I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…

Yes, the economy is in the tank – or headed there but slaughter houses will not correct that. Responsible breeding and taking ownership of your animals is the answer. Without slaughter, owners will think twice before bringing more horses into the world. Your comments on breeding responsiblity are right on the mark! I hope someone fromthe AQHA read them.

As Dr Dan stated a simple use of a head squeeze would alliveate the repeated bolts that are shown in the widely circulated video. The are in use at cattle slaughter houses…. why not equine slaughter houses?

As a breeder it is a plain truth that when the Texas houses closed, the average priced dropped, when Cavelle was suspended and now closed the prices have dropped even further.
We breed 2 “rare” breed pony breeds as defined as breeds producing less the 3000 new registrations a year. Although artificial insemination is helpful in expanding the choices for a mare owner, it also makes it easier to breed irresponsibly. Also registries allowing cloning (AQHA) and those allowing multiple embryo transfers to be registered also are adding to the number of equines on the market.

The American Shetland Pony for example.. auction prices at breed auctions are an average of $150 for a yearling colt and $200 for a filly. At public auctions I have seen well bred ponies bid on at prices as low as $25 for decently aged stock that has some level of usability (broke to ride or drive)

The cost of gelding also puts too many stallions out in the general population in the hands of those that may be tempted to breed. I firmly believe that 80-90% of colts born need to be gelded. In Illinois where I live the average cost to geld is between $300-$700 depending on the vet….therefore I haul to Indiana where an excellent vet will geld, pull wolf teeth, and a coggins for under $225.

You would not believe the number of calls I get or offers of free ponies, that are rank, foundered, well into their old age past their useful lives or otherwise unwanted. I can not financially afford to “rescue” these animals as I have my own herd to feed and care for. Now if these were usable ponies I could find homes for them and perhaps even pay a litle for them. I refer the “freebies” to the rescue organizations as I have always taken back what I have bred if the owners could no longer afford to feed/care for their ponies and I know I can place them in homes again.

Personally I do not see why we do not eat horse meat, as it is higher in protien and iron and lower in cholosterol and fat then beef. (USDA website provided the comparison) When I was overseas I ate some horsemeat not knowing what it was until after I had eaten it. It was rather good. I was a little grossed out at first but nontheless it wasn’t bad.

I have had to have a couple of horses shot because they were suffering and I could not get a vet out to euthanize them, and I could not be present to witness it. I do however hold the horses when I have had the vet out to euthanize, as I did not want them to die in the hands of a stranger.

Breeding responsibly and limiting embryo transfers and banning cloning of equines would be a great start to bring the market back. I would reccomend that if you belong to a breed association that you read your rule book and if your association allows mulriple embryo transfers that you submit a rule change proposal to help limit the number of animals produced unnaturally, and alleviate the chances of shrinking the gene pool and concentrating genetic materials.

The economy on the whole is in the toilet right now and I believe that, with the hay shortage, has also driven down prices.

For the past several years, the kill houses have known the anti slaughter movement has been gaining momentum. They had every opportunity to make adjustments but did nothing. Since I live in Illinois, I’m most familiar with Cavel and will use them as an example. They were shut down several times this year. I believe it was after the second time they reopened when within a two week period, two foals were born on the kill house floor. Regulations do not allow late term pregnant mares to go to slaughter. The inspectors were paid by the kill houses and quite often, just turned away from blatant violations. We noted several times that a vet was not present during the slaughters. They were noted several times accepting double decker trailers full of horses. Double deckers were banned last December. The list goes on and on and nobody did anything. There was too much money at stake to take the time to be certain the horses were properly stunned. Most recently there was an accident with one of the trailers. It took several hours to drag it out of the ditch. Instead of inspecting the horses, the compassionate Tucker, moved the trailer to the front of the line and slaughtered them immediately. You know there had to be broken bones but there was no concern for the horses. Microchips were not checked for ownership – only removed because they tainted the meat. A friend of mine adopted a colt born to a mare that was rescued from Cavel one of the times they were shut down. The only horses to go to Cavel and walk out alive. The mare was blind (another violation). We recently did some fund raising to raise money to restore the sight in one eye so the mare could see her baby before he was sent to his permanent home with my friend. There are countless stories of how rescued horses have gone on to lead productive lives with caring owners proving once again, they are not all unwanted.

Tucker used to use the term processing but as of late, called it recycling. Recycling? The horses are no more valuable to society than a tin can or plastic bottle? It was all about money and greed. Cavel always stated their capacity was 500 per week. In their last several months, when they knew they were on their way out, they ramped up to 1,000 per week. Dare we even venture a guess of how many of those poor horses were “recycled” alive to keep up with the pace?

Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss this topic. I look forward to future blogs and discussions. You inject comments and thoughts, not to provoke but to promote discussion from all angles. This is a very volatile subject and hard to discuss without passion and emotion taking over. Your discussions are one of the very few that stay on topic and remain civil. For that, we thank you!

First of all, let me say you seem to have the right attitude about the issue. You have already noted that market forces will equalize the supply over the long term as the prices for loose horses drop. In fact, the whole auction class of loose horses will probably go away or be greatly diminished.

Let me put your mind at ease at what will happen over the short term. Last year I did a study and white paper on what happened when Cavel burned in 2002. At that time the plant was slaughtering about 40% of the horses killed in this country. When it burned the slaughter rate dropped by that much, but unlike this year the exports did not increase. In fact they decreased slightly. The plant stayed off line for just over two years.

My study looked at the Illinois Department of Agriculture figures for the number of cases of abuse and neglect over a six year period from 2000 through 2005 when the plant came back into production. During that time about 50,000 fewer horses were killed than would have died if the plant had remained in operation.

I looked for the relationship between the rate of change of slaughter and the rate of change of neglect. I did this calculation four ways, including year to year, abuse year to previous slaughter year, base year to year and finally on the basis of total accumulated unslaughtered horses. With all four methodologies, the relationship was a positive number and not a negative number. In other words, more slaughter brought more cases of abuse and neglect by a factor of from about one to three.

I have offered this study to the AVMA and The Horse. It has been rejected or ignored in all cases. In contrast, a letter is currently being circulated from the AVMA at this time begging for anyone who has data showing an increase in abuse and neglect to provide them with that data.

Note that they are not asking simply for data, but only for data that would prove abuse and neglect has gone up somewhere besides Georgia which is in one of its worst droughts in living memory. Even if they find figures that appear to substantiate this, it will be meaningless since slaughter has dropped less than 16% when exports are factored in (compared to the 40% drop in my study).

With my study and years of other statistics available, the fact that the AVMA is still fishing for figures that fit their claims speaks to their motives. They know all this, they just don’t want the public and more importantly the Congress to know it.

With this underhanded action, the AVMA has gone from promoting unsubstantiated theories to actively trying to distort the evidence. It is just another dirty little secret about horse slaughter. The VEW letter hit it right on the nose!

Unfortunately that is not always the case and people are irresponsible and animals do suffer because of that and my heart goes out to them.

Remember my heart is with yours as I believe horses should not be slaughtered, but as I am thinking about this there are several problems with the arguments that are presented for banning slaughter.

Please correct me if I am wrong but the major argument is that the horses are being inhumanely treated in transport and using the captive bolt correct? That is the main problem with horse slaughter, SO why can we not fix the problems rather than just ban horse slaughter?

The problem I have with the use of the captive bolt is that it is being used incorrectly – by the way has anyone shown that video to OSHA? Besides from the torture the horse is going through I see two other problems with the video one is of a business nature the other is an OSHA problem. Business – how horribly inefficient that process is, taking that long to knock the horse down is slowing the entire line down and would be unacceptable in any other slaughtering plant. The OSHA problem is the guy hanging over the edge of the platform without being tethered and then leaning over the edge to try and hit the horse better is completely unsafe. I am sure if that guy fell into the chute with the thrashing horse and was hurt something may change.

Back to the problems with the captive bolt – it is an acceptable tool to stun an animal with prior to exsanguinating (bleeding them out) them; however the animal needs to be properly restrained and that would solve the problems with using it including the business and OSHA issues. The plant would need to install a squeeze chute with a head catch designed for horses. No more hanging over the chute, it would be much quicker and more efficient and above all else it would make using the captive bolt a much more humane tool. A simple idea to solve the majority of the problems.

As for transport, an inspector at the facility would be in charge of transport and giving out citations to offenders that over crowd trailers and calling the authorities for obvious abuse cases. It seems to me that fixing these items would squelch all the arguments of support for the slaughter bill, save one.

The Vets for Equine Welfare brought this to my attention and that is the use of Bute in horses. I would guess that the majority of American horses have had bute at sometime in their life which is banned from food production. The obvious answer to this is to establish withdrawl times which have not been established. Otherwise that argument is by far the best one for preventing horses from slaughter for human food, there are already laws enforcing that one and with some teeth provided by the FDA.

Anyway good discusion thank you for participating. I will keep a watch for more information regarding this bill and most importantly the back lash that may occur in regards to unwanted horses if the bill passes.

The federal bills are specific in banning the transport of horses to slaughter for human consumption. I believe the language you are referring to was in the Ag Budget. The original language would have banned the transport for anything. In the 11th hour, the language was rewritten and the Ag bill was passed as written. The president was threatening to veto the bill, not because of the horse language but because the bill was over the dollar amount he recommended. There were several pro articles circulating on trying to lead the public to believe the threat was because of the horse language. It was strictly because the budget was over the dollar amount and nothing to do with the transport ban.

As for your last paragraph, I’m sure there are many stories other vets could share with the same experiences. I have always contended that $300 is a small price to pay for a peaceful death. Many of these animals earned money and to not provide for a humane death is despicable. That to me is taking responsibility of stewardship of your animals.