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Reducing the numbers is a worthy cause, just as reducing the numbers of unwanted dogs and cats.
Doesn't solve the problem NOW,or for the next few years.
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We are the caretakers, and we're not doing a very good job. That would entail telling people what to do, so viewing animals as disposable things is in essence the problem.
No-one is suggesting not try to reduce the number through education.
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Where do you get this number of 170k?
The Unwanted Horse Coalition.
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I got an email that's circulating the other day. It was about two Great Danes, one is blind and completely dependent upon the other, which leads it everywhere. It was the sweetest thing you've ever seen.
Saw it too.
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Animals are kinder and have more of a conscience than humans.
Anyway.....what is up with the folks that seem to think because they can eat it, its ok?
They never seem to to answer.
We're not trying to eat bald eagles or some endangered polar bears.
There is a long history of humanity consuming horse meat. Parts of Asia still do. While less common in Europe, many countries there have horse meat as part of their culture and cuisine.
Unless you're a vegan / vegetarian, I really don't see what your opposition to horse meat in principle could possible be logically based upon.
Can someone answer my questions honestly and without snark? I've been reading this thread over the past few days and I just don't know what to think anymore
I've had this debate with fellow equestrians many, many times.
I personally would never, ever in a million years sell my horse to slaughter. When he's too old or too sick to make it, he will be kindly euthanized by my vet just as any pet I've ever owned has been.
But the people I talk to absolutely refuse to pay $100 or $200 to euthanize a horse, not to mention deal with disposing of it. They refuse. As one person told me, "Why should I pay to have my horse killed when I can sell to the meat man and MAKE $200?"
I don't know what area you are located, or the demographic of that area insofar as income and purpose of the horse operations you speak of, but my experience (however limited) shows that most of the ones I've been around spend big dollars keeping and maintaining their animals, and would not blink at $200. Hell, it costs 3 times that per month just to board a horse (basic board), and another $200-300 on average for incidentals, like basic health maintenance and training. So those that cannot afford or refuse to pay $200 for the proper disposition of an animal should be shut down, and not allowed to keep, breed, sell animals. (My preference would be to render them into glue!)
The reality is, you can get mortality insurance on your horses (basic pleasure horse) for $10-$15 per month, which will pay the costs of proper handling of the horse upon it's death, and is pocket change compared to all of the other unavoidable expenses of vet bills, farrier bills, etc. So this "refusal" to pay $200 is a "lame excuse", pardon the pun.
If you have sufficient property to keep your horses at your place, the average cost is roughly $3,000 per year (you do ALL of the labor). If you board your horse, including hay and turnout, you can expect 3 times that cost for full service. $200 is no excuse at all for failing to properly handle the animal at it's "end".
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Originally Posted by Yankeerose00
Gee, maybe the difference between a horse dying peacefully in its own home verses the formerly nasty haul to Canada or Mexico where it may or may not be dead when it's being cut up?
But one thing I've found, you can make people feel compassion. It seems like they have it or they don't.
There is no doubt that we have a GROWING problem of people who are irresponsible; self absorbed; uncaring; and totally oblivious to the fundamental issues of "right and wrong". Moral relativism exposes itself right here in this thread for all to see clearly. But you do not appease, accommodate and facilitate this problem with measures that demonstrate similar levels of immorality as a solution, just as you don't put out a fire with gasoline.
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Originally Posted by Yankeerose00
So if there was no more slaughtering of horses. Let's say, no US slaughterhouses, no shipping out of the country....my sincere question is what would happen to unwanted horses?
If we could guarantee that people HAVE to have them euthanized, heck even a bullet is kinder than the slaughterhouse, I'd be for it. But we know people won't do that. Some can't afford it but most don't want to afford to euthanize their horse because of costs.
Just like any other problem, you impose rules, regulations and laws, and you enforce them. It's as simple as that. You want to keep horses, you need to be licensed, which includes insurance, just like an automobile. You need a license just to go fishing or hunting ... why not a license to board horses? If you want to keep horses on your property, the law should be a minimum of two horses (it is extremely cruel to keep a single horse without companionship .. it will drive them crazy just as if someone were to keep you in solitary confinement). Part of that license must include annual mortality insurance, and a statement of financial responsibility. Stiff fines for violators would go into a fund to pay for enforcement costs. People who cannot afford a license fee and mortality insurance cannot afford to keep horses, and therefore you weed out the idiots who think in terms of a horse being a house cat, who have just enough to buy a horse up front, with no means to care for them properly. This isn't rocket science.
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Originally Posted by Yankeerose00
So what would happen? I guess I see the US slaughterhouses opening like I see animal shelters. I HATE that there is even a need for them. I HATE that owners are so irresponsible and uncaring with their pets. I HATE the idea of animals being killed because nobody wants them. But aside from education, and cracking down on breeding, that still leaves us with the issue of what would become of these animals? What would happen to dogs and cats if shelters shut their doors? A lot would end up on the street and we'd look like a 3rd world country.
What would happen to horses if slaughter ends in the US, Canada and Mexico?
There is a major difference between house pets and horses, and much of the problems associated with stray dogs and cats are uncontrolled breeding of these animals turned loose. We don't have the same situation with horses, and trying to apply the logic of dealing with one as relative to the other is a gross rationalization.
Horses are fairly large animals that are unlikely to be found in apartments and homes in the traditional types we see today with 1/10th acre lots. You could easily apply a local standard property tax fee for equine use for those who wish to keep horses on property, which could be deductible upon documentation of compliance with local ordinances, insurance compliance, etc.
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Originally Posted by Yankeerose00
There are no horse shelters. If a horse is old, sick or foundered and can't be ridden, it's hard to find a home for it.
I don't mean this snarky. I'm honestly looking for a real solution. What is the alternative if there is no longer a market for horse meat? I'm thinking a lot of horses will be abandoned even more than happens now. But maybe I'm wrong and I'm missing an obvious solution.
The anti slaughter people I know say that we need more education and tougher animal cruelty laws. I agree. But I don't see that solving 100% of the problem.
You know, I am personally a constitutionalist type who breaks out in hives at the mention of "regulations and government control" ... however, I also understand that in order to ensure liberty for all, poor, irresponsible behavior needs to be dealt with.
As an example, my immediate gut reaction to the idea of imposing bans on cell phone use while driving an automobile seems utterly intrusive, and highly undesirable, from an individual rights perspective. Then, I drive down the highway and see these drooling morons with cell phones literally becoming an attached appendage growing out of the sides of their heads ... slowing to a crawl, drifting into adjacent lanes and becoming a total nuisance, if not a dangerous hazard, and I'm forced to conclude that it only takes one turd in the punch bowl to ruin it for everyone, and therefore, you need to prohibit turds from swimming in punch bowls.
So, while applying tough regulations on those that wish to keep horses will no doubt burden good animal stewards who automatically do the right things and attend to their animals properly ... there seems to be enough of a problem that these types of measures are required, for the sake of the animals who find themselves unfortunately in the care of callous idiots.
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Originally Posted by Yankeerose00
I don't care about who is making money. I care about the animals. Until I got into the horse world a few years ago, I had no idea how bad the unwanted and abused horse problem was. I thought horses were toys for rich people. Boy was I wrong.
You have to consider the money factor ... because it is those who's only motive is money are the most likely to be those treating the animals improperly or inhumanely. Those that run horse operations because of their love of the animals ... who enjoy the work of caring for them, training them, showing them, and using these animals for pleasure generally treat their animals with the respect they deserve.
What would be the most predictable source of inhumane treatment? Killer Buyers and Slaughter Houses. So the solution to attend to the inhumane treatment of horses is to put the fox in charge of the Chicken Coop?
Maybe it's just me ... but I think that's an idiotic idea at face value.
There is a long history of humanity consuming horse meat. Parts of Asia still do. While less common in Europe, many countries there have horse meat as part of their culture and cuisine.
It is actually common enough in several European nations,Italy,France especially.
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Unless you're a vegan / vegetarian, I really don't see what your opposition to horse meat in principle could possible be logically based upon.
I don't see that too much,most livestock is too valuable.Horses have become much less vauable due to the economy collapsing,and the banning of domestic slaughter.
The road to Hell....
That's the precise reason for the legislation. Not to ensure humane treatment of horses, but to commercialize their meat for consumption.
In western, civilized society, eating horse meat has never been widely accepted, which is why there is no English language term for it ... such that there are for Cattle. We don't say "cattle meat" or "cow meat" ... we say beef, veal, etc.
During times of famine and war, where food shortages were answered by using horse meat as a food source, this is the foundation for western use of horses for food. Dating back to the dark ages, many cultures used horses for food, but were considered heathens by the Christian Church, and even before that, the Jews were prohibited by the old testament from eating horses (and pigs), so the foundation for western civilization's avoidance of horses for food is a Judeao-Christian one. In what seems to be the ultimate irony, the seat of Christianity (Italy) is the largest consumer of horse meat in all of Europe, if not the entire world.
I cannot help but to believe the growing anti-religious segment of our society would embrace any practice that even appears to be an affront to Christian beliefs ... with consumption of horse meat just one more example, because as is well demonstrated in this thread alone ... we have a very large contingent of extremely juvenile behaviors and attitudes ... the overt flaming with pictures of horse meat and "recipes" being a classic example of childishness no doubt born from a liberal upbringing that didn't embrace a good whack on the rear end when needed to correct misbehavior and disrespectful attitudes.
More importantly, there are growing numbers succumbing to the deliberate dumbing down of society who will accept any situation, no matter how lacking in logic or morality ... who are being trained to promote their own self destruction by eliminating any thoughts of "right and wrong".
Everywhere you look, you see this attack on morality and consciousness, which is now celebrated by the useful idiots who have abandoned morality as an outdated concept, much to their own future destruction. Personally, I'm a meat eater, though over the past several years I've abstained from eating pork .... and it's probably safe to say that those who ascribe to vegetarianism are slightly more spiritually (not religiously) enlightened than I. But expanding the menu of animals to consume seems to be a move in the wrong direction, and those that embrace horse meat, and dog and cat, in my view, are devolving, not advancing.
It's incrementalism .... destroy the consciousness of society ... eliminate ideas of morality, and you've prepared that society for destruction by any immoral actions the destroyers choose to utilize.
You're being prepared .... prepared for a downgrade in your lifestyle by first downgrading your consciousness and ideas of moral conduct. First, it will be to train the heathens to gorge themselves on horse meat .... later ... "let them eat cake".
That's the precise reason for the legislation. Not to ensure humane treatment of horses, but to commercialize their meat for consumption.
It is already commercialised,hence the transport of horses to both Canada and Mexico.
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In western, civilized society, eating horse meat has never been widely accepted, which is why there is no English language term for it ... such that there are for Cattle. We don't say "cattle meat" or "cow meat" ... we say beef, veal, etc.
In English culture,it was not eaten.
In the rest of western European societies it was.
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During times of famine and war, where food shortages were answered by using horse meat as a food source, this is the foundation for western use of horses for food. Dating back to the dark ages, many cultures used horses for food, but were considered heathens by the Christian Church, and even before that, the Jews were prohibited by the old testament from eating horses (and pigs), so the foundation for western civilization's avoidance of horses for food is a Judeao-Christian one. In what seems to be the ultimate irony, the seat of Christianity (Italy) is the largest consumer of horse meat in all of Europe, if not the entire world.
This was due a lot to the usefulness of horses in war,not a purely religious reason.
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I cannot help but to believe the growing anti-religious segment of our society would embrace any practice that even appears to be an affront to Christian beliefs ... with consumption of horse meat just one more example, because as is well demonstrated in this thread alone ... we have a very large contingent of extremely juvenile behaviors and attitudes ... the overt flaming with pictures of horse meat and "recipes" being a classic example of childishness no doubt born from a liberal upbringing that didn't embrace a good whack on the rear end when needed to correct misbehavior and disrespectful attitudes.
I doubt it has anything to do with religion at all...
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More importantly, there are growing numbers succumbing to the deliberate dumbing down of society who will accept any situation, no matter how lacking in logic or morality ... who are being trained to promote their own self destruction by eliminating any thoughts of "right and wrong".
Actually I see the 'dumbing down' in those who place a horse as something 'sacred' and above other livestock,based almost totally on those people liking horses.
THAT is pretty...dumb.
And it is hypocritical.
A friend sent me an email lamenting, in BIG RED letters, about the signing of the bill to re-open slaughterhouses in the US. This is what I wrote back to him, and asked him to pass it along to the same group who emailed him with the initial email.
6 years ago, PETA and the HSUS lobbied for a ban on slaughterhouses for horses - and got it.
Since the recession, people have been abandoning horses at a prodigious rate. Horses are expensive to put down by a vet, and most people can't afford to do even that. Simply turning them loose into the wild means that these animals often stray onto cattle lands, grasslands, etc. They come into ranches and farms and eat the grass and alfalfa meant for not only grazing of beef animals, but for haymowing. Understand please that horses do not graze as cattle do, but eat down to the roots, killing the grasslands, acre by acre. It is why I only have one horse, yet 7 cows, on 60 acres - the cows, moved from pasture to pasture, do not overgraze as the horse does.
The 'wild and free' animals spread diseases. They are often victims of everything from bots and worms to mange and other diseases - and they spread these diseases as well. Coyotes, wolves, and mountain lions hunt them. They fall down ravines and break their legs, lying there helplessly. Since the ban, literally thousands of wild and once-tame horses are now wandering this country, uncaught. If you shoot a stray horse on your property, you have to dispose of it - and it isn't like burying the family pet; you need a backhoe.
Now, let me explain something else to you and your friends (because I hope that you pass this on). Back in the late 80's -90's, there was a drug put on the market called Premarin. It was made from pregnant horse urine. Thousands of get-rich-quick folks bought bits of property, populated them with female horses, and put a stud in with them to keep the flow of pregnant horse urine coming for this drug. Um - the drug was found to be hazardous and was banned. So thousands of mares with thousands of colts suddenly were of no more use for the pharmacutical industry - and there was no place to dispose of them after the ban. Thousands of horses that were not adopted and could not be destroyed have added to the damage of lands both private and public.
So please - before you start talking about "forever homes" for horses, or thinking that the ban was a GREAT idea and should be reinstated, please understand this - many people who adopt a horse not only have nowhere decent to put it, but have no idea that it needs medications to keep away diseases and parasites, it needs its teeth floated so that it can still chew, it needs its hoofs trimmed so that they don't split and cause crippling injuries, it needs constant attention so that it doesn't become wild and unrideable. Most horsemeat in the US previously sent to slaughter was sold overseas; you cannot sell horsemeat without labeling it as such. This hysteria is reprehensible by those who not only don't understand what, all too often, happens to horses during their lives - but who don'tactually care that Black Beauty or Fury or those wonderful paintings and depictions of the 'wild and free' herds are simply glorious super-emotionalized fiction, without the cold hard and bitter truth of the horrors these animals often suffer. I have friends who work in horse rescue, and not even they can make a dent in the wild and abused populations of these animals. My own horse was adopted from a riding stable in MN that went underwater from the recession - a beautiful and proud creature who, had I not adopted her, would have been let loose to wander and fend for herself. I cannot save them all, but I could -and did - save one. How many people posting and reposting this email have even done that much?
Please let your friends know that the REAL horror was perpetrated by PETA and HSUS six years ago - the lifting of this ban will make the horror less.
BTW, Gracie may be the only horse in our pasture, but she is the self-established protector of all of the cows and calves. She herds them into the corral and barns when coyotes howl or bad weather threatens, and she puts up with no BS from anyone - including the bull. She is our cowherd's Mom, and they and we all know it.
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... however, I also understand that in order to ensure liberty for all, poor, irresponsible behavior needs to be dealt with.
