Posted on 03/16/2007 3:52:04 PM PDT by tuffydoodle
MURCHISON -- There are scores of fowl, from Muscovy ducks to ostriches and emu, exotic critters such as a zebra and a puma, 22 iguana, an alligator, a water buffalo, a kangaroo, a baboon and about two dozen other primates, 20 prairie dogs, 42 cattle, 17 bison, 144 feral pigs, a pair of Vietnamese potbellied pigs, and two wolf hybrids among the 1,277 creatures great and small on Black Beauty Ranch.
The total includes 223 horses, some abused, others handed over by owners who were unable to care for them.
Riding horses is forbidden at the bucolic 1,300-acre refuge in East Texas in keeping with the wishes of Cleveland Amory, the late TV critic and animal-welfare advocate who started the ranch 40 years ago.
Amory wanted his wards to be left in peace on the sprawling sanctuary for the rest of their natural lives.
Such an idyllic setting, no doubt, is what many campaigners against commercial equine slaughter had in mind for the roughly 90,000 horses that until recently were annually processed at plants in Fort Worth, Kaufman and DeKalb, Ill.
Now that slaughtering has been scaled way back in the wake of a federal court ruling, the picture for unwanted horses has become more complicated. Spokesmen and lobbyists for the three horse plants predict more neglect cases if facilities are no longer there to provide a buyer for unwanted stock.
Already, the number of horses being shipped to Mexico has risen, and there have been a number of reports of neglect. In Kentucky, some owners are letting their horses starve or are turning them loose in the countryside, according to an Associated Press report.
One thing is for sure: Keeping a horse is not cheap.
Black Beauty Ranch manager Richard Farinato said he didn't know the cost of caring for its horses but said the average expense per animal of all species is $734 a year. Other rescue and adoption facilities say they spend about $1,500 per horse on upkeep, not including veterinary bills.
Peter Finch looks after 40 to 50 adoptable horses a year at Habitat for Horses in Hitchcock, between Galveston and Houston, but his nonprofit group with 280 affiliates runs about $40,000 a year in the red, which the retired insurance salesman says he makes up out of his own pocket.
Black Beauty Ranch had to turn away horses last year when its population hit capacity, Farinato said. The ranch is supported by donations.
"Over the past year, I'd say we had requests to take in about a dozen horses and donkeys," he said. "Seven were accepted; others were placed on a waiting list. In many of those wait-listed cases, other placements had been found when we recontacted them."
Animal neglect has always been an issue, and the rising price of hay because of the drought has made caring for horses even more expensive. Authorities have seized neglected horses recently near Springtown in Parker County and in California, which banned horse slaughter in a 1989 ballot initiative.
"I had not seen the amount of neglect cases I've seen now, but then I've not seen a drought like this before," said Karen Kessler, field operations supervisor of Parker County's animal-control department. She spoke after authorities confiscated nine horses and a donkey from a middle-age couple. Within two weeks, all but one of the horses had been adopted.
Kessler said, "I am not exactly an advocate of slaughterhouses, but I think they're needed. These old horses have no outlet, so they starve to death. What's better, starving to death or ending the pain and suffering?"
Dutch-owned Beltex in Fort Worth stopped buying horses this year when it lost its appeal against a ruling that found that a 1949 Texas law banned equine slaughter. The company reduced its work force from about 100 to 35, said manager Dick Koehler, and has begun producing more wild boar meat for export.
Beltex intends to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, Koehler said. "It's a difficult thing but nonetheless we're going to go there."
In Kaufman, Belgian-owned Dallas Crown has also ceased processing for human consumption but continues to produce horse meat for its zoo clients, who feed it to their big cats, said manager Chris Sonen.
The Texas decision did not affect the remaining plant, Belgian-owned Cavel International in Illinois, and it has been operating at capacity, said Jim Tucker, its general manager.
The business is sizable. In 2005, the United States exported equine cuts worth $61 million to Belgium, France, Germany, Russia, Italy, Mexico, China, Brazil, Japan, Sweden and the Bahamas, according to the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization. In 2004, the average export price was $1.78 a pound.
In recent years, the industry paid $400 to $700 a horse to owners, who will now be faced with feed and veterinary bills for unwanted stock that could run three times what the plant paid for a horse. Moreover, if the horse dies, owners might find it financially burdensome to have the carcass hauled off or buried.
In North Texas, Pine Hill Pet and Horse Cemetery and Crematory charges $175 to $750 to pick up the carcass of a grown horse and bury or cremate it. Private burial with a marker is available, said Mychale Keck, a spokeswoman.
Another option is Dublin Stock Removal, which charges about $150 and recently resumed pickups in Parker and Tarrant counties after a lapse of several months, Kessler said. Company officials declined to be interviewed.
Brent Gattis, spokesman for the Texas horse plants, predicted that the expense of maintaining unwanted horses would lead to more neglect cases.
Habitat's Finch calls that baloney, saying, "It's a myth put out by the slaughterhouse people."
Finch figures that only about 1 percent of the nation's estimated 8 million horses require rescue, "and that number can easily be absorbed." Willie Nelson has adopted 20 horses himself, he added.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press reported that some owners in Kentucky who cannot afford to pay a vet $150 to euthanize old horses are letting the horses starve while others are turning them loose in the countryside. The situation was blamed on horses going unsold at auction since buyers for the slaughterhouses stopped buying and rescue groups have been overwhelmed.
National figures on neglected horses are not kept, so there is no information to determine how big the problem is.
What is clear is that more live horses are being shipped to Canada and Mexico, many for slaughter. Canada has four plants, and Mexico has scores that slaughter horses for domestic consumption and two government-inspected facilities that export horse meat.
The number of horses exported to Mexico for slaughter almost tripled during the first nine weeks of 2007, from 1,219 to 3,581, compared with the same period last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At that rate, Mexican slaughter plants will have purchased 20,690 U.S. horses by the end of the year.
Chris Heyde, an animal-welfare lobbyist in Washington, has said the movement is proposing that the export of horses for slaughter be prohibited.
Turning horses into food for humans may be just a matter of dollars and cents to the U.S. industry that views them as another form of livestock, and people in other cultures may see horse meat as yet another protein choice.
But to animal-welfare groups, it is a highly emotional issue.
"The horse is not an animal in the food chain," says Black Beauty's Farinato, who nonetheless disclosed that he had fed horse meat to big cats when he worked as a zoo administrator.
"We are not in a campaign to, say, stop Koreans from eating dogs. But if they were dogs being bred in the United States as a food source, we'd go after it.
"It boils down to what is right or wrong."
Gattis, noting that animal shelters now euthanize 1.5 million pets a year, countered by asking: "Why aren't these organizations doing more to save these animals?
"I think these unwanted horses will become an additional burden on county governments, whereas horse slaughter would humanely handle these unwanted animals," he said.
Just as an FYI - my wife (and I) used to own horses. If you want to treat 'em right, you'll be paying for feed, shoeing, training, etc. We figured $300 per month per pony...
So the only thing bleedinghearts have managed to do is take away American meat processing jobs and export them to Mexico and Canada.
This is to horses as MSM media stories about Anchor Kids is to Illegal Immigration(Oh-The Illegal parents have to stay here to take care of the kids)
Oh, BOO-HOO--The poor horses will starve and suffer. What we need to do is slaughter them!
My wife and I own 6 horses,and even with us raising our own hay we figure 1000 dollars per head per year.Horses are one expensive hobby!
Black Beauty Ranch has the makings of a GREAT restaurant....
You've got that 100% right. My figure included feed (we didn't grow our own grass hay), vet bills, a quality farrier, and even a bit for the payment on the extra acreage. Throw in a little for odds & ends (training, equipment, etc.), and you've got just a little bit of a commitment, financial & otherwise.
My lovely wife certainly enjoyed it - and it was definitely more expensive than my hobby (WECSOG ;>), which wasn't a half bad place to be in, as far as I was concerned...
;>)
You might want to contact your Congress-critter. It's absolutely amazing how much of the taxpayers' money the BLM (Bureau of Land Mange) wastes on wild horses and burros. They think it makes them look good, so (from what I've heard) they try to take money collected/allocated for other purposes, like reclaiming sand & gravel pits, etc., and spend it on rounding up more & more feral animals. "Warm, green, and fuzzy" wins every time, when it comes to bureaucrats spending (or wasting) your tax dollars - especially when they think it will promote their own careers...
.***Horses are one expensive hobby!***
AS we say here, Who owns horses? Only rich people and fools.
And many former horse owners agree.
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