12/31/2025
COLBYS CREW MUST HAVE 100s OF HORSES NOW, WHERE DO THEY ALL GO? 🧐
We can answer that! We DO have hundreds of horse within the rescue RIGHT now— just under 800 at the moment! Which if you do the math, is right at a majority six month hold/wait on our ponies prior to adoption + sanctuary creatures 😉
So… Where do all these horses go?
All of the horses that we save go to 4 separate quarantine farms, totaling 2000+ acres.
They are split into smaller groups and will stay in smaller groups of 8-15 (depending on paddock size) as they travel through our process.
That process looks a little something like this…
*RESCUE (from auction, kill pen or private surrender)
*Quarantine (60-90 days or longer)
*Vet intake exam (Adoption, Sanctuary or Peaceful Passing is decided by a licensed veterinarian)
*Second vet exam if needed (to confirm diagnosis)
*Possible treatment for any issues
*Strangles and contagious disease testing (2x negative testing, treatment if positive— many are positive so repeat testing necessary)
*Travel to a secondary quarantine facility to ensure shipping does not cause any flare of illness.
*Final strangles test.
*Training for adoption (minimal 30 days with one of our 12 trainers) or sanctuary begins.
*Adoption!!! Yay!
This process is fluid and can change as a horse may need to go to an emergency hospital, require more in depth training for behavior issues etc. It’s very organic on a per horse basis.
Please help us to continue our mission of supporting our equine community. Every dollar counts and will make a difference in the lives of those we serve.
Did you know?
There are six veterinarians out at all our major quarantines and our home base in Charlottesville every single day. They are strangles testing, intaking, or caring for ongoing injuries or illnesses.
Did you know?
CCR intakes every single horse we rescue INTO the rescue. We never ever place horses with other organizations immediately post rescue. Instead we quarantine and evaluate via our vet FULLY before any adoption or transfer can even be discussed. This means strangles testing must be completed, the horse must receive all vaccinations, current coggins, microchip (that stays linked to the rescue forever), dental work and a training evaluation if a riding horse before they can be adopted. All horses go with a signed contract, reference checks, photos of where they will be living and we require a monthly photo update. They can come back to the rescue at any point no questions asked! We track our horses for life!
Did you know?
There are several members of staff caring for these horses at every single farm. Nearly 1000+ people are either working for or with the organization to care for the horses in our care. That’s a LOT of hands on attention. We keep 1/1 on attention for every horse every day. Joe just went through a major hiring spree and so did Marlin. Please congratulate Marlin on acquiring a second and third farm for QT!
Did you know?
Every single horse is checked DAILY by a member of staff. Eyes, ears, heart, nose, temperature, soundness, hooves, etc. They receive a grooming and a wellness check every! Single! Day! This even includes fly spray and hoof picking or thrush treatment. A farrier (we have 15 farriers now) is out 4x per week trimming hooves at each location to ensure each horse is done every 6 weeks and a vet sees every resident weekly or more depending on the case.
Did you know?
CCR requires two veterinarians to sign off on any non emergent euthanasia. Non emergent euthanasia is defined as a horse who is well managed but may not stay that way on analgesics and currently free from continuous excruciating pain and is not considered a danger to themselves or others. This can be old badly healed injuries, severe navicular or ringbone, EPM in 25+ year old seniors that has progressed to the point of no return, severe DSLD and so on. If we can give them a week to several months of pain-free respite we absolutely will and it’s the VETS making that call, not CCR.
Did you know?
CCR has multiple trainers working with our horses both on property and off. After the horses complete our extensive and state of the art quarantine process, they are now traveling to their selected trainers and those trainers once ready are listing horses for adoption and completing the process (with our help) at CCR directly or within their own businesses as they are getting to know these horses and are invested in them and where they go. CCR handles all of the follow up, but a few of CCR horses are being marketed by their trainers. We try to post every horse to the website but this page and our website is now not the only source to snag a CCR horse. We think this is a wonderful thing as more help allows us to continue to grow and help more horses. We currently have 30+ horses out with professional trainers and 30+ at our home farm with consistent adoptions now averaging 2+ a day.
Did you know?
We adopt out around as many as we take in! That’s 70-100 horses a month getting forever homes with LIFETIME contracts requiring photo check ins. Don’t believe us? Ask an adopter— we follow up!
Did you know?
CCR has 300+ acres (and looking to add another 170) of sanctuary farms. This is what is allowing us to care for non adoptable horses without immediate euthanasia. These horses receive daily care and daily checks. They see the farrier every six weeks, and the vets as needed. Although this is a revolving door as many of these horses are in hospice treatment and may only have a few weeks or months left to live— we have about 50 horses in sanctuary at one time. We are happy to allow you to speak to many of our sanctuary caretakers. Sanctuary doesn’t just mean old and hospice, we also have many young babies like Taylor Swift, Apollo, Hummus, many mini moms and babies, etc turned out and growing up naturally and healthily with their mothers. We believe in natural weaning and will not adopt either out until a foal is safely weaned. This is better for their health, growth and development.
WE FIRMLY BELIEVE CCR IS REVOLUTIONIZING RESCUE AND SHOWING IT CAN BE DONE ON A LARGE SCALE BETTER OR EQUAL TO A SMALL ONE
 How does CCR have enough room?
We have not yet had to euthanize a horse due to space. Our quarantine providers and sanctuary providers acreage totals up to 2000+. We could realistically support 1800 horses in the rescue at one time (although we do not come anywhere near even half of that!). We are very fortunate to live in areas where land is very rural and plentiful. We are also very fortunate to have a fundraising platform that covers several months of the horses cost UPFRONT, therefore buying them time in our rescue to enjoy an honorable retirement and dignified ending. Did you know that our business plan allows us to keep running at current capacity for SIX months without needing additional funding? Ally has a degree in business management and it shows!
Does CCR euthanize a lot of the horses?
Its important to remember that we save from the REAL slaughter holding facility. Every horse that comes into our rescue was sentenced to certain death previously. They are the horses at auction that no private party or equine rescue bid on, and that they most likely have severe injuries or chronic pain / illnesses or syndromes. Their median age is 20+ and they are most likely coming out of the Amish after living a hard working life. We do not get a surplus of well trained and healthy 5-10 year olds as those horses do not sell for slaughter pricing even at auction. Our euthanasia rates will be higher than a smaller rescue who takes in less horses (e.g. they save 5 and put down 1, we save 50 and put down 10– the rates are equal but one SOUNDS like more if you don’t look at it that way) and they can pick and choose which ones to take on. We take them ALL which leads to us having a higher euthanasia numbers at no real fault of our own.
How does CCR fundraise?
Colby's Crew Rescue believes it's important to raise funds for horses before intake to ensure we have the resources needed to care for them throughout the process from rescue to adoption, including purchase, quarantine, veterinary care, farrier care, rehabilitation, training, feed, housing, etc. When we fundraise for multiple horses, we calculate what we believe will be the average cost per horse to shepherd each of them through that process and raise an average amount of general, unrestricted funds for the entire group. We know some horses will cost more because of greater veterinary, rehabilitation, and/or training needs, while some horses will cost less or may not survive to the exhaustion of their share of the funds raised. When funds are not exhausted, they are used to care for those horses needing extensive veterinary care, longer rehabilitation, and/or more training, and for the rescue's operational expenses like equipment, facilities, vehicles, etc.
Who can I talk to if I want more information?
*Ally or Olivia, the founders of Colby’s Crew. They will be able to sort your question to the best available party.
Some examples of those parties would be:
*Our medical director is Dr. Carly Mayer, a licensed veterinarian. She sits on our board of directors and she also helped develop our euthanasia guidelines and consults on most cases. She is now licensed in Maryland and in Pennsylvania so that she can better oversee rescue operations and be available to assist our 12 other vet clinics we use in a leadership role. She is always available to answer questions about the medical side of our rescue.
*Our head of QT Veterinarians are Dr. Mary Davis and Dr. Noel Henderson. She does MOST of the intakes of our kill pen pulls, and will now be on call while we are inside the pen going forward to assist in horses needing immediate triage, humane euthanasia and veterinary care AT the pen. This is a huge step forward as previously horses were having to be hauled offsite to New Bolton Center or Maryland for care. No longer will this be necessary! Dr. Noel is also an incredible wealth of information and does most of our strangles testing. They are both licensed in VA, PA, and MD! They would be happy to answer questions about the medical side of our quarantine.
*Our quarantine providers: Joe Topper, Beth Walker, and Marlin Zimmerman. They see every single horse that comes into Colby’s Crew and would be happy to speak to our processes and how and why we do what we do.
Special shout out to Nahvia, our Maryland QT manager who had a ton of fun making this video with me 🙂
Please let us know in the comments if you’d like to take a virtual tour of Maryland QT!!
