Fairbury, Nebraska Auction Report

21 Mar 2009

Brandi, We just got back from the Fairbury auction and it was sad at least 30 horses went to the kill buyers. I am writing this late because we ended up bringing a baby home and she is in bad shape. They said her mom died a few weeks ago and she had been in pasture in Iowa somewhere. She is a little bay with a black mane and tail and a star on her forehead. The little girl has scours, her hip, back and shoulder bones are jutting out and if you run your hand down her sides you can feel her ribs. I think she was trailered with bigger horses because she is lame in her left back leg and real sensitive to pressure on it. I hate that auction but it is a good thing we went I guess no one else would bid on her and she would of been given to the kill buyers for $12.00 and probably would have not made it. The slaughter horses are still at Fairbury as of 1:30 this am and I called P.E.T.A and asked them if there was anything that could be done because they have 40 plus horses in the pens.

There are studs, pregnant mares, yearlings, old starved looking horses, and they are packed in there and have no food and a small tank with some water in it. We have 13 horses and the biggest water tank you can get at Orschelins and every 3 days we have to refill it.I dont know when they plan on picking the horses up but I wonder if they dont use Fairbury as a holding pen and wait till they get enough horses together and then truck them to slaughter. I know the first auction at Fairbury they trucked them on a double decker semi and they had a good 40 or 50 horses. It would be great if you want to list Fairbury as a mostly kill buy auction because all the loose horses but our little filly went to the kil buyers. The meat price must of went up because the KB"s are paying around $275.00 for a fat healthy tall horse and went up to 325.00 for some of the bigger ones. Those were the grade riding horses that were healthy and the loose horses went for around 150.00 to 60.00 per horse.