Red Feather Equine Sanctuary

15/03/2025

Mark your calendars for our second annual Rescue for the Roses, an Alternative Derby affair where we celebrate horses the humane way! 🌹🐎

Wear your Derby attire and meet our rescued racehorses while learning about their inspiring journeys and enjoying a fun day with live music, food trucks, wine and family-friendly activities.

🗓️ April 27, 2025 at 1pm EST
📍 Medaloni Cellars in Lewisville, NC
🎶 Live music by the Brown Mountain Lightning Bugs
🛻 Food trucks with vegetarian/vegan options
🎉 Family friendly with games like corn hole and more
🎟️ FREE to attend with VIP tickets available for purchase

This event is a fundraiser for Red Feather Equine Sanctuary, where we educate, advocate and inspire others to make the world a kinder place for horses.

VIP tickets can be purchased on our website: www.redfeatherfarmnc.org

Can't wait to see you there!

Art by Winston-Salem, NC artist

14/03/2025

We have a routine vet day every month on the farm, where we provide dentals, vaccine updates and address any other herd health needs.

After Hurricane Helene, we updated our care policy to include an annual Coggins test for every resident. Previously, we ran the Coggins test on intake and then only again as needed for animals who were being trailered off property. Our vet and Board Member, Dr. Miley, recommended that we keep a current Coggins certificate on every equine, as it is a requirement for out-of-state travel including precautionary evacuations. Their safety is our number one concern, and of course after the devastation we saw last year in Western North Carolina, we updated this aspect of our care policy as well as our emergency and evacuation plans to make sure we have taken every safeguard possible for our animals' health and well-being.

Hank, Cash, Remi, Mia, Tater, Nilla and Wafer received routine dental floats today, while Jackson received a cool new leg compression wrap for some mild swelling, and we updated vaccines and Coggins as needed. Thank you for taking the best care of our rescues!

And thank you all for being the support behind our mission to make the world a kinder place for horses. We appreciate you beyond words! ❤️

10/03/2025

Hope you got as much rest this weekend as the Red Feather herd did -

xo, Allison

01/03/2025

Reese update 💝

Now that Reese is fully healed from a respiratory infection and the large chest wound she got during the auction/sale pipeline, we are planning her next steps and focusing on palliative care for the cancerous mass on her leg. Our main concern is creating a barrier to prevent it from being rubbed and/or having insects attracted to it. Today, we applied a silver sulfa cream and we plan to test out a few different wraps that we can use to keep it covered long-term.

Reese is anxious to be with other horses friends and we are excited to figure out who her bestie will be! Stay tuned 💓

01/03/2025

Chiquita Banana 🍌

Banana is one of our wee pony squad, and her rescue was totally unplanned, but when we saw her in a sale barn alone in the corner of a stall, absolutely terrified and shivering, surrounded by full size horses - it became a mission of sorts.

She was just a foal and had been separated from her mother to be sold in this auction. As soon as Kimberly from and I saw her, we knew she would not be left unsafe that day. She joined the Red Feather herd, where she instantly became Thea's adopted baby.

Banana is tiny, but her spirit is huge.

25/02/2025

🐎❤️

This is a lengthy read, but might be of interest if you have a few minutes and want to listen to my ramblings! I originally wrote it for a mustang-oriented Facebook group, but of course applies to all horses.

…

In light of the recent allegations against some well known trainers within the equine community (mustang and other), as a trainer myself, I’d like to share a few thoughts. The list below is not designed to advocate for certain training methods over others, nor to paint myself as someone who has figured out the “right way” to do things. I certainly haven’t, but I do believe I am working every day to get closer to that, and anyone who isn’t needs to get out of the business. As a community who prides themselves on loving equines, we need to be better, because they deserve better. If we are not constantly striving for self-improvement and emotional congruency, then horses are the ones losing out. With that said, here are several things I think each of us can do to prevent anymore trainers with inhumane methods from gaining notoriety:

- As an owner, bystander, auditor, or horse lover of any kind, if you see or hear something that doesn’t sit right with you, say something. Raise questions, ask for the *why*, and observe what the horse is saying.

- Horses never lie! If we dedicate ourselves to being constant students of the horse; to become acutely aware to what they are communicating, we will never be left to rely on how humans promote themselves… the horse will speak for or against that trainer or methods all on their own. If you are participating in a clinic, taking a lesson, or your horse is with someone for training, listen to what your horse is telling you about what that experience feels like for them. Whenever I have clients who are doubting if we “did enough” during the session, or if we pushed the horse out of their comfort zone too much, or if they rode with enough feel and skill, etc I ask the question “did we leave the horse better than we found him/her?” If the horse is more relaxed, emotionally regulated, balanced, and/or happier in their own body than when we started, then we are in a good spot. If the answer is no, it’s on us to find a better, kinder way. With that in mind, if you go to visit your horse whilst he/she is in someone’s training program and they are more nervous, shut down, impulsive, reactive, tense or any other number of signs indicative of them living in a sympathetic (fight/flight/freeze) state, take your horse home and find someone else. The is equally as true if you horse is physically looking in worse condition than when you dropped them off.

- Once we know better, we need to be better. In being a student of the horse, I am a better, kinder, more aware owner, trainer and teacher than I was 10 years ago. If I can’t say the same thing in another ten years, then it’s time to give it up.

- Timeline guarantees are a big red flag, both from a trainer and an owner standpoint. If a trainer is making guarantees about what a horse will be able to do in x amount of time, they likely are not putting the horse’s best interests first. Equally, if an owner has a set timeline of when they want something achieved, they are to blame if their horse suffers at the hands of a rushed, pressured trainer.

- Be your horse’s advocate. I am adamant that owners receive daily photos and videos while horses are staying with me at my facility, and that they visit weekly… the owner needs to be as actively involved in the process as their time allows for. To not do this is to not setting the human-horse pair up for success once that horse goes home.

- The day I stop educating myself, stop listening to what the horses are saying, or stop enjoying what I am doing, is the day I need to stop doing this for a living. Any less is a disservice to the horses I am privileged enough to interact with.

And lastly, a huge thank you to the individuals who are stepping up and sharing their accounts of these injustices in order to bring them into the public eye. You are brave and heard.

21/02/2025

Not Like Us.

Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance wasn’t just a diss track—it was a callout of a culture of exploitation. And that message hits just as hard in horse rescue.

We’ve all seen the posts:
🚨 “URGENT! 24 hours to save this horse from slaughter!”🚨

But here’s the truth—these horses aren’t actually being rescued. The same kill buyers and brokers cycle horses through their pens, knowing that emotional pleas will bring in donations. Most of these horses were never in real danger of slaughter. Instead, they’re being flipped for profit, while the real slaughter pipeline keeps running in the background.

Meanwhile, donor dollars that could support true rescue and advocacy efforts—programs that make lasting change for horses—are being funneled into the very system exploiting them.

I would love to see more ethical rescues take a stand against this game. At Red Feather, we stopped paying kill buyers years ago, when I Iearned the truth about this terrible racket. Now we work to intercept at-risk horses before they enter the pipeline - to prevent their suffering - and fight for real change.

So ask yourself—who are you supporting? The ones truly saving horses, or the ones keeping the cycle alive?

19/02/2025

Last May, we answered a call to help a stray cat who had been badly burned, possibly intentionally. With your help, we immediately had him neutered and vaccinated, and learned that he is FIV+. Luckily, my parents have a soft spot for stray kitties and agreed to open their home to this sweet angel boy.

The past nine months with him have been quite a journey, and I have to give my parents so much credit for sticking with dear Jimmy (formerly Homer). Because of his immune deficiency, the burn area has not healed easily and he has had one additional surgery plus WEEKLY vet checkups to keep the area clean and healing. He is on numerous medications including antibiotics and pain meds. Jimmy has to wear an inflatable doughnut to keep him from licking topical meds off his back. The wound is *almost* closed but suffice it to say that Jimmy would not have survived had we, and mostly my parents, not stepped up for him. They've paid all of these additional expenses out of their own pockets. They are saints.

So, today, my mom texted me this photo of Jimmy taking a nap in her lap, and I wanted to share this sweet moment with you all, as well as a glimpse at all the work that went behind it. If things ever feel too much, just think of Jimmy and all the obstacles he's overcome to be a fat happy cat taking a snooze in the arms of someone who loves him.

Thanks for helping us make stories like this possible 🖤

15/02/2025

Strawberry Shortcake is tucked back in at home, where she belongs 🍓❤️ Grace and I picked her up from Virginia Tech this morning to start a month of strict stall rest. While we didn't get the diagnostic confirmation we wanted, we are happy to see that her spirit and attitude are still bright, especially after receiving neck injections to hopefully help her heal.

Strawberry is so excited to be home! We are thankful for all of your recommendations and words of support. She will be receiving all of the therapies and care that we can provide her, including acupuncture and red light treatments.

Stay tuned for regular updates and please join us on Patreon if you want all of the behind the scenes details!

www.patreon.com/redfeatherfarmnc.org

14/02/2025

💖 Happy Valentine’s Day! 💖

We also have an update on Strawberry Shortcake! So many of you have asked about her, and we truly appreciate your concern. For the latest updates, please consider joining us on Patreon. While we’ll never hide important information behind a paywall, our Patreon supporters play a vital role in funding our life-saving work. If every one of our followers contributed just $1 per month, we wouldn’t even need to fundraise! Our members are a crucial part of our mission, always receiving the first and most detailed updates.

Now, about Strawberry—unfortunately, we haven’t made much progress with her diagnostics. She presented at VA Tech with Grade 4 neuro symptoms, and due to the risks, they weren’t comfortable putting her under general anesthesia for spinal imaging. They suspect the injury is in the thoracic or lumbar region, but without imaging, we can’t determine whether it’s an active, healing fracture or something irreversible like nerve damage.

Given this uncertainty, we’re moving forward with steroid injections to reduce inflammation in her neck and cervical spine, paired with strict stall rest for a month to see if time brings improvement. Beyond that, we’ll have exhausted all available options.

But let me be clear—we are not giving up. Strawberry deserves this chance, and as always, every decision we make will be guided by love.

Thank you for standing with us. XO ❤️

www.patreon.com/redfeatherfarmnc

14/02/2025

Throwing it back to 2020 when Aurora, our formerly feral mare, gave me a very clear lesson in listening. This massive bruise? 100% my fault.

Horses don’t just bite, kick, or react out of nowhere. They communicate—constantly. They whisper before they shout. And I must have ignored a million little signs that day while grooming her. A pinned ear, a tense jaw, a shift in her stance... all the ways she was trying to tell me she was uncomfortable. But I wasn’t paying attention. So she escalated.

It’s never about aggression—it’s about communication. And when we don’t listen, we force them to speak louder.

I don’t blame her one bit. In fact, I thank her. Because this was a lesson I needed, and I’ve never forgotten it.

10/02/2025

The Double Standard: Why is This Acceptable for Horses?

Imagine walking into an animal shelter and seeing a dog—sick with a severe respiratory infection, struggling to breathe. She has a massive, untreated wound on her chest, raw and infected. And then you find out she has cancer in her leg, a painful, growing mass that no one has addressed.

Now, imagine the shelter telling you she’s *for sale.* Not rescued. Not under veterinary care. Just another dog, being sold off like a used piece of furniture, her suffering ignored because she’s no longer "useful" to her previous owners.

The outrage would be immediate. Animal control would be called. The shelter would be condemned. Social media would explode with anger. Who could allow this? Who could do this to an innocent dog?

And yet—this is exactly what happens to horses every single day.

This isn’t a hypothetical. We found Reese, not as a dog in a shelter, but as a horse being *sold* in this exact condition. A beautiful soul who had been neglected, discarded like trash, her suffering dismissed as just part of the industry. Because when it comes to horses, this level of cruelty is normalized.

Why do we tolerate this? Why is it unacceptable for a dog, but perfectly fine for a horse? Their pain is the same. Their suffering is just as real. And yet, horses are sold sick, injured, and dying—often to the highest bidder, often to slaughter—while the world turns a blind eye.

It’s time to demand better. It’s time to change the way we see horses—not as disposable, but as living beings who deserve the same compassion and protection we give the dogs curled up safely in our homes.

She deserved better. They all do.

09/02/2025

I don’t think people realize just how many horses out there carry trauma with them.

With that, I don’t even mean severely abused horses that have been starved, or beaten heavily. There are plenty of those around, and those usually cause a lot of outrage (as they should).

What I am talking about though, is the horses whose trauma is never really recognized as such. The ones who tolerate humans and their requests, but never learned to trust them. Those who get extremely obsessive about food which are labelled as “bossy” or ”dominant”. Those who deal with severe Separation anxiety, which are said to be “dramatic”. Those who cannot self-regulate, or co-regulate and constantly carry tension. Those who try to express their pain, which get punished for it because “just a mare”.
Those who are “perfect” until they finally get a choice.

Between Unethical weaning practices, unsuitable welfare, constantly moving homes & and ownership, and aversive training/handling approaches, most horses at some point experience trauma. And this trauma can present itself in a variety of ways. Some are more subtle than others.
Trauma doesn’t have to be this huge explosive reaction. Just like people, horses can carry trauma and move on with their lives fairly normally. It can shape their personality just like it can shape ours.
However, that doesn’t mean doing so is healthy.

The horse that has been in 6+ homes before the age of 10, and thus can’t cope with changes. That is Trauma.
The horse that has never had consistent companionship and becomes obsessive with certain herd mates. That is Trauma
The horse that has only known corrections when they tried to express their confusion, fear, or dislike, and turns from “a perfect beginner’s horse” to “Don’t touch me” the moment you stop using corrections. That is Trauma.
The horse that never had a chance to learn from other horses or connect with people and thus can’t trust people to make good choices for them, can’t self-regulate or co-regulate, and can’t think their way through a situation. That is Trauma.
The horse who was only ever fed 2 times a day and was left without food for 6 hours each night, and has thus become food-aggressive. That is Trauma.
The horse who experienced highly aversive training techniques, and thus now gets frustrated, tense and severely stressed out anytime they are handled in a similar manner. That. Is. Trauma.

Sometimes, awareness of this can be a frustration and defeating realization. I think as equestrians we are often blind to this reality, because sadly, it’s just so common to see horses like that.
It’s not until you work with young, untraumatized horses, or rehabilitated horses, that you realize: “Oh! This is how it should be!”

08/02/2025

Move over Romeo & Juliet, the new eternal flame of love has been lit by Ruthie & Jackson 💘 But the only drama here is who gets the last treat!

03/02/2025

Ride or Die

There’s a phrase we’ve all heard—"ride or die." It’s meant to symbolize loyalty, an unbreakable bond, the kind of partnership where one never abandons the other. But in the horse world, too often, "ride or die" takes on a much darker meaning.

For many horses, their worth is measured solely by their ability to be ridden. If they can’t carry a rider—because of age, injury, or temperament—they’re discarded. Sent to auction. Left in a kill pen. Forgotten in a back pasture. Their years of service, their companionship, their very lives reduced to a simple equation: useful or useless.

We reject that notion. A horse’s value is not measured in miles ridden or ribbons won. It’s in the soft nicker of recognition, the quiet trust built over time, the way they stand beside you on your worst days as if to say, I’m here. We believe every horse deserves love, respect, and dignity—whether they can be ridden or not.

But changing this mindset takes work. It takes education, resources, and a commitment to seeing horses as partners, not just tools. Your support helps us provide sanctuary to those deemed "useless" by others. It helps us rewrite the narrative, showing that a horse’s worth isn’t tied to what they can do for us, but simply to who they are.

Join us in standing up for these horses. Be their ride or die—not in the sense of using them until they have nothing left to give, but in the truest sense of loyalty. With your help, we can ensure they are never thrown away. Because real partnership doesn’t end when the riding stops. It lasts a lifetime.

Thank you for riding with us, always.

📸 of a few of our unrideables: Lawson OTTB (kissing spine), Jiffy OTSB (DSLD), Ali OTTB (severe ringbone), Strawberry Shortcake (hind end ataxia), Finn OTTB (weak/failing suspensory ligaments)

02/02/2025

This week, we had to say goodbye to a dear friend—our beloved mini pony, Nikki. She has been part of our lives ever since the Twist of Fate neglect case, where she was known as "Gumdrop." Little was shared about her beyond her auction pull, so unfortunately we don't know much about her past.

Before her rescue, Nikki lived in a paddock with Thea (who is still thriving here at Red Feather), along with ’s Moose and a few other larger horses. I often think about what it must have been like for the minis in that field, struggling to compete for scarce food among much bigger companions. It’s nothing short of a miracle that she survived.

When she arrived, our vet confirmed she was an elderly girl with advanced Cushing’s disease. We managed her condition with special mashes, chopped hay, and daily medication—though she was far too clever to be tricked into taking it willingly, so we had to grind it up and syringe it into her mouth.

Over the past few years, she embraced a nurturing role, first remaining closely bonded with Thea and later stepping into the matriarchal role when little Banana arrived. Lately, we had noticed her slowing down, withdrawing from her herd, and this week, it became clear that she wasn’t herself. We knew it was time to ease her across the bridge.

As we always do, we allowed her mini friends to spend time with her before she was laid to rest, ensuring they had the chance to say their goodbyes. She was buried peacefully on our farm, forever a part of the place she called home.

Saying goodbye is never easy, but the weight is lighter when the animals show us it is time. Nikki lived a long life, and we are grateful to have been the ones to make sure she never knew another day of suffering.

Run fast and free, sweet Nikki. We will love you forever.

26/01/2025

YEAR IN REVIEW 🐎

As January comes to a close, we’re taking a moment to reflect on an incredible year of collaboration and impact for at-risk horses.

In 2024, we:
✨ Facilitated 6 community education workshops and events
✨ Engaged state legislators on horse welfare issues on Capitol Hill alongside an impressive roster of horse rescue champions
✨ Delivered over 35,000 pounds of feed and grain to our neighbors in Western North Carolina
✨ Provided critical support to 45+ fellow rescues in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene (in collaboration with amazing partners as well as and more ❤️)
✨ Visited the mustangs of Theodore Roosevelt National Park with advocates to learn about the lives and needs of our Country's wild horses

On our main property, more than **5,000 volunteer hours** were given by incredible people—from youth to seniors—who share our critical mission.

Every day is a chance to stand up for America’s horses, and we’re so proud of the strides we’ve made together. Here’s to continuing the fight in 2025! 🐴❤️