Some pretty disturbing pictures going around of a Chacco Blue foal someone picked up from your farm @Kasheare - do you have an explanation as to why he’s in this condition?
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Holy moley! That is awful!! Poor sweetheart
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Holy guacamole.
No wonder he has a mouthful of hay.
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Someone did that to a baby??? I can sort of understand it when it’s a 30 yr old horse and the owner has become ambulatory or even absent but a BABY?
So glad to seem him with some alfalfa and clean bedding. I cannot imagine the dump he came from.
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This is absolutely despicable…
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Oh that poor baby! Is this why she is getting out of the breeding business? She can’t afford to feed her horses?
And I would be curious to know about where she obtained Chacco Blue semen. I’ve been away from the breeding world for a long time and didn’t follow the jumper stallions very much so my memory may be faulty - but CB died young and there wasn’t much frozen semen and/or it wasn’t super reliable. So a Chacco Blue foal would be pretty rare these days and something to cherish - although this poor foal looks soft in the front pasterns and perhaps even a bit clubby in the right fore.
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I expect she will blame her staff or the barn manager or something, and then rant on FB about how you can’t trust anyone these days. Her business model is to do mix and match in vitro with recipient mares and trendy stallion semen then seems to scatter them around lower cost boarding situations in the South. Then she is off traveling as a braider. This is not the kind of breeding operation that develops and maintains it’s own stallions and blood lines, and where the breeder is actually involved day to day with the brood mares and babies. You can “order” your “dream foal” with any frozen semen you want, it’s not the breeder shaping a line and making a coherent program.
It’s an interesting model in that it cuts costs to the minimum, and relies on modern high tech to make it possible. Leaving aside the quality of the foals, it’s the closest you can come to mass producing foals or running a puppy mill for foals.
In the several years I have been following this train wreck at a distance, this is not the first time there have been horse welfare questions about foals or mares but guaranteed, it’s Never Her Fault. It’s that “you can’t trust young people these days to feed your horses and they’re lying that I stopped paying board” etc. Given that she seems to pop these recipient brood mares into the cheapest living situations she can find, it’s not surprising she runs into sketchy people.
Like attracts like.
Interesting this foal is said to be off her own farm. I expect she will say she hasn’t laid eyes on him 6 months because “life.”
I await her reappearance on this thread with some anticipation.
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Buckle up! Poor sweetheart
Jeezus H - how does someone let a youngster get into that sort of condition? Poor thing, I hope he doesn’t end up stunted - that’s some serious neglect.
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oh nooooo!!! Poor baby, that is tragic. If she truly is responsible for this, charges should have been filed. I hope this is an old pic and he is nicely chunked up now.
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ouch.
That does not look good.
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There are straws still available for ICSI.
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The problem with buying a foal in that condition (any foal, not just that one) is that there is a high potential for OCD’s and developmental problems that might not be fixable. Overfeeding is just one reason for OCD’s and physitis - other causes are poor nutrition and inadequate or unbalanced mineral uptake. And yes pain from physitis (sp?) can cause tendon contractions and resulting club feet. Per my vet whose advice I greatly respect.
I did see some other foals from the breeder that do not look to be in fabulous condition but nothing that looks like that. One set of genes cannot make up for a poor start in life although there might be exceptions.
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WHOA. 
My three weanlings here look nothing like that… the poor little guy. Any different photos?
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Seems this puppy mill type operation falls very short on good care for its young (and old!) horses. The ones in the videos dont look great condition wise, but the photos above are a whole 'nother level.
If you cant feed it, DONT BREED IT. Just so very sad that the horses are always the ones to suffer.
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That makes me want to cry.
You bring something into this world, you care for it. If you do not own it, you keep track of it. For its life. If you can’t do that, do not breed. Be accountable.
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Can you share what the Fb post said? Not looking to dox the original author, of course.
Sorry, nevermind, found the post. It says:
“ Just sharing here by multiple requests so it is shareable. A good friend purchased a foal by Chacco Blue and was concerned with the update pictures she was getting. I went to pick the foal up for her yesterday to bring back to my farm here in FL before shipping north. This is what I was confronted with. A 25k weanling that has been on $450 a month board since weaning. This is so disturbing. I feel so bad for the new owner. I’ve never seen an 8 month old foal in this condition before. Just disgusting.”
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