by Pepper Ballard
Four forlorn horses now call the rolling pastures of the Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch home after spending years languishing on a farm that served as a graveyard for their mixed herd.
They were among 237 animals taken March 5 from Greg Brinkley’s Blum, Texas property in Hill County in what authorities are calling the largest farm animal seizure in state history.
Dead and Starving Animals
The grisly mess was found over a two-day period, when the Humane Society of North Texas and law enforcement agents from Hill and Johnson counties combed the 86-acre property and found about 30 animal carcasses and hundreds of malnourished and ill horses, llamas and cows.
Hill County Judge Eugene Fulton granted the HSNT custody of all of the animals eight days after the raid. The 50-year-old Egan man has been charged with 25 counts of animal cruelty.
Second Chance
Under the direction of HSNT's equine and livestock program coordinator, Sandy Grambort, all but five horses have now been placed in either adoptive homes or sanctuaries.
The four geldings posed a special—but not unexpected—problem. Their condition and behavior made them unadoptable as family animals. So Grambort put a call into Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch Director Diane Miller, who immediately agreed to take the four neediest of the lot.
“Black Beauty is a fitting place for some of these guys who had been through so much, and had suffered and been so resilient against all the odds that were thrown at them,” Grambort said.
“It’s also nice for us—for all of the folks who worked with them—to see that at least some of them will have a fine and dignified end to their life at Black Beauty.”
Sanctuary for the Neglected
The Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch—a program of The Fund for Animals in partnership with The Humane Society of the United States—has 1,000 acres dedicated for pasture animals. The ranch was founded by author and animal advocate Cleveland Amory in 1979 as a sanctuary for abused and neglected animals and it is now home to more than 1,200 animals, making it the largest and most diverse sanctuary in the United States.
The ranch is in stark contrast to Brinkley’s farm, where, with no edible forage, animals ate cacti and lapped water from a creek in which the carcasses of other herd members rotted. The farm was rich only in mesquite, mud and cedar trees, none of which could provide a herd that large with any—let alone enough—nourishment.
To feed a healthy herd that large, Grambort said, a rancher would need to spend $500 a day to provide minimal care. Because the animals taken were so ravenous, she said the entire herd ate 750 pounds of feed a day in their first days off Brinkley’s farm, costing the Humane Society of North Texas $10,000 in the first week the animals were under its care.
Welcome, Horses
Miller said all hands were on deck when the four geldings arrived at the ranch Wednesday.
“This is a nice means for us to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Cleveland Amory Black Beauty Ranch because these are exactly the type of animals Cleveland had in mind when he founded it,” Miller said.
“He’d be pleased that these animals can live out the remainder of their days in peace at the sanctuary after they endured all of that pain.” Continue reading»
