Jason Fabrizius has been feeding the horse slaughter pipeline for decades. And Animals’ Angels has documented his actions every step of the way.
In our most recent investigation at Fabrizius Livestock, Animals’ Angels’ investigators immediately encountered disturbing conditions:
- Emaciated horses with visible open wounds
- Several visibly ill horses suffering from violent coughs and discharges from the eyes and nostrils
- One mare had a ruptured abscess under her jaw, leaving a gaping, infected wound
- Another mare was so sick she struggled to breathe; thick pus streamed from her nostrils, contaminating nearby horses and shared water troughs
These symptoms were consistent with strangles, a highly contagious equine disease. Yet none of the sick horses were quarantined — despite our investigators seeing multiple empty pens available. Most of the horses appeared to be unhandled, showing signs of fear and unfamiliarity with human contact.
Fabrizius’ blatant disregard for animal welfare has had devastating consequences in the past. In 2018, his kill pen operation exposed hundreds of horses to Equine Infectious Anemia (EIA) — a deadly, incurable disease that affects horses, donkeys, and mules.
In November 2022, Judge Tierney M. Carlos determined that Fabrizius was responsible for shipping an EIA-positive horse across state lines, along with fifty other horses who had been in contact with the infected animal. The result?
- 293 horses in 12 states were potentially exposed
- 67 horses were never located, meaning they could still be spreading EIA today
- State and federal agencies spent hundreds of hours tracking exposed animals
Fabrizius Livestock was ultimately fined $210,000 for violating the Animal Health Protection Act and the Commercial Transport of Equines to Slaughter Regulation.
Fabrizius attempted to appeal the ruling, but on February 24, 2025, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied his appeal. The court upheld the decision, calling the violations “extremely severe and egregious” due to Fabrizius’ knowledge of the infected horse and the wide-scale, multi-transaction spread that followed.
Read more about Fabrizius’ transgressions and his manipulative attempts to appeal them in the court doc.
A Pattern of Abuse: Fabrizius Through the Years
Animals’ Angels has been investigating Jason Fabrizius and his operation for over a decade. His track record speaks for itself:
- October, 2010: Brush Livestock Auction, CO
- February, 2011: Delta Horse Auction, CO
- October, 2013: Trailing of Fabrizius Livestock from Billings, MT to Los Lunas, NM
- April, 2014: Fabrizius Slaughter Horse Collecting Station, Eaton, CO
- August, 2016: Billings Horse Auction, Mo
- January, 2020: How to become a Kill Buyer Kingpin Using Social Media
- May 2021: Centennial Auction, CO
- September 2023: Fabrizius Feedlot Investigation, CO