UGA vet school to auction off mares on Internet

ATHENS, Ga. (AP)--When officials at the University of Georgia veterinary school were seeking homes for four horses they no longer needed, they tried an approach they hadn't used before: Advertise them on the Internet as surplus government property.

The vet school sells cattle at a regular livestock auction, but decided to use a website called GovDeals.com to sell the mares.

"I wanted to open it up wider," said John Glisson, head of population health for UGA's vet school. He said he hopes the horses land with families that will ride them. "It's an experiment to see how much interest we get."

Daisy, Dilly, Serena and Suzanna will leave two dozen horses behind at Rose Creek Farm in Oconee County, where vet school students learn how to handle and bandage them, but do "nothing invasive," Glisson said.

It's not unusual for governments to go on line to sell old fire trucks, office furniture and recreational equipment to the highest bidder.

The website GovDeals.com has sold goods for some 170 governments in Georgia and has endorsements from both the Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association.

GovDeals.com does sell animals from time to time. But the mares are the first animals the vet school has auctioned online, according to Glisson.

UGA already sells most of its surplus goods online, according to Penny Gheesling, property control officer for the university.

"(Administrators) believe, and rightly so, that we get more money with a larger pool of buyers than when one person comes in to buy a desk," Gheesling said.

The four Belgian Draft horses all are mares, from 7 to 10 years old, and one is pregnant. The starting bid is $500 and the deadline for bids is 2 p.m., March 5.

Glisson said they didn't want to sell the potential pets to just anyone.

"These are nice girls and we hate to get rid of them," he said. "We've got more (horses) than we need."

Date: 6/8/07