Horses Abandoned In US West As Feed Prices Rise
In the classic Hollywood western, a cowboy portrayed by John Wayne gallops across the sagebrush steppe and rocky ridges of the American West with only his horse for a companion. What the films don't show is the cowboy buying and hauling hay for his horse, or what happens to the horse when it is too aged, infirm or irascible to ride. Those more mundane details are at the heart of a debate about growing cases of mistreatment of horses in the United States, at a time when hay and grain prices are skyrocketing and when options for disposing of unwanted horses are dwindling.