I would love some input on a moral dilemma. Sorry it is long as dilemmas often are!
The horse I part-loan lives in a paddock with his buddy. They are on agistment for a weekly per horse fee. It is self care except that the paddock owner, who is not a horse person and does not own a horse, will throw them hay, provided by the horse owner, once a day, to supplement feeding by the horse owner.
For the past few weeks there have been two new horses in the next paddock, on the same agistment arrangement with the same paddock owner. They are owned by a woman who I haven’t seen yet. I don’t know much about her except that she thought the per horse fee was a per paddock fee (so she is paying twice what she expected), and that the paddock owner has seen her only a couple of times during these weeks. Apparently both times she brought a small bag of feed.
The grey has a large lump on her neck, terrible sunburn on her nose to the point of bleeding, untrimmed feet and now what looks like a possible eye infection. The bay has moderately bad rain scald, untrimmed feet and is very underweight - he has poverty marks, not just exposed ribs. He has not gained significantly in the last month. They both look like they have some from rescue situations and are mild mannered. I would assume they haven’t been wormed since she bought them.
The owner has no feed or tack in her half of the tack shed. The horses have plenty of water, and the paddock is well covered with grass but it’s midsummer here so the grass is short and browning off. The paddock owner has recently mowed it - he is really not horsey and I expect he has done this to keep down the weeds and make it look tidier.
As a soft-hearted interfering busybody type, having never run into the horse owner and after hearing from the paddock owner that he wasn’t seeing much of her, I have put some hay in the shed for the paddock owner to give them and have put some ointment on the worst of the rain scald as well as giving them the occasional carrot. I do know it is bad behaviour on my part to feed and treat someone else’s horses, but they are obviously in need.
I don’t have any contact details for the horse owner. The paddock owner, while a nice enough fellow, is very mild mannered and will not confront her, and doesn’t consider the welfare of the horses to be really his business. If I contact the RSPCA I don’t know whether they will take action given that the horses have grazing and water, and it will upset the paddock owner and consequently the owner of my loan horse. I will do it anyway if necessary.
I can’t justify the expense of indefinite feed, vet care, farrier, worming, myself obviously.
I would welcome your suggestions! Thanks :)