Meet Roo!

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Roo is a very special girl with a lot of mystery. She came to Kataluna in April of 2020 from the Lewiston Livestock Auction in Idaho. This was the first time we had ever gone to an out of state auction which included a five hour drive and an overnight stay. The Lewiston auction was something we had never experienced before. Horses appeared to be treated like dirt, cramped into small pens, being poked and prodded, and sorted through with no regards to their heath or well being. The horses were penned with no information besides the tag number glued to their hind quarters. I was told in order to get any information on these horses, we would need to try and catch the person who dropped them off directly, and if you were too late for that, then all you had to rely on was a best judgement of eye from a sky bridge where we were able to view the horses. Roo sat in a pen with several other mares & fillies, and out of probably two dozen horses she was the last to come through the bidding ring. As we sat, waiting to place our bids on the horses we had our eye on that day, horses were coming and going faster than you would believe. However the thing that confused me most about this auction in particular was the amount of money these kill buyers were willing to spend. The average cost of a horse from a feedlot is $500 to $900. Meat price is on average about $0.60 per pound (average horse at 900lbs=$540) yet the horses in Lewiston were selling for well over $800 each. I couldn't wrap my head around it, however the only reason i could think for the costs to be this high was because demand was greater than usual due to COVID-19. Roo was the last horse to come in the ring, and we were in a bidding war with a direct "kill buyer" which we eventually won after $800. Roo later proceeded to make the trip home with us to start her new life. Its hard with auction horses as w know nothing about their history, however we guess Roo to be around 6 or 7 years old and has had very little training. She is as sweet as can be, but needs someone she can bond with and help her regain that trust in humans. As of October 2020, Roo has found her most perfect person in every way to help her with exactly what she needs. She has moved to her new home and is settling in nicely, ready to start her new journey in life!