SLICE OF LIFE: Student helps rescue thoroughbred

In March, 13-year-old Andrea Stalnecker of Bernville, an eighth-grade student at King’s Academy in Mohrsville, raised $300 for the medical care of Donald A. Burns, a rescued thoroughbred stallion at Another Chance 4 Horses Inc., North Heidelberg Township. Stalnecker has been a volunteer at AC4H for about a year.  "I was kind of just surfing the Web and came upon this picture and went to the Web site," she said of how she became affiliated with the nonprofit rescue, rehabilitation and placement association. Stalnecker went to New Holland Livestock Auction with Christy Sheidy, co-founder of AC4H, and other AC4H volunteers in March.
 

Stalnecker said while she and the other volunteers were looking at the horses up for auction, they saw a thoroughbred horse tied next to some cows.  "He was perfectly healthy," Stalnecker said. "He had nothing wrong with him, but he was going to be sold to a kill buyer."  Sheidy decided to purchase the horse from a kill buyer, a person who buys horses at auction for slaughter, for $550.
 

I’ve seen kill buyers pay up to $900 for a horse at auction," Sheidy said. "Typically, it ranges from $250 to $750 for kill buyers to purchase one horse for slaughter."  Kill buyers often ship the horses they purchase to Canada or Mexico, where they are slaughtered for human consumption in European and Asian countries. "Rich societies eat horses," Stalnecker said, "not the poor."
 

Sheidy said she and her family go to the livestock auction every Monday in addition to taking in horses from owners who can no longer care for them. All of these horses are rescued and cared for by donations made to AC4H.
 

"Whatever donations they can get they use to rescue horses," Stalnecker explained. "Sometimes they use money out of their own pockets." Stalnecker said she found a thoroughbred tattoo on the inside of Donald A. Burns’ upper lip. AC4H’s thoroughbred division, which is made up of Diana Baker, Lisa Amarino and Sheidy, checked into Donald A. Burns’ history using the tattoo. They still do not know the reason why the horse was up for auction.
 

Once at AC4H, Donald A. Burns was put in quarantine for 30 days. Stalnecker said all horses rescued from the livestock auction are kept in quarantine initially in order to protect their health and the health of the other horses at AC4H.
 

Shortly after the horse arrived at AC4H, Stalnecker learned they needed to raise $300 to pay for his medical care. He had contracted strangles, a potentially fatal disease that causes abscesses in the lymph nodes, while at the livestock auction.
 

Newly back from spring vacation, Stalnecker told Amy Pletz, her teacher at King’s Academy, about her trip to the livestock auction and the money needed for Donald A. Burns.  Pletz donated $100 to the cause and Stalnecker’s father, Ted, also gave $150. Stalnecker said she raised the additional money through donations from two of her classmates and another volunteer at AC4H.
 

"I raised all the money I needed in one day," she said.  After receiving the medical care he needed, Sheidy said Donald A. Burns is out of quarantine and doing well at the AC4H farm.  "Over 90 percent of the horses that go to slaughter are horses like Donald A. Burns; they are perfectly sound horses." Stalnecker said. "There’s nothing wrong with them."  In addition to raising money for Donald A. Burns, Stalnecker recently wrote a petition in support of banning the transportation of horses to other countries for slaughter.
 

With 74 signatures, Sheidy and Lorri Shaver, an AC4H volunteer, took Stalnecker’s petition to Washington, D.C., in March, during a meeting of the Americans Against Horse Slaughter organization.  Sheidy said the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, HR503, is waiting to come to the Senate floor for a vote.  Stalnecker hopes to visit the livestock auction again this summer, and she plans on continuing to volunteer at AC4H.