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Has anyone heard the story about hundreds of abandoned horses living on an old strip mine area in KY? Any truth to it?
Guy down the street boards 80+ horses. Told me the other year that since the ethanol subsidy went in, the price of corn almost doubled for him. Used to cost him $530 to fill his corn silo, but it was at $900 when we talked. He's the one who told me about abandoned horses that were taken out into the boonies on the prairie east of the Front Range in Colorado and simply turned out loose, and he also told me that KY strip mine story. He's in the business, figgered he knew rightly.
Horse rescue places here are said to be full.
Horses are beautiful, we love to watch the ones running around the big field behind us, but at the end of the day, they still are livestock. Bison, elk, and longhorns are beautiful too, but we eat all of those critters. Why not horses.
I remember writing a post on another poster stating that horse slaughter i the US shouldn't be banned for this very reason, and got thoroughly BASHED by people thinking I was pro-animal abuse. right, so it's not animal abuse to have these horses shipped to Canada and Mexico, where most of them are DOA? horse overpopulation was a major issue even when horse slaughter was legal, even before the recession. now the problem is even worse b/c of the ban and the recession. people who are losing their homes are being forced to give up their horses. people who can't afford to feed their horses (and grain/hay have risen sharply in price) are given up their horses. and these horses have few places to go b/c horse rescues are FULL and the number of suitable homes for horses are low. and the horse overpopulation is NOTHING like the dog and cat overpopulation! someone looking to adopt a single cat can easily take in another, it's not going to cost much more. ditto w/ a dog, though it costs a bit more to care for two dogs compared to caring for 2 cats. most people that can care for one horse can't afford to take of two.
sadly, humanely euthanizing horses is EXPENSIVE! vets don't put animals to sleep for free, you know. then there's the costs of body removal and burial. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the costs to put a horse to sleep and bury it exceeded the initial cost of the horse itself! one article I read even stated there was no more ROOM to bury the dead horses! there are already reports of horses being abandoned, being hit by cars, starving to death, or being shot but not being killed immediately and just dying a slow death.
I'm not "in the know" about horse slaughter like muleskinner is, but to me, it just seemed like blatant common sense that, upon the ban, these animals would have to be shipped greater distances to Canada and Mexico. now, if the ban had also banned horse transport to Canada/Mexico, along w/ better provisions on what to do w/ the remaining horses (ie, cheaper euthanasia costs, public funding for horse rescues, etc), I would have likely been more for the ban. but none of those things happened. so now there are all these horses, many that won't even make decent pets or can't be ridden, that, in one way or another, are suffering, starving, and dying b/c people didn't think this ban out clearly.
honestly, IMO, there should be a complete halt on horse breeding on all fronts, including for horse racing and mounted police, until the current population can be dealt with, but I know that's unlikely to happen
I remember writing a post on another poster stating that horse slaughter i the US shouldn't be banned for this very reason, and got thoroughly BASHED by people thinking I was pro-animal abuse. right, so it's not animal abuse to have these horses shipped to Canada and Mexico, where most of them are DOA?
horse overpopulation was a major issue even when horse slaughter was legal, even before the recession. now the problem is even worse b/c of the ban and the recession.
people who are losing their homes are being forced to give up their horses. people who can't afford to feed their horses (and grain/hay have risen sharply in price) are given up their horses.
and these horses have few places to go b/c horse rescues are FULL and the number of suitable homes for horses are low.
and the horse overpopulation is NOTHING like the dog and cat overpopulation! someone looking to adopt a single cat can easily take in another, it's not going to cost much more.
ditto w/ a dog, though it costs a bit more to care for two dogs compared to caring for 2 cats.
most people that can care for one horse can't afford to take of two.
sadly, humanely euthanizing horses is EXPENSIVE! vets don't put animals to sleep for free, you know.
then there's the costs of body removal and burial. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the costs to put a horse to sleep and bury it exceeded the initial cost of the horse itself!
one article I read even stated there was no more ROOM to bury the dead horses!
there are already reports of horses being abandoned, being hit by cars, starving to death, or being shot but not being killed immediately and just dying a slow death.
I'm not "in the know" about horse slaughter like muleskinner is, but to me, it just seemed like blatant common sense that, upon the ban, these animals would have to be shipped greater distances to Canada and Mexico.
now, if the ban had also banned horse transport to Canada/Mexico,
along w/ better provisions on what to do w/ the remaining horses (ie, cheaper euthanasia costs, public funding for horse rescues, etc),
I would have likely been more for the ban.
but none of those things happened.
so now there are all these horses, many that won't even make decent pets or can't be ridden, that, in one way or another, are suffering, starving, and dying b/c people didn't think this ban out clearly.
honestly, IMO, there should be a complete halt on horse breeding on all fronts, including for horse racing and mounted police, until the current population can be dealt with, but I know that's unlikely to happen
.....................
The economy is mainly to blame. Diesel prices pushed up the cost of hay. Farmers growing corn in hopes for the money it was suppose to put in their pocket was squashed when fertilizer went through the roof this past year. Farmers around me have re-planted alfalfa but takes a few seasons to re-establish for a good yield. Because there became a hay shortage.
Backyard breeders breeding just because they can and selling 200.00 horses with bad conformation is allot of the problem too. Horses that are trained, conformationaly correct with good breeding are still selling well at a lower price unless they are big buck winners in reining, cutting etc.
In Canada there are still neglect cases and they still have slaughter. Slaughter is not the answer the market will level out.
BYB will get out of the business as their horses now have no value, big breeding farms hopefully will not breed 50+ mares a season.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,076,944 times
Reputation: 3937
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike from back east
Has anyone heard the story about hundreds of abandoned horses living on an old strip mine area in KY? Any truth to it?
Guy down the street boards 80+ horses. Told me the other year that since the ethanol subsidy went in, the price of corn almost doubled for him. Used to cost him $530 to fill his corn silo, but it was at $900 when we talked. He's the one who told me about abandoned horses that were taken out into the boonies on the prairie east of the Front Range in Colorado and simply turned out loose, and he also told me that KY strip mine story. He's in the business, figgered he knew rightly.
Horse rescue places here are said to be full.
Horses are beautiful, we love to watch the ones running around the big field behind us, but at the end of the day, they still are livestock. Bison, elk, and longhorns are beautiful too, but we eat all of those critters. Why not horses.
I haven't heard the Ky strip mine story yet,but it very easily could be true.The year before last I wintered four mules,one donkey and a yearling filly AQHA quarterhorse that we'd had since she was born....round bales were running $15 to $20 DELIVERED so I didn't even cut hay the following summer and boy was that a mistake....by fall it was $75 for crappy round bales that were moldy IF you could find them and the guys who had them were so arrogant that you would have to make an appointment just to talk to them dang near it...the fields I usually cut were so thin that a 56 acre spot that used to lay out 3 round bales per acre per cutting on a bad year produced 1 bale FOR THE YEAR per acre.....I watched registered quarter horses that would spin on a dime,papers out the wazoo and looking fat and sassy bring $250 a piece BY THE DOZENS every sale (keep in mind that was just late fall and we hadn't even hit winter yet) and the same time the previous year you couldn't have bought the worst of the lot for less than $2500.00....By midwinter they were GIVING them away and you pay the auction fee.Along about the same time all of the horse traders like me were FULL to the brim with everything you could feed and more so when somebody called to GIVE you a good "grade"(unregistered) you couldn't have took it if it would've brought 10 grand come spring because you couldn't feed it.The result was folks who just had horses to rub on and feed started turning them out in the back country,next thing you know the horse traders who were overloaded were having to do the same thing to keep the horses from starving.....It was AWFUL....I was lucky and saw it coming and was able to bail out before it got nearly that bad for us (I knew it by the middle of hay season that we were in BAD trouble with no way out but to sell QUICK while we could still make a bit of a profit).
I had a guy that I had been dealing with for nearly a year on a 15 hand,real blocky 10 yo strawberry roan mule that was kid broke,had worked cattle and was about as good looking an animal as I have EVER seen call me and just about offer to give me that mule that winter...we had dealt forever and my last cash offer to him was nearly 15x what he ended up asking me for it and with a very heavy heart I had to turn him down because I couldn't feed it(if you guys knew me you would know that I REALLY loved that mule, because I'll offer you a price one time and if you don't take it I'll move on to the next one and make an offer,thats the way I do things)....anyway,I heard later from a reliable source that he gave it away to a dude down in Ky. and gave him the hay he had left to go with it which was down to a dozen or so square bales.The hay was worth more than the mule at that point.We've had bad years before,but the stock was always taken care of...I blame what happened soley on the do gooders who got the killer buyers locked out of the sales and shut the doors on the slaughter houses and as a result thousands of horses,mules,cows,goats and everything else suffered for that mistake.
I remember writing a post on another poster stating that horse slaughter i the US shouldn't be banned for this very reason, and got thoroughly BASHED by people thinking I was pro-animal abuse. right, so it's not animal abuse to have these horses shipped to Canada and Mexico, where most of them are DOA? horse overpopulation was a major issue even when horse slaughter was legal, even before the recession. now the problem is even worse b/c of the ban and the recession. people who are losing their homes are being forced to give up their horses. people who can't afford to feed their horses (and grain/hay have risen sharply in price) are given up their horses. and these horses have few places to go b/c horse rescues are FULL and the number of suitable homes for horses are low. and the horse overpopulation is NOTHING like the dog and cat overpopulation! someone looking to adopt a single cat can easily take in another, it's not going to cost much more. ditto w/ a dog, though it costs a bit more to care for two dogs compared to caring for 2 cats. most people that can care for one horse can't afford to take of two.
sadly, humanely euthanizing horses is EXPENSIVE! vets don't put animals to sleep for free, you know. then there's the costs of body removal and burial. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the costs to put a horse to sleep and bury it exceeded the initial cost of the horse itself! one article I read even stated there was no more ROOM to bury the dead horses! there are already reports of horses being abandoned, being hit by cars, starving to death, or being shot but not being killed immediately and just dying a slow death.
I'm not "in the know" about horse slaughter like muleskinner is, but to me, it just seemed like blatant common sense that, upon the ban, these animals would have to be shipped greater distances to Canada and Mexico. now, if the ban had also banned horse transport to Canada/Mexico, along w/ better provisions on what to do w/ the remaining horses (ie, cheaper euthanasia costs, public funding for horse rescues, etc), I would have likely been more for the ban. but none of those things happened. so now there are all these horses, many that won't even make decent pets or can't be ridden, that, in one way or another, are suffering, starving, and dying b/c people didn't think this ban out clearly.
honestly, IMO, there should be a complete halt on horse breeding on all fronts, including for horse racing and mounted police, until the current population can be dealt with, but I know that's unlikely to happen
The problem was not nearly as severe before the horse slaughter ban. Now it's at astronomical levels.
And a bullet to the head can be as humane as any other way of putting down a horse. Less than 50 cents. Obviously not everyone cares enough to do a good job at shot placement but it's a quick death if done right.
As others have pointed out, even if you choose to kill your own horse, legally, you still have to dispose of the corpse in a manner that complies with all the relevant environmental regulations. That usually means renting a backhoe and digging a trench, which is neither cheap or convenient.
People sometimes have the incorrect notion that if you set a horse "free," it will be "adopted" by a band of wild horses, then live out its days in some sort of cinematic fantasy. In reality, abandoned horses are violently rejected by wild horses - whose numbers are beyond the means of the land to begin with in many areas - and end up confused, injured, or sick, and then die of a combination of malnutrition and predator attacks.
The slaughterhouse route gave horse owners a means of avoiding outright horse abandonment. Once that route was shut down - by law rather than market demand - abandonment rocketed up. It was a very predictable outcome.
Location: Democratic Peoples Republic of Redneckistan
11,078 posts, read 15,076,944 times
Reputation: 3937
Quote:
Originally Posted by arctichomesteader
The problem was not nearly as severe before the horse slaughter ban. Now it's at astronomical levels.
And a bullet to the head can be as humane as any other way of putting down a horse. Less than 50 cents. Obviously not everyone cares enough to do a good job at shot placement but it's a quick death if done right.
I as much as told a few folks that who were talking about turning their horses out.I said "A 7mm mag is MUCH more humane than freezing to death due to starvation"(if a horse or mule doesn't have a decent food supply in a cold winter they will actually freeze to death before starvation takes place)....I think one of the problems are horse owners who have no business owning a horse in the first place.They are not easy to care for.....feed,water,trimming and if you ride them AT ALL you have to keep them shod etc etc etc and if you were like us with as many as we dealt with it was dang near a full time job that could eat up several hours a day.Most folks don't have a clue about horse/mule ownership responsibility.They can't help themselves and they count on YOU for everything and this is especially true of a horse,they are REALLY stupid compared to a mule.
As others have pointed out, even if you choose to kill your own horse, legally, you still have to dispose of the corpse in a manner that complies with all the relevant environmental regulations. That usually means renting a backhoe and digging a trench, which is neither cheap or convenient.
People sometimes have the incorrect notion that if you set a horse "free," it will be "adopted" by a band of wild horses, then live out its days in some sort of cinematic fantasy. In reality, abandoned horses are violently rejected by wild horses - whose numbers are beyond the means of the land to begin with in many areas - and end up confused, injured, or sick, and then die of a combination of malnutrition and predator attacks.
The slaughterhouse route gave horse owners a means of avoiding outright horse abandonment. Once that route was shut down - by law rather than market demand - abandonment rocketed up. It was a very predictable outcome.
You can get away with more out in the country, usually. Put a horse carcass out in/near the woods here and the coyotes (and some other critters) would be having a feast.
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