Amazing! Laboratory Ponies Saved Just Hours before Slaughter (PHOTOS)

When we think of animal testing, we usually imagine mice, rats, and rabbits being used for experiments. While their use is increasingly unnecessary and unethical, it’s more widely known than the plight of other animals caged up in testing facilities.

Dogs, cats, birds, and even fish, for instance, are still tested on, and in an even more surprising revelation, ponies are too.

A recent rescue in Wales has revealed that ponies, like so many other animals, are not safe from the grasp of testing facilities.

Thankfully, through a rescue carried out by the group, United to Care, 10 laboratory ponies, aged six to eight months old, have been saved just hours before their slaughter!

According to the Daily Mail, the animal rescue team found the young foals afraid, “panic-stricken,” and “cowering in a corner of their stable,” ready to be sent off to slaughter after spending most of their early life poked and prodded in a research laboratory without ever experiencing comfort and freedom.

Paul Lewis / Daily Mail

The only signs of their previous life remain on their backs — where patches of skin lay bare of fur — shaved prior to injections.

Paul Lewis / Daily Mail

“For the last three months they had been living in a test tube. They were kept indoors in artificial light, four to a stable. When we first got them, they were totally terrified,” United to Care campaign leader, Vicky Fraser told the Daily Mail.

Paul Lewis / Daily Mail

But thanks to the kind and caring souls at United to Care, these 10 beautiful young horses – each given names with the letters that spell out “will to live” — have a second chance at life and are now roaming happily and running free outdoors.

Paul Lewis / Daily Mail

Their happy endings are not over yet either. United to Care is currently searching for potential adopters so that each of these Welsh ponies can finally know what it means to have a loving forever home. And guess what? Two have already found their future guardians! Woohoo! What a beautiful start to the rest of their lives.

Lead image source: Paul Lewis via the Daily Mail