HELPING HORSES: Driftwood Horse Rescue and Sanctuary saves horses at auction

Camille Carson recognized a problem and knew she had to do something. She couldn’t walk away from it.

For that, she has earned the everlasting gratitude of Taini.

Taini is a six-year-old Arabian-mix that Camille picked up at a low-end horse auction for $275.

Taini was destined for the slaughterhouse. She was malnourished, abused, had a respiratory infection and was, pretty much, unapproachable.

“She was obviously starving and had been beaten,” recalls Camille.

These days Taini — which means “Returning Moon” in Chippewa — is healthy and happy and enjoying her bucolic life on the 50-acre ranch that’s home to the Driftwood Horse Rescue and Sanctuary. She walks up to meet visitors, welcomes human contact and is a month or so away from being ready for adoption.

“We helped her learn to be a horse again,” says Camille. “She still needs some training, but if someone wanted her we could put her on a crash course.”

Taini and more than 20 other horses reside at the sanctuary that Camille and her husband Jess Carson founded about a year ago.

Camille has had a lifelong love affair with horses. She started riding ponies as a toddler. Jess is a member of the country band Midland which had a triple platinum hit “Drinkin’ Problem” a few years ago and is currently on tour in Hawaii and Australia. The couple has three kids, ages six, five and three.

Horse auctions

A few of the horses on the ranch personally belong to Camille and Jess, but most of them are rescues. Camille routinely drops in on horse auctions around the country and buys horses destined for slaughter. She has the horses transported to Driftwood where they are doctored, fed and trained.

Killing horses for food is illegal in the United States, explains Camille, but horse traders buy the animals cheap in this country and truck them to Canada or Mexico where they are butchered and shipped to Asia and Europe, often times, for human consumption.

The process is pretty brutal, says Camille: “It’s the opposite of humane. [The horses) are packed into semi trucks. A lot of them don’t make it. Many die on the way. You shouldn’t treat any animal like that.”

Instead, at the sanctuary, the horses are nursed back to health and offered for sale. After a year, the first rescue has reached the point that it’s suitable for adoption.

Camille points out that a horse like Taini might cost $20,000 if purchased from a breeder. She plans to charge $5,000-$6,000 to adopt a horse. Even at that, she will be losing money. But it’s really not about the money. By the time she buys a horse, has it transported to the sanctuary, nurses it back to health and trains it, Camille figures she has invested something north of $20,000.

“I don’t charge breeder prices,” she says, “but I try to place a value on them. I try not to sell the horses too cheap. In our society we put value on what we pay for.”

Once, she buys a horse it has to be quarantined for month to make sure it doesn’t have a communicable disease.

Keeping 20 or more horses is not cheap. At other rescues, the dogs wolf down kibble; cats nibble away at their food. Camille’s rescue animals, frankly, eat like horses.

According to a survey by the University of Maine Extension Program, it costs about $4,000 a year keep a horse. That figure varies, depending on location. Hay alone can cost $3 a day per horse, the survey found. For the average horse in the U.S, it costs more than $1,200 a year for hay and grain, farrier services $350, routine veterinary care $500, pasture maintenance $200. Throw in things like bedding and building maintenance and you are knocking on $4,000 — and that doesn’t include a boarding facility.

Camille’s ultimate goal is to send happy, healthy horses to welcoming homes and restock the sanctuary with other animals in need. Currently, she has four horses ready for adoption.

Veterinary bills are huge. Most every horse that comes to Driftwood Horse Rescue needs some sort of specialized medical attention as well as shots. It runs about $150 just for a ranch call. “A partnership with a local vet would be amazing,” said Timea Chemez, the group’s executive director.

Prices going up

Like most everything these days, the price of hay is skyrocketing. A year ago a bale of hay ran $9. Today it’s close to $15.

“You wouldn’t believe how expensive it is just to get [the horses] here,” says Camille.

Camille is in the process becoming a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Any donations she gets are tax deductible. “As the economy tightens there are fewer donations coming in,” says Camille. “I know it’s hard out there for a lot of people.”

She has a list of people who want to help around the ranch — grooming the horses, cleaning stalls, doing whatever needs to be done — but, first she’s looking for a volunteer coordinator, someone to schedule and organize the helpers.

“I feel horses have so much to teach us,” says Camille. “I learn something new here everyday.”

For information on the project, donating, volunteering or to get their newsletter go to www.driftwoodhorserescue.com.