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Horse Slaughter: For or Against it?

4K views 31 replies 21 participants last post by  StarfireSparrow 
#1 ·
what's your opinion? Are you for or against it?

Personally, I'm on the fence about it. I'm against it because of how inhumane it can be. But I'm for it because what would happen to all of the unwanted horses? Where would we put them? If there was no horse slaughter, the abuse and neglect cases would increase.

What do you think?
 
#2 ·
For it due to the same reasons you listed. As a society we have to be able to do something with unwanted animals. Yes there are abuses in the slaughter houses, just like for cows/pigs/chickens. We have to go after the abuser, not shut the industry down.

Also the law of unintended consequences raises its ugly head. We ship them off to other countries that don't have the regulations in place that we do.
 
#3 ·
I think we need to focus on the problem that keeps the slaughter houses in business, and that’s the problem of horse overpopulation. I think we need to stop over breeding backyard/grade horses. We need to start realizing that horses can live into their 30s and 40s; and you need to be prepared for the day they start slowing down, and might no longer be sound.

Animals are not disposable.
 
#17 ·
Animals are not disposable.
Perhaps, but they are edible. Just about any animal is considered dinner somewhere in the world. Horses are not exempt from that fact.

You don't have to be a nag, you just have to be unlucky.
Sadly true- many nice, well trained saddle horses show up at auction, and not all of them wind up in new loving homes that will pamper them for the rest of their lives.

If horses are going to be killed, or rather, when all those horses are killed, I'd rather it be done without shipping them for days to get to their final destination. Unfortunately it's also cheaper to just feed a horse for another month than to get a vet out to euthanize and dispose of a horse too. It's a crappy situation all around.
 
#7 ·
For it. Back in the day horses were at "least worth their meat" and people "generally" took better care of their horses because of this. Also it raised the price of well broke wanted horses which covered the cost of their keep and training when sold.
Now horses face the unfortunate trip across the border and poorer standards of living due to some stupid love dovey activist legislation that shoots EVERYONE in the foot.

Just my observation.
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#8 · (Edited)
This topic is bound to set off some fireworks. We've tried and tested keeping this debate polite, but it just doesn't work.

In any case, I'm all for it. I don't mind people consuming horse meat...heck, I'd probably try it if given the chance. Slaughter is essential to keep things in balance, and as long as it stays humane, it's fine by me. The more disturbing thing for me is double-decker trailers carrying weak and thirsty horses jam-packed across borders to other countries when it's outlawed here.

Spirit11, it's not just backyard fuglies that are cramming the slaughterhouses. You don't have to be a nag, you just have to be unlucky.
 
#10 ·
I heard of a practice of breeding a broodmare at the same time that you breed a show horse, race horse, whatever. When the babies are born you can take the baby away from the broodmare and give her the show horse's baby to raise. That way the show horse isn't out of commission for so long. The babies of the broodmares are then disposed of, sold, or send to auction. Does this actually happen/still happen?
 
#16 ·
I have never hear of this happening (that doesn't mean that it no longer happens). But, in my experience, if a breeder wants to breed their show horse and keep it showing they'll just do in-vitro and use a surrogate mare. That way they can cancle out the possibility of losing the mare really at all during pregnancy and the mare can continue showing. Thus, increasing the value of the mare and future foal (if the mare is successful).
 
#12 ·
Yes it does Spirit11.

I'm not against people eating horses, but I am against industrialized slaughter for the following reasons:

1. There is simply no humane way to do it in an industrialized setting. Horses kick each other in close quarters, they panic blindly, and they can avoid the bolt much easier than a cow because of their longer necks. I have no problem with people shooting their horses at home because that way the horse (usually) doesn't see it coming. There is no possible way to send a horse to a slaughter plant without them seeing it coming.

2. The "out of sight, out of mind" problem. What slaughter does is free up space for careless breeders to create more horses. If they couldn't just send their unwanted horses off in a truck, they would eventually run out of space and have to stop breeding (or start shooting). My mom doesn't care about the environment at all, but when the city talked about reducing her garbage collection to every two weeks, she immediately started talking about ways to reduce garbage. Same principle with unwanted horses. When people can just make their garbage magically disappear, they don't think twice about creating more.

3. The entire "horses were better taken care of when there was slaughter" argument just doesn't fly. First, the US does still have slaughter - the only difference is that horses travel a longer distance to get there. Second, kill buyers do not pay well for starving horses. The horses you see starving now got that way because of the economy, not the slaughter ban. Those horses belong to people who can't afford them anymore but don't want to send them to slaughter. If the owners of those horses were fine with sending them to slaughter, they would have done so while the horses still had meat on them.
 
#13 ·
This subject has been exhausted on every horse web site on the internet. Discussing it here does nothing to change the situation. The politicians need to be addressed en mass in order for change to happen. The slaughter houses are necessary but how the animals are transported can be changed, and how they are treated once they arrive at the plant. If we don't have slaughter houses horses and other livestock will be turned loose to fend. God help the person who comes aroun a bend at night and hits one. There are too many moose collisions, we don't need to add horses to this.
 
#14 ·
I'm for it 100 percent.

I agree with you, Ponyboy, that there are some who used the slaughter industry to "free up space", but would disagree that the starving horses are due to economy and not the slaughter ban.

Maybe in some areas meat auctions are alive and well, but at the last auction I went to (middle Colorado), I watched 4 or 5 full weight horses go through and not even get a 20.00 bid - back in the day they would have gone for 500 easy. We are simply too far away for a meat hauler to drive here and then to a border. So these horses went back with their original owners, who will most probably turn them out for the winter on a 200 acre high desert pasture with no shelter (not even trees), little water, and nothing in the fields that will sustain them. And they will starve.

There are always horses that have lived out their usefulness, and in a perfect world their owners would reward them with retirement. But horses are expensive if treated well, and not many owners can afford to keep retirees 1 and 2 while financing the show career of 3. A humane death is best, but slaughter avoids the prolonged and painful deaths that the chronically sick, lame, or dangerous horses certainly face now.
 
#15 ·
I am for it. I think there are ways to make it less brutal, though to call it "humane" may always be a bit of a stretch on the word. No matter how few horses are bred, there will ALWAYS be horses that their best purpose in this world is meat. Culls on the grounds of confirmation, temperament or genetic defect need to have a reasonable route for disposal, for lack of a better term.

I would also like to see breeders hold themselves to a higher standard and failing that, have a standard enforced somehow. I think that without a decent show record from a recognized association, be it breed association or show association like USDF, a horse should be permitted to reproduce. It does not matter what size the operation is, there are out and out too many "no purpose" horses being produced and that is where the issues of overpopulation stem from. There will be horses that are not up the standards of their stellar parents to fill the niche of back yard pet, school horse, or companion.
 
#19 ·
Here's my thought...at a minimum:
It is evident that there will always be an excess of population in domesticated animals as long as human beings remain a factor in their breeding.

At least in horse slaughter they can be used for meat or other products, and their deaths are not in entirety a waste.

We don't get that from the piles of cats and dogs euthanized daily due to human selfishness.
 
#20 · (Edited)
I must say, where I live, in the entire country, there are a maximum of 3 slaughter houses for horses, and they are almost never used, which I think is a wonderful thing.

However, I am very much for it. While I would rather that every horse on this planet lives out their days in a lush meadow with lots of love, I know that it simply isn't a reality. I would much rather these horses who, to put it bluntly, "have no use anymore" were killed quickly and without suffering, than to waste away in an abandoned stall until they die. When they are slaughtered, their bodies can be used for many things, which is very helpful.

Conditions in most slaughterhouses are not what people think. The horses in most of them are actually very well cared for until it's their time, and I'm sure that the horses themselves would rather it be quick and painless like it is in a slaughterhouse, where I believe the workers do their best to keep the animal from suffering.
 
#23 ·
I am amazed at the pro response. I would have thought it would have been more negative. I've been a farrier and trainer for over 40 years. I can tell you how it used to be. When a horse outlived it's usefulness or became too disabled to be used it was taken to the local horse auction or sold to a horse trader who took it to the auction where it was bought by a slaughter house buyer. Either way, the owner came out with a few dollars. Today the slaughter houses are gone and it costs $800 to dispose of a horse though cremation. That's more than many fit horses are worth in today's economy. Sadly, most of the rendering plants that used to pick up dead animals have also gone the way of the slaughter houses. In our state it is against the law to bury or burn a dead horse. If you have a ranch you are permitted to put it down away from the dwelling and allow the scavengers to dispose of it. People do bury dead horses illegally which threatens the water table and many are being turned loose on public lands. When I first started shoeing there was a type of coarse, hammer headed pinto that we would run into ever so often. They were the rankest things alive and you took your life in your hands to try to trim one. I believe they were descendants from the Indian herds that the army purposely polluted with rank draft horse stallions. One year the price of horse meat went sky high and every one of those horses disappeared almost over night. I never saw one again and it was a good thing. Horse slaughter served a purpose. It is the demise of the rendering plants that have caused the real problem. It used to be we could have the vet humanely put the horse down and then have the rendering plant pick it up. They used to do it for free and then started charging $50. Today there is no good alternative.
 
#24 ·
#25 ·
I seem to be in the minority, but I'm totally against it. Always have been.

I'm curious to know how people would feel about slaughtering unwanted cats and dogs, because it's the same concept.
 
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#26 ·
I'm curious to know how people would feel about slaughtering unwanted cats and dogs, because it's the same concept.
I'm for that too. Not trying to be glib, but we kill unwanted cats and dogs by the millions in the US anyway, at least their bodies could go to feeding some of the world's hungry and be useful that way.

IDEALLY we'd just not breed/allow animals to breed to the extent that we have so many unwanted animals that we need to kill them like we do now in the first place, but that's a long slow process to get there, and it doesn't stop the killing in the meanwhile.
 
#27 ·
Millions of unwanted cats and dogs are slaughtered every year, and it's too bad in this country that we don't eat them. In asian countries they cook em up asap! And hardly have a population problem. I hear the "I wish all horses could live out their days in green pastures". But accidents happen, breedings go wrong, some animals are just unfit to become sound sane "friends" for life. There has to be a solution, killing them and eating them, salvaging them for their parts, and sparing them from suffering by slaughtering them is the answer. The cold hard fact is that horses are livestock. I love mine to death but it irritates me to no end that I won't be able to profit off of their death when I have dumped thousands into their care and well being. That money goes back into the pot to take better care of my next horse, making sure they live LONG happy lives.
20 years ago my first horse cost $505. 5 dollars more than the meat buyer was willing to pay. She was the most incredible grade horse that ever lived, the man who ran her through the sale barn knew what he was doing when he bred her parents and I'm glad he got his monies worth. Had I not been there, she would have been dog food. But dogs gotta eat too.
 
#28 ·
"Profit from their death"? That's nice.
Horses are money pits. Of course you pour thousands of dollars into them. It comes with the territory and should be fully anticipated before you ever purchase one.

Horses have done our bidding for the past six thousand years. They deserve better.
 
#30 · (Edited)
That was a harsh way to put it, but it's the truth. That "profit" is what covers the final vet bills that were spent finding EVERY POSSIBLE cure or solution to the cause of eventual death. Like said before, now it's cheaper to dump the horse or allow it to suffer instead of try and help the animal.
BTW I currently have two rescues in my pasture along with my trail and show horses. All in all I've adopted and re-homed 15 total and wish I could afford to take in more. How many unwanted horses have you taken in?
 
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