Hay on the way to Leachman horses Page 1 of 3

Hay on the way to Leachman horses

By JAN FALSTAD Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Monday, January 24, 2011 5:27 pm

Hay is on the way to the hundreds of hungry horses on the former Leachman Cattle Co. Home Place ranch east of Billings.

In what has been dubbed Operation Home Place, Justin Mills, executive director of the Northern International Livestock
Exposition in Billings, said a Red Lodge couple on the Valley M Ranch has donated 100 tons of hay to help the horses.

As soon arrangements can be made, the hay will be trucked to Billings and delivered to the former Leachman ranch 16 miles east
of Billings on Highway 87 East.

The NILE is coordinating donations, including hay, water tanks and other aid. The Yellowstone County Sheriff's Office will
coordinate getting the feed to the livestock spread over about 40,000 acres on a half-dozen ranches and farms and on the Crow
Indian Reservation.

"We'll get it right out there," Mills said. "If we can get some hay into those horses, everything will be fine."

The hay will last about two weeks in good weather, he said.

A 1 p.m. meeting on Monday to coordinate the feeding efforts included officials from the Yellowstone County Attorney's Office;
Yellowstone County commissioners; the Sheriff's Office; the Montana Department of Livestock; the NILE; a staffer for Sen. Jon
Tester, D-Mont.; and several landowners.

When Yellowstone County Commission Chairman John Ostlund, a pilot, flew over the ranch on Sunday afternoon to check on
the livestock, he spotted 300 to 400 horses, including some grazing on conservation reserve program land, where grazing is
prohibited.

"They're scattered all over. Not much to eat down there. Horses that are eating straw stubble are hungry horses," Ostlund said.

One horse in a band of a dozen was rolling from side-to-side on ice on a reservoir, struggling to get up.

The horse slipped and went down again, but eventually got to his feet. The animal was wearing an orange marking band, which
James Leachman of Billings, who owns the horses, had placed on them as young horses.

Some bands were left on the horses as they grew, crippling them and contributing to the death of at least one of the animals,
according to investigators.

On Friday, the Yellowstone County Attorney's Office charged Leachman with five primary counts of animal cruelty and five
alternative counts.

Leachman, 69, is scheduled to appear in Justice Court on Friday at 3:15 p.m. He faces five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, and
the charges could be upgraded to a felony.

Charging him with five "stacked" misdemeanors carries tougher penalties and could result in a faster resolution of the case than a
single felony count, officials said.

"This was the smartest way to go and will result in the quickest action," said Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito. "This is
a tough situation out there with the horses."

Five dead horses were cited as evidence for the charges.

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One mare's leg band had cut into her leg so deeply that she couldn't walk, one had a severe cut tendon and another had been
walking on a broken front leg bone.

After the Sheriff's Office obtained a search warrant, Shepherd veterinarian Jeff Peila ordered Lt. Kent O'Donnell to humanely
shoot two horses on Jan. 15.

Thanks to an unseasonable warm snap, Mills said the ice has started melting when he drove the ranch on Sunday, so about 350
horses in one pasture with almost no grass now have water to drink.

"The colts have good condition on ‘em," Mills said. "The mares that have colts by their side are going to be a little thin because
they have colts by their side and that's natural."

Officials want to haul water tanks to the ranch so the horses can drink as freezing temperatures return.

Last Thursday, when the weather was cold, Peila said about 350 horses in one pasture with little or no feed had about two weeks
before they would start to die if nothing was done.

Billings attorney Jon Doak said as many as 700 horses may be out there, according to court testimony in Leachman's personal
bankruptcy case. Doak represents the Stovall family, which paid $2.6 million for the ranch at a U.S. Marshal's Service
foreclosure sale last July.

Leachman was to remove his horses from the land, but hasn't.

He claims he can keep them on the ranch until this July. That's the deadline for his limited liability company to redeem the
property by buying it back.

He also denied that most of the horses were starving and said the facts will clear him of animal cruelty charges.

Turk Stovall said area ranchers have been feeding grass to those horses for several years.

"It's just not us. The entire community has horses on them and nobody knows what to do with them," he said.

His father, Jay Stovall, thanked the group for organizing some help, but asked for a long-range plan to move the horses off
everybody else's land.

"This makes my heart feel really good. It's been going on a long time. Them horses have been in bad shape for a long time," Jay
Stovall said.

Many of the horses are not valuable and may have to be shipped to slaughter because of their condition and because Leachman
didn't pay the fees to keep their registration papers current with the American Quarter Horse Association, he said.

Cecil Hawkins, who said his family has owned land by the Home Place ranch "since Custer came," said he's run the horses off a
half-dozen times last year.

"I can't be feeding his horses, and neither can my renters," Hawkins said.

And Hawkins asked why the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs didn't attend the meeting when the agency was invited.

The BIA controls the leases for the pasture with the majority of the stressed horses that could be rounded up most quickly, Twito
said. Under Montana law, public funds cannot be spent to round up abused livestock, so the county's hands are tied.

The horses remain Leachman's property until a court rules otherwise, so adoption isn't an option yet either.

State Veterinarian Marty Zaluski also said that the way that the horses are fed will be critical.

Unlimited hay can't be dumped on the ground for starving horses because they could overeat and get colic, which can be fatal.

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"And is it sounds like there are some health problems out there that calories can't fix," he said.

There are plans to put the water tanks in four-wheel-drive pickups and drive them out to the ranch. But those remote roads turn to
mud and gumbo quickly, so the Sheriff's Office plans to drive out early in the morning when the ground is frozen.

"The Humane Society is going to support the state and county in helping these horses," said Wendy Hergenraeder, Montana
director for the umane Society of the United States, who also attended the meeting.

Offers to help have poured in from around the country and the NILE fielded about 100 calls over the weekend from people
wanting to help. Quality grass or grass/alfalfa hay is needed, not alfalfa hay, which could kill the horses that haven't eaten
properly for a long time.

Officials ask that, before people deliver hay or water tanks, they call the NILE office at 406-256-2495.

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