Rural Heritage August/September 2025

As the mare seemed to find a calm moment, I stepped back, aimed the rifle and did the deed. She tensed once and then relaxed as I lowered the rifle and trudged back to the house. I poured a shot of scotch, downed it and sat a minute. I then went out to hitch the remaining mismatched mares, whom these old mares were supposed to replace, in the barn for the grim funerary task. As the days passed, the remaining mare continued to fall off. She grew thinner and thinner, and I knew how it would end. I had seen this played out before. But though I feel the guilt still, I chose the coward’s way out. I drove over to the local horse dealer and told him I had an old mare that wasn't long for this world. She still had a good bit of flesh on her and no doubt she'd do well in Belgium or Japan. He asked what I wanted for her and I replied, “She's yours for the taking. I'm paying the fool tax and the cost of education. She doesn't have any teeth and I've found it out too late. I paid over price for her, but now I'm afraid someone will see her in my lot and turn me into the SPCA for cruelty. I don't know what else to do short of leading her up the holler and shooting her, but I've done shot her sister and I ain't over it yet. I don't reckon I can shoot that many horses in as many weeks. I'd appreciate it if you'd come get her.” He did. He came that night in fact. And I don't know, but giving him that mare may have been what moved him to do me the favor of a good deal on my mules, but he did come back and help me with a team at a fair price. It was a hard lesson to learn, but one I've learned well. That wasn't the first horse I've witnessed die, and I doubt it will be the last. There's cold comfort in all the old sayings “Only them what's got 'em can lose 'em” or “If ye have livestock, you're gonna have dead stock now and then.” But after an animal helps bring in crop after crop, be it hay, or corn or tobacco; after they've turned and smoothed the ground year in and year out; when they've sweated and strained for you, shown their worst and their best for you; and mostly best; when you've watched them go from the bloom of youth to the hollowed-out husk of old age and they make poor pickings for the crows; they're still nearly family when it's all said and done. Nature has a way of perking you up with the promise of a new calf or colt, but she can break your heart when she bares her fangs and shows you her cold, hard side at the end. You just have to pull yourself together, learn if you can, and hope you come away a better stockman for it.

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We swapped the speculum to the remaining mare, and her mouth was only slightly better. She had two remaining molars that touched and that was all. The other side of her mouth was empty. I asked Menno what to do. He shook his head, “You might go get you some calf starter and feed them on powdered milk, but these mares won't make it til winter. I'm betting that's what someone done to sell them to you! They had to be fed up on something, but I don't know what it would be.” Well, I took Menno back home and went on into town. I picked up a bag of milk replacer and a bag of calf manna. Doing the quick math at nearly $70 a bag for powdered milk, I knew there was no way I could keep a pair of 1,800 pound mares in good flesh. I needn't have worried. The mares didn't do much better with the powdered milk and calf manna than they did with the oats. It all went in their mouth and out the sides just as fast. They left a big slobbery mess in their feed boxes but couldn't manage to get a solid bite to go down. I was at a loss. I was worried to death trying to figure out what to do with these mares. About three weeks after finding out the truth of their teeth, I walked out to find one mare down in the round pen and not able to get up. There was nothing for it but to end her suffering. It was a long walk from the round pen to the gun cabinet, but I couldn't let her suffer. At the end, we comfort ourselves with thoughts like this about how it's for the best, and how we'd like to go quick ourselves rather than suffer, but it's never easy to take a life for any reason. A quick mental drawing of the lines from opposite ears to opposite eyes, making an imaginary X on the forehead of the mare which would guide me to the location of the brain. She was passed struggling and her breath was coming rough and ragged. I stood in silence contemplating what had to be done. I knelt beside her and stroked her neck, telling her things would be okay and it would soon be over. What does one say to reassure a horse? Or was I seeking reassurance for myself? To be honest, it's never okay, and it's never really over. I carry the weight of every horse that ever pulled a load for me and lived with me until their days’ end. It's never easy, but it's especially hard to lose the good ones. I didn't have this mare long, but it still seemed like a dirty shame to buy a mare only to have to shoot her.

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