Ladybug, Grey Goose & Twiglet

“There is a myth that only broken, old, or injured horses get sent to slaughter, but that is far from the truth. So how did three 6-year-old mustang mares end up in a killpen in Kansas?”

Jamie Baldanza and I were preparing to remake a short film to raise awareness of the Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act. It was 2021 and tens of thousands of American equines were being shipped to slaughter houses in Canada and Mexico - and still are today. We wanted to do everything we could to educate people about shutting down the slaughter pipeline in the USA. 

At that same time, I wanted to honor the memory of Louisa and Star by saving two more mustangs. We learned about two 6-year-old mares at a Kansas kill pen: Grey Goose, a grey, and Ladybug, a sorrel. They stood no chance of being adopted or rescued and needed help. We decided to document their story for the film and picked them up ourselves. Suddenly, we got a message about a third mare, Twiglet, who had come in with these two, but was left behind. We turned around to go right back and get her. We set out to save two, came home with three, and ended up with four - Ladybug was pregnant!

All three mares were adopted out in 2019, the first year of the Bureau of Land Management’s former Adoption Incentive Program (AIP). At the end of a mandatory twelve-month period with the adopter, who contracted to give them a “good home”, their bodies were thin, hooves long, and hair was matted with clumps of winter coats hanging off their bodies. From the time they were rounded up, they spent their days in dirty, crowded spaces, hauled from one bad place to a worse one.  No one took care of them. Their adopter neglected them while waiting out the year to collect $1000 for each mare in federal incentive money before selling them for their meat price. While touting the AIP as a success story in finding good homes for captured wild horses and burros, the BLM was willfully ignoring the horrible reality. By law, they cannot send federally-protected animals to slaughter directly. The AIP was created to get around that by paying middlemen to take the animals off their hands and dispose of them however they saw fit. 

The mares arrived at Skydog shut down and defeated. They were hungry and buried their heads in a pile of good orchard grass. It was a beautiful thing to watch them come back to life and happiness with gleaming coats, bright eyes, and acceptance of humans who treat them with kindness. Not only did Ladybug have a baby, she had Firefly, an adorable, vivacious mule. He gives nothing but joy and laughter and will never know the trauma his mother suffered in the slaughter pipeline.

Ladybug, Grey Goose, and Twiglet have no clue that they are movie stars with Daryl Hannah (@dhlovelife) narrating their story and a cast of celebrity advocates supporting their cause. They have opened many eyes and touched many hearts. They continue to be mustang ambassadors, whose loss, survival, and renewal inspires action to permanently ban the slaughter of American equines.

#skydoggreygoose #skydogladybug #skydogtwiglet

Mustangs and Burros Need Your Help

In addition to supporting our work by donating, becoming a patron on Patreon, or sponsoring a Skydog, there are several important pieces of legislation to protect American equines currently moving through Congress. It only takes a few minutes to contact your Rep and Senators and urge them to support these bills:

Save America’s Forgotten Equines (SAFE) Act of 2025 (H.R.1661 in the House and S.775 in the Senate). This bill would amend the Agriculture Improvement Act of 2018. Commonly known as the “Farm Bill”, this omnibus federal law includes several important provisions for animals. Among them, the Cat and Dog Meat Trade Prohibition Act, which makes it illegal to slaughter, transport, possess, purchase, sell, or donate dogs and cats, or their parts, for human consumption. This SAFE Act would extend the prohibition to equines. Specifically, prohibiting a person from knowingly slaughtering an American equine for human consumption; or shipping, transporting, possessing, purchasing, selling, or donating an American equine to be slaughtered for human consumption. This bill will shut down the slaughter pipeline that sends some 20,000 American horses and donkeys to savagely monstrous deaths in foreign slaughterhouses every year.

You can Contact Members of Congress by calling the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121‬, submitting contact forms on their individual websites, or sending one email to all three simultaneously at www.democracy.io

See our How to Help menu for other actions to ban zebra hunting at US canned hunt ranches, stop production of Premarin & other PMU drugs, and defund the Adoption Incentive Program.

Bills from the previous 118th Congress that we hope will be introduced again this year:

The Wild Horse & Burro Protection Act of 2023 (H. R. 3656) This bill will prohibit the use of helicopters or fixed-wing aircraft in the management of wild mustangs and burros on public lands, and require a report on humane alternatives to current management practices.

Ejiao Act of 2023 (H.R. 6021). To ​​ban the sale or transportation of ejiao, a gelatin made from boiling donkey skins, or products containing ejiao in interstate or foreign commerce, which brutally kills millions of donkeys primarily for beauty products and Chinese medicine.