. He grains them every day.'
Browning could face more charges for the dead horses, which were still on the farm on Monday night.
He faces court on April 15.
(Daily Mail - April 10, 2014)
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