See what I did there, with the title? Yeah, I'm clever like that. So, the Peabody Kill Pen in Kansas is a horse rescue venue where you can (and should) go to get your next horse - or seven. You should and could go there, or online, if you think you're just weeks away from owning property that will need to be fenced so you can host and/or provide shelter for said animals. It's a must, and it is exactly what I did. You just can't trust me around sites like this one, not when I'm about to buy a house with land. The fact that it has a barn on it already was a deciding factor, but let me just say that the Peabody Kill Pen is an awesome place to do your last-minute or pre-minute horse rescuing.
Laura and I do quite a bit of pretending when it comes to horse-shopping. We haven't had our own land since 2011; it's been 14 years since we've had horses on land that we lived on, so she can look out the window and count their fuzzy noses. Copeland was just a baby -- it was Thanksgiving 2011. Then, when we moved back to Oklahoma, we lived in an apartment for 10.5 years and this house for 1.5 years, and we just never had the same experience. We boarded for a while, but it became too expensive to continue. When our board was the same as our rent, we knew it was time to let the horses go. That was 2020, I think.
Now, we can hope and dream, and even do a little horse shopping for real. We have the barn and the plans for the new fencing to go in on the first or second day we move into the place. The dog fence is being done professionally, and the horse fence will be sort of us helping the professional to cut down on some of the costs. By "us," I do mean Laura. My contribution to the building of anything starts and ends with me funding the project. That's fine by me, too; I'm not a builder.
Knowing that we had a place coming and a barn to house a horse made it all too easy for us to go online and start looking for what we would eventually buy -- you know, down the road. That lasted a good thirty minutes, and then it was my turn to hit the message button on Facebook to ask about a horse we both liked. We both liked it for me, which is weird, because I usually don't have a teenage sorrel and white pregnant Paint mare topping my list of must-have horses. I typically say I'll look for a teenage gelding, probably sorrel, but definitely not a mare, and most definitely not pregnant.
What we both found - separately, because she was looking online in her office and I was in mine- was a teenage, sorrel and white Paint mare that stands about 14.2H, and she was just starting to show. Her teats were drooping, but not dropping. She's likely about four months pregnant, which will put the baby's arrival in the summer or late spring. I liked her eyes. They were kind, soft, easy, and relaxed. She didn't try to push or outwalk the man handling her. She was quiet, soft-footed, sweet, and just sort of rambled. She had no intention of pushing through or even lifting her head to take control of the situation. She was content.
Laura liked her eyes as well, and the comments from the lady running the facility helped. I don't know who was talking, but she said the mare was about 15 years old, had been ridden in the past, but not recently. She was covered likely, and recently, by what she said was a grulla stallion - they all say that. They say the mystery sire is a grulla or a blue roan to get you suckered into buying the mare and keeping or selling the baby. I know us, we'll keep it. We'll keep it no matter what color it is, no matter what sex it is, and listen, if it comes out a big-earred mule baby - we would do the dance! We'd love that.
So, Laura is sitting there in her room thinking about the mare, and thinking about how she could train her for me, while I was thinking about the mare and how Laura could train her for me. I love my sorrel quarter horse geldings, don't get me wrong, but I am not picky. I'd be just as happy with an Appy. I'd be just as pleased with a bay, roan, you name it, I'd love it. I don't mind good quiet mares - it's the you-know-what mares that I don't like; who does? Well, that's another story for another time.
The little mare is solid. She has thick stout legs, all four of them are white. Her blanket, top, and backside are sorrel, as is her head, and she has a big side patch over one hip, a couple of splashes, one on each side, and her neck has a white patch with sorrel dots. Her mane is mostly white, but her forlock is sorrel. Her tail is a mix of both colors. She is gorgeous! We'll never know her background. We'll never know her original name or what others called her. We won't know if she's been scared, abused, turned out, forgotten, used, loved, or whatever -- but we know we'll call her "Jace" and we'll spoil the tarnation out of her.
The moment we get her, which will be around my birthday, we'll have her teeth floated, her hooves trimmed, her shots given, and her worming done. She'll have an indoor bath at the vet's office, and she'll be groomed every day and probably every night, because when we have horses, we don't do much else other than hang out with them. Laura doesn't care if she has one for herself yet - she's gonna be too busy getting this one all toned up and ready to go - and after that baby is born, Laura will be even busier! It's just the way it is - at least I know where she is at all times.
That's it. Peabody Kill Pen to the rescue! It was EASY! We saw her, we asked about her, we paid using Venmo, and they'll take her to QT for us too; it's a small charge, but worth it. We have a man to watch her for 2-3 weeks, then she'll be hauled down this way -- I can't wait. I think the most exciting part of it is the cost -- it's not as much as people may think. It's reasonable when you go the route we usually go to find an animal. We don't buy them from breeders. This horse will be registered as an American Pinto in the American Pinto Association, but she's a grade horse; no known pedigree.
The rescue bail was $950. The transport to QT is $150. The QT is $15/day, and the hauling to the house is $2 per loaded mile. That's about $350 from where she'll be located in southern Kansas to our home in El Reno, Oklahoma. All in all, somewhere around $1800-1900, and for a broke mare that's going to give birth to something beautiful -- that's a steal anyway you look at it. Two for one!
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