Thai ponies rescued days before they were due to be slaughtered and sold as meat on Facebook

This is the heartwarming moment ponies in Thailand were rescued while waiting to be slaughtered and sold as horse meat on Facebook.Nirund Khumlhon, 33, bought the nags from farms once they had been deemed too old or useless. He would then fatten them up before slaughtering them in his homemade abattoir in Chonburi.Shockingly, Nirund would sell the meat over social media. He had been carrying out the illegal horse meat sales for several years before animal welfare charities uncovered it last week.Police raided his home and found the remains of horses that had been stripped of their meat. Officers immediately arrested him for animal cruelty.Nirund told police he sold the horse meat at the local market and on Facebook for 100 baht (2.60GBP) per pound. He said: "All the ponies I slaughtered and sold were handicapped and old, which I bought from farms."I have been doing this all alone since my grandfather passed away. We did it together for years.''I had an accident recently which made me plan to stop. I was hit by a car, which I think was because of karma for the horses, so I wanted to stop.''The raid on Nirund's came after animal charity Watchdog Thailand collected evidence from Facebook where the butcher had been selling the meat. They arrived at the farm on Saturday (July 20) and found a grey stallion pony that Nirund had been planning to slaughter that weekend. A second bay coloured mare was also in his garden.There were also remains in his slaughterhouse of a horse that had recently been killed and several skulls scattered around the area.The ponies have now been taken into care and will be checked over by vets before being re-homed.Police Major General Nantachat Suphamonkol, who lead the investigation, said: "Even though those ponies he slaughtered were old, this action is not acceptable."Luckily there were some caring people who worked hard to save the ponies that were waiting to be killed. All of the information will help us to charge this cruel man.''