The American Horse has become India's Sacred Cow, for horse slaughter opponents this is their religion. They are religious fanatics pushing their beliefs off on all of us. This is such a hypocritical group, they scream about horses, while eating hamburgers. But this is typical of these people, they probably don't know where beef, pork, chicken or fish come from. They probably think that it comes from the grocery store.
I have not eaten horsemeat to my knowledge but I have sampled many other types of exotic meats. I will usually eat anything that does not eat me first. It is my understanding that years ago, horse-meat was served here in the US as beef and in hamburger to give the hamburger more flavor.
I found the article listed below interesting, this man has eaten Carne Di Cavallo and Cheval in both Italy and Canada, and says that it is slightly sweeter than beef, lower in fat and higher in protein, both satisfying and healthy.
The article also says that England has no laws against horse meat but is prejudice against it. Prejudice is the key word here, why are there so many horse rescues in this country and no cattle rescues or hog rescues?
Go ahead. Take a bite - National Post
Don't judge me by today's blog unless you have read my other blog about horse slaughter. I do not want to see horses mistreated in any way, but neither do I want their value to be so low that people can just let them die without worrying about how much money they are loosing or because they can't sell them anyway.
I have been getting emails applauding my stand on horse slaughter because it is obvious that the answer to the overcrowded horse rescues that we are reading about everyday, is U.S. regulated, humane packing plants. The Humane Society kills dogs and cats everyday but doesn't want horses killed, this is the height of hypocrisy.
They say they want us to put our unwanted horses down humanely, I guess that means with a lethal injection. Do we really want to introduce all of that toxic meat into our soil and landfills? This is just so ridiculous to me when the meat is useful to other living creatures.
The animal rights people, the Humane Society, Politicians and Celebrities have succeeded in destroying the Horse industry by turning the Horse into a liability instead of an asset. Horses are the ones that suffer when they have no value.
I have read many articles about this subject and have seen the comments left by people who just love horses, many of whom have never even owned one. The professional animal rights people say that all of the articles about rescues refusing horses because they are full and horses starving on farms where people can't sell them and can't afford to feed them, stories about horses being dumped on public land to fend for themselves, is just propaganda.
Well, it is true, they are suffering. You don't have to go far to find someone desperate for hay in our area and if they can find it, they can't afford it. There are articles everyday in papers all over the U.S. about struggling rescues, starving horses and horses dumped on federal land. So I guess the news media is all a part of a big conspiracy to make this look like it isn't working, but the truth is it just isn't working.
We need to reopen the packing plants without any stigma attached. Animal rights people, the Inhumane Society, Politicians and Celebrities need to mind their own business, quit trying to make their religion the nation's religion, and quit putting this enormous burden on horse rescues and horse owners. Horses have done just fine without their help for many years, they are not an endangered species.
If you think that this will end with horses, you are mistaken, we are just a step away from becoming a nation of vegans.
18 comments:
We are not religious fanatics. It is the pro slaughter folks that keep bringing religion into the discussion. The difference with the livestock you mention is that they are accepted as food animals in the US. Horses are not. If the Europeans want to eat horses, they can eat their own. That’s their culture. It doesn’t make them bad or wrong but it’s not our culture.
Imagine how welcome the US would be if we set up kill houses in India to butcher their cows and send the meat to the US.
One definition of Religion is: A cause, principle, or activity pursued with zeal or conscientious devotion.
Your explanation of the difference in livestock does not make sense to me or to PETA. Who is it that decides which animals are permissible to eat and which are not?
India does export their beef to other countries or at least tries to, their cattle population has become so diseased that no one wants it. In areas where it is illegal to kill cows, it is legal to eat your cow if it is accidentally killed. so many people accidentally kill their cows.
However, cattle slaughter is not illegal in the entire country that could possibly mean that those who won't allow beef processing do not push their beliefs off on others.
You do not offer a solution to this problem in your comment. The only reason that I can assume that you are against horse processing for humane consumption is cultural reasons.
Are you against horse slaughter for animal consumption? Or would slaughterhouses be alright with you if they were U.S. owned and operated?
If there is so many horse rescues that are full and people can't afford to feed their horses, than maybe they shouldn't allow their horses to breed. Instead of everyone and their brother trying to breed their mares, maybe they should just take a rest for awhile. If people continue to breed their mares every year, are they really making the situation any better with new foals to feed? Sure the foals nurse for awhile, but they do eventually grow into adult horses that require grass, hay and grain.
You can eat your horses if you want to, but what's next, dogs?
I don't have to bear the burden of proving that rescues are overcrowded and horses are starving, if anyone knows how to use the Google search engine they can do the research and find out for themselves. In Arizona the owner of one rescue was turning horses away unless they needed critical attention. So people that have healthy horses there and nothing to do with them are turning them loose in the desert.
I don't think everybody and their brother are breeding their mares. Most people do not even know how to foal out a mare and don't want to be bothered with it. You are just hearing some more of that propaganda that I was talking about earlier.
I read an article about horses being an indicator of the economy, when the economy is good and people are making a good income, then they buy a house with a few acres and put a few horses on it to dress it up or they buy their little girls some horses and stable them.
This creates a good market for horses as their value goes up because of demand. We saw this happen a few years back when everyone wanted to quit their day jobs and become horse breeders.
Then the economy went south, people started losing their jobs. The horse market was flooded, so the price of horses started going down. Horse owners started dumping their horses because they could no longer afford to feed a family and a couple of horses. They sold them cheaply because they were desperate.
Then the get-rich-quick horse breeders started dumping there breeding stock for a little bit of nothing. Add to all this the drought of 2006-2007, rising grain and hay prices and the closing of the processing plants and you get horses being transported many, many miles to unregulated death.
The horse industry would have eventually recovered if it had not been for the timing of the U.S. plant closings. I think that the animal rights people have a lot of apologizing to do to those horses being taken across the borders. It was not like they were not warned that this would happen.
So you have failed to convince me that U.S. owned and regulated processing plants are the not the answer.
On the dog issue, the saddest place to go is to the humane society, there is nothing humane about it, they cage those poor animals on damp concrete and they wait to die. If someone wants to eat them, I don't have a problem with it. Who are we to judge what a person eats, as long as it isn't other human beings and as long as they aren't eating my dog, I will mind my own business.
Dogs, Cats, Horses, Pigs, Chickens, Mice, Rats, Flys, Cockroaches, Lice, Cattle, Lions, Tigers, Bears, etc...are not people they don't think like people, they don't have souls like people, they don't worry like people and if given a chance some of them would eat people.
spinner, I am against horse slaughter for any reason. Livestock are slaughtered for food. Horses are not raised or bred as food animals in the US but as sport, companion and work animals. Americans are overwhelmingly against horse slaughter and it was never more evident than when the ridiculous bill SD was trying to pass was shot down before the ink was dry. The rescues wouldn’t be overloaded if they weren’t rescuing horses from the meat men. They wouldn’t be overloaded if owners would take responsibility for their animals. The rescues wouldn’t be overloaded if people would stop breeding and breeding and breeding and dumping every foal that isn’t the next Barbaro. These are the people that are pro slaughter and are upset that the kill houses are closed. Why should it be someone else’s responsibility to care for animals that they made a conscious decision to own? If you’d do a bit of research, you would discover that 96% of the horses going to slaughter are fit and sound. The meat men don’t want neglected or starving horses.
Your compassion is overwhelming. You would send a horse that has worked for you or been a companion for years to slaughter? You would send an ill or lame horse hundreds of miles on a packed trailer, with no food or water to be vivisected alive? Is that how you repay your horse?
Every winter uncaring horse owners unload their horses because of the seasonally high cost of feed. They sell in the winter and buy new horses in the spring. Perhaps if they only owned what they could afford to care for year-round, they wouldn’t find themselves in trouble every winter.
The kill buyers are outbidding others for the horses. That means someone else wanted the horse. If they were unwanted, the kill houses wouldn’t have to pay for them. If there are all these abandoned horses, why aren’t the meat men just rounding ‘em up? Slaughter is still very much alive so your comments don’t hold water. These horses could be going to slaughter but they’re not. Why? All the agencies that report data on abuse, neglect and abandonment have said there has not been an increase since the kill houses shut down. We have investigated article after article and none of the stories could be verified by the state agencies, humane organizations or local authorities. The pro groups have hired PR firms to pump out these stories. I’m not saying it’s not happening at all but it certainly isn’t to the dramatic proportions they would lead you to believe. They thrive on using scare tactics and when one doesn’t work, they go on to the next. If slaughter was the answer, how do you explain all the cases of abuse, neglect and abandonment when the domestic kill houses were open? It’s because there is no correlation between slaughter and abandonment/neglect. Those people will do it whether there is slaughter available or not. Slaughter counts have dropped from over 400,000 down to 100,000. Where have all those horses gone? How do you explain that we were able to absorb all those horses every year? Why weren’t people screaming that not enough horses were being slaughtered each year? Perhaps it is because the number of horses slaughtered each year is driven by the European demand and NOT the supply of horses available. You know, the supply and demand theory.
Slaughter has been around for over 20 years. If it was the answer, don’t you think we would have slaughtered our way out of it by now? Tell us how many more years of slaughter are needed before owners take responsibility for their horses?
Spinner - You've based your judgement on misinformation, and your mind is closed to the truth so I won't waste my time.. But here's a fact you can't get away from: people like you, ie people who have no problem eating dogs and horses, are the minority in the US. The majority of people in the US, whether they eat cows or not, don't want horse slaughterhouses or dog slaughter houses in the US!
This is a lot to respond to but I will try.
I get my information from two sources, the internet and real life. I am not visiting blogs, message boards or other unreliable websites for someone's personal opinions.
I am reading newspaper articles from around the country and seeing quotes from rescue owners. If you wish to call this misinformation then there is no reason to continue this debate.
I just cannot believe that so many rescues and newpapers would be doing the work of PR firms and who are these people that are hiring these PR firms, where are you getting your information?
I have been at horse auctions where no killer buyers were present and there were no bids at all on most of the horses and the very few horses that did sell sold for $25 to $200.
At sales where killer buyers were present every horse got a bid and their pens took 95% of the horses, lame, skinny, half blind, it didn't matter except in the price.
Most sellers were happy to get a bid. Not one time did I see a killer buyer bid against a legitimate bidder, they only bid against the other killer buyers.
The most expensive horse that a killer buyer bought that day was $385, so their bids did not prevent anyone that wanted to buy a horse from doing so. As a matter of fact, they would give a starting bid on a horse and if someone else started bidding they would stop.
They only took the unwanted. Maybe the killer buyers in our area are just nicer than in other areas or maybe they are scared of repercussions. But many of them have families, so maybe they are somewhat human.
I agree with you 100% about people taking responsibility for their animals, when I get an animal it is a lifetime commitment, so I don't do it without a lot of thought. All of my dogs die of old age.
We currently have six horses over the age of 20, some with arthritis and some with other faults that would make them unmarketable. They are fed more than the young and healthy. We have rescued several horses ourselves, so please do not make any assumptions about me.
I live in the real world and I personally know three different families that love puppies, they don't like dogs, just puppies.
This is very disturbing to me. I see them pay large sums of money for pups then as soon as they are adults they give them away, dump them or have them put down and get a new pup of a different breed.
This is terrible but it happens, since I know three different families like this, I am sure the world is full of them.
This type of thing happens with horses also, but in a different way. Inexperienced people buy a horse, they don't know how to deal with it, it gets the upper hand and becomes unmanageable and they have to get rid of it because it has become a danger. They will continue to buy horses looking for the perfect horse, when the problem lies with them.
What becomes of these horses if they have no value, no one is going to take the time to retrain a horse that someone has ruined, it is too easy and affordable to buy one whose mind hasn't been messed with.
You are not going to stop the breeding of dogs as long as you have puppy lovers.
You are not going to stop horse breeding as long as you have racing, showing, trail riding and other horse sports. But horses live a long time compared to dogs and we allow dogs to be put down daily.
Your statement about "Slaughter has been around for over 20 years. If it was the answer, don’t you think we would have slaughtered our way out of it by now? Tell us how many more years of slaughter are needed before owners take responsibility for their horses?"
Some owners will never take responsibility, but you could never convince them of that. Many owners starve their horses and would never consider selling them because they are afraid they would go to slaughter and even brag about rescuing horses.
The value of horses didn't start going down until the this whole closing of slaughterhouses issue came to the forefront. Just like any other commodity, stocks prices rise and fall with rumors.
To people who raise horses as a tax shelter, closing the slaughterhouses is a good thing, it may be those people who are behind it all, follow the money. Horses lose their value, they show a loss.
As to my mind being closed to truth. I think that you are only basing your argument on emotion and not on common sense. If my mind were closed, I would not even post your comments on my blog.
spinner, the market went down when the hay shortage became an issue. That’s when all those wild articles started surfacing but attributed the downturn to the kill houses being closed. I have friends that own rescues across the country and they’re all saying the same thing. Here is a link with the facts from a sampling of the articles that have been investigated. http://www.commonhorsesense.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=25&Itemid=53 If you’ll notice, most of the articles don’t have sources that can be verified. It’s a friend saw or I heard. We are investigating but obviously don’t have the manpower to investigate every article. Here are a few other links. http://www.hr857.com/kyarticle.htm http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/01/hay_shortage_drives_up_prices.html http://www.whisperingwindsequinerescue.com/runforyourlives.htm This one is interesting – the same claims from March of 2007 when the kill houses were open!! http://www.horsesring.com/forums/general-discussions/2950-humane-society-refutes-horse-abandonment-claims.html
You bring up valid points and we all agree, it’s all about responsible ownership. I believe that nothing will change as long as the incentive for slaughter exists. Millions of horses have paid with their lives since 1985 (first year I have with stats) and the cycle will continue unless we end it. No, it’s not going to be eutopia but perhaps if the irresponsible breeders and owners can’t get paid for their mistakes, they’ll think twice before buying or bring another horse into the world.
I totally agree with this-
"No, it’s not going to be eutopia but perhaps if the irresponsible breeders and owners can’t get paid for their mistakes, they’ll think twice before buying or bring another horse into the world."
To anonymous - From your first sentence I must disagree, "the market went down when the hay shortage became an issue." We and many of our friends have been trying to trim down our herds for the last three years. The market tanked before hay was an issue. We all refused to sell at auction, and have tried to find good homes for good horses.
Many of our friends just sucked it up and gave them away at auction or sold them online for $100 to $200 each. These were horses that had been purchased for around the $1500 - $3000 range with good breeding.
In order to try to keep the market stable, people started selling by Private Treaty, so they didn't advertise the low prices that they were willing to take to a good home.
We have a good old AQHA mare here that we tried our best to give away before winter and couldn't do it. She is sound and healthy and has been a 4-H horse and handled by kids all of her life, but she is old and sway-backed and no one wants her. To be honest with you the type of people who would take her wouldn't have a clue how to care of her.
I read all of the links that you gave me and they were all a "he said", "she said", type of thing. I can't rely on someone's emotional opinions, anyone can post any amount of statistics online or in print, isn't that exactly the point that these links you gave me are trying to make.
I do know what I see and my own personal experience. I would think that the news media would get it right. But if you want to argue with me about the news media being bias, I would probably have to concede on that point most of the time. I just can't believe that they would side with the pro-choice people instead of the animal rights people, that just doesn't seem natural.
You said that, "All the agencies that report data on abuse, neglect and abandonment have said there has not been an increase since the kill houses shut down." This may be true but that is not what the news is saying.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0205horses0205.html
The above Arizona article is very anti-slaughter but they say they are turning away healthy horses and that horses are being abandoned in the wild. It says that there were 454 horses captured that had been abandoned on public and private lands in 2006 and 528 in 2007. They also say that they expect it to get worse before it gets better. I am putting these numbers here before they disappear.
This article has actually been changed since I first read it because it did talk about the where the horses were being abandoned, with quotes about the desert conditions. I have read many articles lately about this subject that have been changed, I suppose someone is advising them to change their wording because the Pro people might use it against them.
This all puts the rescues in a sad situation when they can't go public with their problems to generate some revenue because they don't want anyone to know they are full.
Another big discrepancy in your argument is the 96% of horses that are going to slaughter are healthy and sound. I know that I have already mentioned that this is not what I have seen at auctions. But what I am seeing in some of the anti-slaughter articles and posts, is that these poor horses are being transported for many, many miles without food or water, many of them are thin and lame. This doesn't make sense to me as most killer buyers put these horses in a feedlot before shipping them, to get as much money per lb. as possible.
I hope things get better because rather than dump our horses we are investing more money into them in training this winter. You cannot imagine how much money we have in these horses and we don't take them off of our taxes. We have depleted our savings feeding them and training them this year. Only to have potential buyers tell us that they can buy a horse like that at auction for a couple hundred bucks.
To Pro-choice - Only the rich and powerful like Toby Keith and the Sheiks who raise race horses.
Pro-choice- apparently you don't know a thing about computers or the internet because you can see on the counter at the bottom of the blog that no one that has left a comment is from China. I believe that killing babies is horrible and I am totally against abortion/pro-choice, I guess you could say that I think maybe the government should have their hands in a lot of things. Too many stupid people can't make good choices on their own and it ends up hurting everyone (unborn babies, children, dogs, horses, etc...) but themselves.
Not sure what you mean by the articles were he said/she said. John Holland’s report was the result of an investigation. He called local authorities, state officials and humane organizations. He provided his sources and their answers. Surely the state officials that know what is going on their towns are not he said/she said. The link on the McMurray article was verified by the governor of Kentucky. How do you classify that as he said/she said. I even have a letter from him stating that the information in the article was false.
The he said/she said are all the articles that speak of abandoned horses and don’t give any information – sources, state, county. They’re about as reliable as UFO sightings! Some have even gone as far as giving names and when you call them, they don’t know anything about it. We investigate, provide the information from the source and it is dismissed and out comes the next article. Scare tactics are the MO for pro folks. And gullible people would rather believe the UFO sightings. I’m not saying they’re all false but if they want people to believe them, then they should be reported so they’re recorded. We can only go by what information we can get from the agencies and officials that report the data. If it’s not reported and documented, it’s hearsay. Thus far, most of the articles have been hearsay.
Pro-choice, another typical pro slaughter response - bring abortion into the horse issue. Where are you getting that only the rich and powerful should raise horses? Most horse owners are not rich but they are responsible. They know what it costs to care for a horse and won’t own (or breed) more than they can care for. That’s not being rich, that is being a responsible owner.
Perhaps we should just send all of the stupid people to slaughter houses then the intelligent people can rule the world and you can have your utopia.
Answer this question for me because I am having a hard time following your train of thought, it is all sounding contradictory. Do you think that closing slaughter houses will end abandonment and neglect?
No, I don’t think it will end abandonment but history has proved that abandonment doesn’t increase with the kill houses closed. There were just as many cases of abuse/neglect and abandonment when the domestic slaughter houses were open. You can see it happening now. If there are all these abandoned horses, why aren’t they going to slaughter? Slaughter is still available. The people that abandon their animals will do so with or without the availability of slaughter.
I never said it would be utopia but to use the argument of people abandoning their horses as a reason to have slaughter, doesn’t hold water. There is a study available by John Holland (A Study of the Relationship between Horse Slaughter and Reported Cases of Abuse and Neglect) that proved the reported cases actually decreased when Cavel burned down in 2002. No, It didn’t end abuse/neglect or abandonment but the number of reported cases did not increase. The same holds true in CA when they passed the ban in addition to a decrease of 39% of horse thefts. I don’t recall if Mr. Holland’s study on Cavel addressed horse thefts.
1. Do you believe that closing the plants had any impact on the value of horses?
2. Do you believe that the value of horses has any impact on the number of neglect and abandonment cases?
spinner, I do not believe closing the plants has an impact. Surely, we are not letting France and Belgium dictate the value of our horses. I think the hay shortage and cost of what’s available has a much greater impact as does the economy. If you are struggling to make ends meet, you are not going to buy more horses so of course, if there aren’t buyers, the value goes down. The people that will suffer when slaughter isn’t available are those that over breed. They can now send their mistakes to slaughter and breed more. And the cycle continues.
No, I do not think the value has anything to do with neglect and abandonment. As an example, Taylor’s Special who earned over $1M, was found abandoned on a farm in 2004 or 2005, when the kill houses were open. I’m sure there are numerous reasons that owners abandon their animals – they can’t afford them, didn’t realize what they were getting into with horse ownership, they just don’t care or they’re not playing with a full deck. It’s the same mindset as people that abuse and/or hoard animals. It has nothing to do with their value and nothing to do with the availability of slaughter.
You start out by saying that you do not believe closing the plants has an impact but we have experienced that impact.
The price of horses did not drop because of hay or grain prices last spring, no one had a crystal ball that said we were going to have a widespread drought or that the economy was going to get bad.
They started spiraling with all the talk of the Illinois plant closing, it doesn't matter if killer buyers are still buying and shipping.
The prices are effected by rumors just like the stock market is. The killer buyers are the winners here, they can make a lot of money off of horse owner's losses.
If you are speaking truth to me then the market will recover in the Spring with the green grass and all will be well.
You will have to be prepared for another angle if hay and grain prices fall this year.
While I am neither a horse owner nor rider, I am an omnivore and I have little understanding what differentiates horse meat from—for example—pork. Both are prohibited according to the Abrahamic religions' texts (Leviticus 11,7-8; Deuteronomy 14,8; Qur'an 16:115). Likewise, both are kept by many as companions (sometimes as sport). The commercial breeding and slaughter of pigs, however, is much more abhorrent than that of horses. The only reason I can imagine why so many in the US are opposed to human consumption of horse meat is because, in many cases, horses have a close relationship with humans. Many in the US keep pigs, guinea pigs, rabbits, and birds as pets, yet their consumption is perfectly legal and carries with it no stigma. Why is this?
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