Bruce and Vickie Tompkins have a small ranch with several rescued horses and donkeys near North Bend in Dodge County. When they went to check on the animals Sunday morning, they saw two of their horses were missing their tails.
“You could just see it was cut off with scissors,” said Bruce Tompkins.
The Tompkins said it feels like their home was just robbed.
“Real anger, you know, it's the horse’s only line of defense against flies, and the tails are. To see them chopped off like this, it takes them so long to grow back,” said Tompkins.
Rusty is a miniature horse and used to have a tail down the ground, while Blue lost about two feet of his tail.
The Tompkins said when they looked online they found horse hair can sell up to $400 a pound.
“They take the hair off the horses tail to make a hat band, or make hair extensions to put on some high dollar show horse, I’m P.O’d” said Vickie Tompkins.
Another woman in Raymond, Nebraska shared photos on Facebook of two of her horses also having their tails chopped off.
The Tompkins want to make sure horse owners are aware that someone out there is doing this, “it’s something that everybody who has horses needs to watch their horses and see what's going on,” said Bruce Tompkins.
The Nebraska Humane Society said they also saw a social media post out of Wanye, Nebraska from a horse owner with stolen tails.
The NHS and the Dodge County Sheriff's Department said that animal owners need to be careful and watch them closely.
