On Feb. 21, 2006, Ray Field, executive director of the Wild Horse Foundation in Franklin, received a call from Mike Chrisman, a Waco citizen, telling him that he knew of about 25 horses in Chilton, that were starving. �I saw those horses out there for many months. I saw no evidence of any feed out there and the horses kept getting skinnier,� Chrisman said. �Then I noticed that there was fresh water out there, so I thought maybe they were being fed minimally, until I saw the trees.�
The horses, owned by Chuck McGinnis of Chilton, were so hungry that they were ripping bark off of the nearby trees. �If you�re gonna own multiple animals, you�ve gotta take care of them,� Chrisman said. �There was nothing out there but dirt and barbed wire.� Chrisman said he called Fuzzy Friends of Waco, and they gave him Ray Field�s phone number. �I got a call about this guy who was starving his horses,� Field explained. �The horses weren�t well, but they were not bad. They were thin.� Chrisman added, �He (Field) didn�t mess around or waste any time. He wasn�t lying about taking care of the situation. That evening, it was on the news.�
Field said that McGinnis was unable to afford $100 for round bales of hay for his horses. �So I told him to sign the horses over to me and we�ll put them in homes for you,� Field said. Out of 27 horses, Field settled on taking 21 horses. Four of the remaining horses belong to McGinnis� brother and two belong to him. �McGinnis was trying to breed the horses and sell them, but with the market being too soft, he was unable to sell the horses,� Field said. With the help of Field and Channel 6 News, all of the 21 horses were bought from the Wild Horse Foundation and were sold between $350 and $1,250.
Lynn Woods, from Bosqueville, saw the news reports on Channel 6 and he ended up buying three registered Arabian horses that were rescued from McGinnis� farm. Woods already had one horse that he uses for pleasure purposes, but, �I�ve got nine little boys and I wanted to add a couple of horses,� he said. �I think it�s gonna be a great situation. But I am a little nervous about the drought and how long it will last. I�m going to have to pay a lot for feed for my four horses.�
Field is happy that he could save the horses and find good homes where the horses will be happy, but he has been receiving many calls about animal neglect and abuse, because of the high prices of hay. �I call it price gouging,� Field said. �The Texas Attorney General�s office is looking into the high prices of hay, but that is a different type of disaster.� Chrisman is also content with the way the starving horse situation has ended. Neighborhood MapFor more information about the Interactive Animal Cruelty Maps, see the map notes.
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