Kathy Grissum, who lives south of Baldwin City, feeds some of the horses that she has taken in after they were rescued from a Douglas County residence. Grissum took in eight horses after the Lawrence Humane Society received reports of neglect.

Baldwin City resident Kathy Grissum has come to the rescue of eight starving horses in Douglas County.

After four weeks of care on her 25 acres, one of the horses gained 300 pounds and “still looks a little bit thin,” she said. That particular 7-year-old horse, named Star, is also blind, likely because of malnutrition, she said.

In helping the horses, Grissum also helped the Lawrence Humane Society because it didn’t have shelter for the animals.

It’s not the first time the self-proclaimed animal lover has helped the Humane Society. She took in a pot-bellied pig that she still owns. Earlier this month, she also helped capture one of the two Appaloosa stallions that had roamed the Vinland area.

“Kathy is so nice. She always says ‘yes,'” Midge Grinstead, director of the Lawrence Humane Society, said.

The Humane Society, a veterinarian and the Bureau of Land Management, which protects wild horses, joined forces to rescue the horses from a family that neglected to take care of them. Grinstead said the family couldn’t afford to feed the horses properly.

“They were eating trees,” she said.

Grissum gave several donations of hay to the family beginning in February. On March 12, she personally delivered the hay and saw the condition of the horses. Star needed to be rescued immediately.

“I have never seen a mare in this poor condition,” Grissum said. “On a scale of one to 10 – 10 being great – she was about a 1.5, if that,” Grissum said.

She described the horse as looking like an outline of a skeleton and estimated that it weighed between 650 and 700 pounds. The average adult horse weighs approximately 1,200 pounds.

Soon after, two other mares, two foals, two yearlings and a stallion were rescued.

Grinstead said she has increasingly received complaints about neglected horses.

In 2005, she received between 10 and 20 calls. That number doubled in 2006, and she has already received 25 this year.

“We see it all the time. People will get land and say they can have a horse now,” Grinstead said. “I think horses are the hardest thing to raise.”

Grissum gave the horses a deworming treatment before loading them on her trailer.

“They haven’t had worming in probably four to five years; you could tell some were really infested,” she said.

She said they also were difficult to approach because they hadn’t been handled and had to learn to eat grain.

Purina, a pet food company, donated grain, and the Humane Society paid for the horses’ vaccinations.

Grissum said a veterinarian in Overbrook adopted the two mares with foals. She said the others are ready for adoption. Any donations received will go to the Humane Society.