Tail thieves baffle Colorado horse owners

[Liberal_in_LA]

Tail thieves baffle Colorado horse owners

Intruders are hacking the hair off several horses in a rural area southeast of Denver. The animals aren't hurt. Since the hair isn't valuable, owners wonder what the point is.
By DeeDee Correll
February 15, 2009




Reporting from Elbert County, Colo. -- The horses at Tom Johnson and Jim Hoff's place once had tails that hung down to their hooves.

Shampooed and combed, they gleamed, flaxen-colored, when the Belgian draft horses drew wagons for children and pranced in parades.

But a significant portion of their tails disappeared one recent night when a knife- or scissors-wielding intruder hopped the fence into their pasture and hacked away, leaving half a dozen horses and ponies with shredded stubs.

"It's a dang shame is what it is. It makes me so mad," said Hoff, 60, co-owner of Happy Trails Horse Drawn Rides, which offers wagon rides around the state. "If they were mean horses, they would have never gotten away with it."

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After reporting the incident to the sheriff, they said, they realized several other of their 15 horses and ponies also were missing tails.

The animals will suffer in the warmer months when they're unable to use their tails to swat at flies, the men said. Hoff estimated the tails grow at a rate of 3 or 4 inches a year. "When the flies get bad, those horses get miserable," he said.

The two said they may use insect repellent or look into tail extensions. "We can't let them stand out there with flies on them," Johnson said.

A suspect would face charges of animal cruelty and trespassing, Elbert County Sheriff's Investigator Mark Wilson said. But investigators have no leads.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-stolen-horsetails15-2009feb15,0,2880225.story

[MADem]

1. Tail extensions!! Maybe they can fly in Britney's beautician!!!!

I hope they get the punks who did this, though. That sort of behavior is uncalled for.

[glowing]

2. I'm assuming they'd just braid them into the tail.. perhaps even taking

some from their main. That is rather rude.. but then again, when they braid up the tail themselves, they can't use the tail to swat flies away either.

[MADem]

6. Apparently, there's a procedure where you can superglue hair to hair.

From the article, I'm assuming they have a stump of hair, it's just too short to do much with. They could superglue fake hair to those shortened hairs, no problem, and the horses would have a tail they could switch.

No idea what it might cost. They'd have to find a suitable hair (or synthetic substitute) as well.

[Maru Kitteh]

3. Violin bows?

Only thing I can think of.

[Turbineguy]

7. Mine is looking

a bit ragged actually.

[Igel]

12. Yeah, hordes of impoverished string players

who need to rehair their bows.

You especially have to look out for gamba players ... they're underhanded.

[tularetom]

4. I gotta get my eyes checked or stop staying up so late

See I thought the post read "TALL thieves baffle Colorado horse owners".

As a horse owner it pisses me off that someone would do this to such gentle and intelligent creatures. (Especially someone tall).

And it makes me wonder of it wouldn't be appropriate to "crop" part of their anatomy.

[geiger]

5. This is just lude, rude and crude

Whatever the reason, the idiots that did this obviously don't even care to think why horses have tails. They should have to stand in a room of horseflies for a day.

[Hawkowl]

8. WTF?

As a horse owner I am appalled. It takes a VERY long time to grow a tail down to the hooves. There is no way my horses would permit a stranger to get close enough to touch them, but Belgians are such gentle, quiet, even tempered horses it is beyond cruel to torment them.

As for the flies, I generally use fly sheets and masks (think mosquito netting in blanket form) during the summer months, but tails are very helpful.

[Javaman]

9. Attack of the militant violinists!!! nt

out to clip horse tails to string their bows!!! (my sincerest apologies to FDR for mangling his original statement with my bizarre paraphrase)

[jpak]

10. Wolverines!!!111

:rofl:

[ensho]

11. decades ago in a Ariz. prison museum I saw items made from horse hair

and I've seen other instances where things were made from horse hair