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Time Is Running Out For Rescued Horses To Find Foster Homes

Peter Biello
/
VPR
Heidi Edmunds, executive director of the Lucy Mackenzie Human Society, stands with one of the horses rescued from a South Woodstock farm last November. The horses will need to be re-located to new foster homes by the end of March.

Time is running out for 15 horses rescued from a South Woodstock farm to find foster homes. 

The rescued horses currently reside in stables owned by the Green Mountain Horse Association, but GMHA needs them to be out by the end of March. Currently, the Lucy MacKenzie Humane Society is hurrying to find foster homes for them.

Twenty-three horses were rescued from a South Woodstock farm in November after the humane society received an anonymous tip that the horses were starving and neglected. Some have already found foster homes. Many of the horses were allegedly eating the wooden walls of their stalls and standing in deep piles of their own waste.

"Our ultimate goal, as much as we can, is to find a home for these horses with food, shelter, water and someone to really care for them," says Heidi Edmunds, executive director of Lucy Mackenzie Human Society. 

"Our ultimate goal, as much as we can, is to find a home for these horses with food, shelter, water and someone to really care for them." - Heidi Edmunds, executive director of Lucy Mackenzie Human Society

Neither the owner of the horses, MarjattaLavin, nor her attorney, returned calls or emails seeking comment.  A judge will decide later this week whether Lavin can regain custody of the horses, but in the meantime Lucy MacKenzie continues to seek temporary homes for them.

Peter was a Producer/Announcer at VPR until 2015. He began his public radio career in 2007 at WHQR-FM in Wilmington, North Carolina where he served as Morning Edition host and reporter, covering county government and Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base. His work has won several Associated Press awards and has appeared on NPR's All Things Considered, Weekend Edition, and PRI's This American Life. A graduate of the creative writing program at the University of Maine at Farmington, Peter enjoys writing, cooking and traveling.
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