Horse killed in 'barbaric' blade attack

[ROG]

http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/H...ttack-Syston/story-27758091-detail/story.html
WARNING: The story contains an image of the mutilated horse

Police are investigating after a young horse was hacked to death in a field.

Honey, a two-year-old horse, was discovered dead on Monday morning in her field off Potters Lane, Syston, with serious injuries to her head and the rest of her body.

Her owner, Claire Watts, said: "It's barbaric.

"This was absolutely the most disgusting thing I've ever seen in my life.

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[cobgoblin]

Good grief! What sort of sick bar steward does something like that?

 

[Templebar]

I have heard of this happening before in sheep where they took the right ear and the animals were left alive. They believe it is something ritualistic/religious but I could never understand what sort of thing would drive someone to such a calculated attack. It is sickening and i feel for the owners who had to find her, those poor rescues the likelihood that they were difficult to catch is probably why they are still with us.

 

[ILuvCowparsely]

Poor poor horse. Rip honey


The perpatrator should be locked up till end of time 😟

 

[WelshD]

There have been a lot of mixed reports about this locally

I'm of the opinion the horse died and was scavenged, I would personally expect there to be more blood however that's not a popular viewpoint it seems

Other reports have had a foal cut out of the horse, a machete used, it's pagans, Stanley knives used, horse killed in one location and moved to the place it was found, wounds found on body/wounds only to head etc...

 

[Dry Rot]

This was also on Facebook where I and others expressed the opinion that the horse will have died from some other cause and then been scavenged by foxes or badgers, probably both. Has an autopsy been done?

I have some experience of controlling foxes in the Highlands, but not so much experience of badgers which are not common up here. Hungry foxes will strip a surprising amount of flesh off a carcase in a single night. (I've witnessed a fully grown sheep reduced to a skeleton in two nights). They start on the soft tissue areas such as lips, anus, behind the shoulder, udder, etc. If this horse had been alive when attacked, there would be copious quantities of blood at the site. A corpse does not bleed and in this case I understand there was not much blood. Ears are often chewed off. Lambs scavenged or predated by foxes will typically have ears and tails removed. Lambs are sometimes cut in half as if by a surgeon's knife, presumably so a fox can carry the other half away.

My guess is that the horse was already dead and a family of badgers have had a feed. The eye would have been removed by a crow and that is usually the first thing to go. Edited to say that a fox will leave a wound as if it has been made by a sharp knife, that is because the side teeth are used for cutting rather than chewing.

 

[adamntitch]

I kind of thought same as 2 posts above unless a pm as stated how it died there does not seam to be much blood and usaly facve wounds bleed the worst

 

[FfionWinnie]

I looked at the pic and wondered how the police could say it had been done with a sharp implement (according to owner) when it really looked impossible to say to me.

Would be interesting to know if the eye on the underneath side is present (because crows would struggle to get at that obviously) and if it's only injured on the upward side. The ear and the face would easily be accounted for as scavenged but I can understand people not believing this had they not experienced dead sheep/other livestock that had been scavenged. Badgers could easily have done that tho. Or crows.

 

[Makemineacob]

This was also on Facebook where I and others expressed the opinion that the horse will have died from some other cause and then been scavenged by foxes or badgers, probably both. Has an autopsy been done?

I have some experience of controlling foxes in the Highlands, but not so much experience of badgers which are not common up here. Hungry foxes will strip a surprising amount of flesh off a carcase in a single night. (I've witnessed a fully grown sheep reduced to a skeleton in two nights). They start on the soft tissue areas such as lips, anus, behind the shoulder, udder, etc. If this horse had been alive when attacked, there would be copious quantities of blood at the site. A corpse does not bleed and in this case I understand there was not much blood. Ears are often chewed off. Lambs scavenged or predated by foxes will typically have ears and tails removed. Lambs are sometimes cut in half as if by a surgeon's knife, presumably so a fox can carry the other half away.

My guess is that the horse was already dead and a family of badgers have had a feed. The eye would have been removed by a crow and that is usually the first thing to go. Edited to say that a fox will leave a wound as if it has been made by a sharp knife, that is because the side teeth are used for cutting rather than chewing.

Totally agree, this was my first thought when I saw the pictures. My beloved wee cat was killed one night by a mink (we believe as we had been trying to trap it after it killed another cat) and then was scavenged on (we didn't find her immediately) and this picture reminded me of what she looked like.

So very sorry for the owners as it is heartbreaking to discover.

 

[ester]

Nothing like a bit of horse attack hysteria, it must be at least a month since the last one. Someone on fb posted a map of a spate of attacks in UK and the Netherlands so clearly and international attacker...

 

[jrp204]

Agree with the others, looks more like scavengers. We went to check the sheep one morning and found a ewe dead in the field and the whole, and I mean whole of the back half of it had been eaten. It looked like a feeding frenzy had gone on! We have never seen anything like it, the ground around the sheep was all messed up and there was wool everywhere, what was worse was there was 2 dead lambs pulled from her and left. There is a large badger sett close by which we are certain was the cause.

 

[hollyandivy123]

keeping an open mind as there where cuts to the body not just the ear and nose, maybe the nose was scavenged but the cuts on the rest of the body?

 

[FfionWinnie]

A litter of badger cubs playing will do that.

Really it all hinges on the side on the ground. If it's undisturbed then the body has simply been savaged. I can understand why an owner could find this hard to believe but animals drop dead with no warning all the time. It's life.

Worry is will the police have used anyone who would know to look at that, or will everyone just believe the horse has been brutally attacked and once the body has been moved/disposed of, we may never know.

 

[Dry Rot]

I think it is the carnassial teeth of a predator that will cut like a knife. So, yes, knife-like cuts could be the work of a fox or badger attempting to bite through skin.

Predators usually take time to learn to attack new prey or exploit a new food source as they are naturally cautious. Once they have learnt how to get food, they will repeat the behaviour. Foxes have no problem opening up a adult sheep, even a live one, if it is incapacitated in some way.

Young predators, also dogs, will often make a mess of killing. Sheep wil have wool pulled out, there will be a lot of feathers where chickens have been slaugfhtered. But an old fox will not leave a feather and large lambs will be cut up as if by a surgeon's knife so parts can be carried away.

 

[SpringArising]

The ear wound looks far too clean cut to have been animals. Animals having had a nibble wouldn't have left such a perfectly-shaped circle, surely?

Whatever the hell happened, poor, poor horse and owner. I'd be beside myself having found that.

 

[Prince33Sp4rkle]

word on the grapevine is that this was a revenge attack (this happened literally 5mins from me).

family is alleged to have had long standing issues/links/arguments with people of the travelling community, and this is part of that apparently.

thats just what i have heard from 4/5 different people now.

 

[FfionWinnie]

The ear wound looks far too clean cut to have been animals. Animals having had a nibble wouldn't have left such a perfectly-shaped circle, surely?

Whatever the hell happened, poor, poor horse and owner. I'd be beside myself having found that.

You'd be surprised what scavengers can achieve. Ears are often off sheep like that.

 

[applecart14]

There are no scuff marks on the ground, if the pony had been distressed you would have seen those. There are no sweat marks on its body - it looks to me like the horse has died and something has eaten parts of it.

HAving been told my horse had died of a heart attack and arriving at the yard to walk down to his field to view him one November morning the first thing i did was feel under his rambo for sweating, none was evident. I also looked at the ground where he fell and there were no scrabbling marks so it was obvious to us all that his death had been over very quickly.

It seems to me from what little we can see of the photo that this is the same thing that happened to this pony. The lack of blood would point to the fact that whatever fate if suffered was done after its death and NOT before. You would expect to see copious amounts of blood from both the ear and the nose. I am sure there are some major veins and arteries in these locations. Blood loss is an obvious clue as to whether something happened prior or following death (or at least it is in humans). I assume its the same for all animals.