GRAFTON TWP. — Animal rescuers sobbed as they assisted starving farm animals found Wednesday in a barn behind a home on state Route 83.

A weak brown-and-white mare was led to a trailer after rescuers from Friendship Animal Protective League responded to an anonymous complaint with assistance from the Lorain County Sheriff’s Office.

Back in the barn, the mare’s equine companion, another brown-and-white horse, lay dead in a stall.

The body of a duck, which also had died in recent days, lay in another stall along with the carcass of a goat that had been dead for some time.

Tears welled in the eyes of Cheryl Rourke of Another Chance Equine Rescue, who gently patted the mare.

The nourishment condition of the horse would be a 1 or 2 on a scale of 1 to 10, she said.

“You can’t rate this horse any lower — it would be dead like the other horse lying in the stall,” she said.

In the back of the barn, a young steer calf on its side that initially had showed no movement suddenly showed signs of life.

It struggled for footing and rose to its feet, and rescuers, who feared the calf would have to be euthanized in its stall, suddenly had hope.

The calf put one wobbly hoof in front of the other and moved toward the trailer at the urging of his human helpers but fell several times into the arms of rescuers.

They placed water in the animal’s mouth.

Seeing that the calf could not walk on his own, rescuers Bob Slagle and Randy Wright hurried toward their trailer to move it closer to the calf.

Meanwhile, tears streamed down the cheeks of Greg Willey, the APL’s newly hired executive director, who held the calf’s head.

“You see something difficult, and it tears you apart,” said Willey, who worked previously for eight years at the Cuyahoga County Animal Shelter. “It takes you back to the first time you rescued a dog, and it was so weak you had to carry it around.”

Denise Willis, the APL’s humane officer, said she spoke with a resident of the home on the property who said the farm animals did not belong to him. She declined to identify the resident.

The owners of the property at 18900 state Route 83 (Avon Belden Road). could not be reached for comment.

Capt. John Reiber said the investigation by the sheriff’s department is in its early stages. Possible charges in the case could include cruelty to animals or neglect of animals, Reiber said.

Neighbors living nearby declined to comment, except to say they would be happy to help care for any animals such as chickens that remained. Besides the calf and horse, rescuers also removed a turkey.

One woman said she had noticed two goats — not just one goat — on the property several months ago.

Rourke said she first stopped at the house on Monday to leave a notice that the APL had received a complaint.

When she drove by on Tuesday, she became concerned when she got a glimpse of one of the two horses in the barn.
She returned Wednesday with Willis, and the two women contacted the sheriff’s office.

Willis and Rourke said it was a very difficult sight when they arrived and saw the starving mare trying desperately to get to a little pile of hay just beyond her reach.

Willey commended his staff and said he hoped the rescued animals would survive.

“This is a pretty terrible scene,” Willey said. “It’s a pretty rough way to start my first week.”

Later Wednesday night, Slagle gave the calf a 30 to 40 percent chance of surviving.

“I’m bottle feeding the calf now to get water in it,” he said. “We got some pony feed and it’s laying here eating it.”

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

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