WATCH: Abused Horses Nursed Back To Health

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It's been almost a month since the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office confiscated 64 dogs, five pigs and four horses from a home east of Colorado Springs. At that time, the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak Region described their conditions as deplorable.

The DreamCatchers Equine Rescue Center tells 11 News that the horses that were removed are doing much better and a big step closer to adoption.

Three mares and one stallion have spent the last 29 days in the DreamCatchers ranch fighting off parasites and slowly putting on some much needed weight. Less than a month ago, they were in survival mode, having not being fed much, their ribs were visible and their hoofs were too long.

DreamCatchers founders Julie DeMuesy and her husband run the nearly 900 acre rescue ranch.

"You always get that thing in your gut like, oh God, can we make it? Can we save these guys and you never know. You never know where the horses have been, how much of their system has been compromised," DeMuesy said.

The mares spend most of the day grazing in a pasture, slowly healing.

"These horses, they become more fragile. When they start to recover that's when you'll have a horse twist its intestines, colic, there's so many things that can happen during the course of recovery that you have to take it pretty slow and be pretty careful with the feed you provide them with.”

The stallion has already put on 150 pounds, but still has a long road to recovery. The mares, however, are almost ready for adoption.

"They've just rebounded so quickly, these three, well all four of them and I'm just amazed. So my initial reaction is trepidation when we take in horses like this because we've lost so many that we thought we could get recovered but now it's just hopefulness," DeMuesy said.

DeMuesy has a word of warning for people who think taking in a horse is easy work.

"Horses are huge commitments. They're not mountain bikes you can't just put them away after the weekends over, they require daily care and daily feeding and the relationship is huge with a horse," DeMuesy said.

The DreamCatchers Equine Rescue Center boards roughly 125 horses a year. If you’d like to help but aren't quite ready to take a horse home, you can donate or sponsor a horse from the ranch.

For more information you can go directly to the DreamCatchers website: www.dcerinc.com. Or you can call: (719) 266-2199