Posted on 03/20/2013 4:00:28 PM PDT by ilovesarah2012
About eight miles outside of Roswell, N.M., a shuttered cattle farm is getting ready to reopen its doors. Only this time, the Valley Meat Co. won’t be killing cows. It hopes to be the first U.S. farm to start slaughtering horses for human consumption.
Not far behind could be plants in Missouri, Iowa and Oklahoma.
Across the country, companies are applying for permits with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to kill horses for food – a practice Congress ended in 2007. The measure to stop the slaughters, though, lapsed in 2011 and now companies are clamoring to get back into the game.
“We’re getting ready,” Valley Meat Co. attorney A. Blair Dunn, told FoxNews.com.
But it hasn’t been an easy road, with public opposition still strong to the idea of horse-slaughter resuming in the U.S., though the current plans would be geared toward exporting the meat to other countries.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
That's not what happens. But that sort of thing was not commonly seen BEFORE Congress failed to provide funds for horsemeat inspections.
The anti-horse slaughter crowd thought they'd eliminated the practice ~ instead, they made keeping, and disposing of horses, even more brutal than it had been.
False. The incidence of horse neglect and abandonment, if it’s gone up, has gone up due to a bad economy. That economy had nothing do to with closing down the TWO remaining plants that were still operating in this country at the time.
Horse slaughter never went away. It exists today. It just moved. Horses are being sold to slaughter every single weekend, at auctions all over the country. They’re just no longer bringing a very high price. Again... mostly because of the economy, not the location of the slaughter plants...
These are posted by a group I participate in that attends these auctions, and encourage others to either buy at auction or from those kill buyers who allow them to list horses in their feedlots. They place a LOT of horses out of there... and they buy and euthanize some who are suffering, but few who are given a chance to be listed ever actually ship. It's an impressive group in what they accomplish. There's actually a lot of people willing to take on and help horses, yes... even in this economy.
[url=http://auctionhorses.net/index.cgi?board=reports]Auction Horses - Auction Reports[/url]
By way of explanation of terms:
NS means the horse was not sold... the seller declined and took the horse back home.
KB means a kill buyer bought the horse - often the auction yard itself, sometimes others who are known kill buyers.
No description next to the price means it was bought by some other private person at the auction.
It’s not poison. It’s just politically incorrect meat.
Liberals and other emotion-driven people stomp up and down because they don’t have a clue how ranchers actually live and get by.
:)
No... it actually does contain a lot of medications specifically banned for human consumption.
These medications, like bute, are routinely given to American horses and it’s not tracked at all, the way it is required to be if animals are going to be consumed. They’re not treated that way here, nor do I think they ever will be. Slaughter buyers have just been able to lie before... say they had no knowledge of banned drugs. Of course they didn’t... they’d only owned them since yesterday. When tested, the meat is testing positive for these substances. They’re cracking down. They’re not going to be able to lie any more. Did you see the link I posted? The EU is not going to buy any more horse meat from this continent.
Maybe you want to change the law to allow a lot of previously-considered-harmful drugs in meat... but the law now is still the law now. These substances are banned in human food by the entire civilized world.
Those responsible for passing the anti-slaughter law in 2007(?) did not consider how horses would adversely be affected. It was the "tyranny of good intentions" all over again.
Are race horses over-drugged? Maybe. But my point isn't really whether or not the horses should have been given the drugs. I've given these drugs to my own horses in giving them good care for what ails them. As athletes and pets, we treat them for their own benefit.
The key problem here is the bottles all say in very big letters that these drugs are not intended for any animal intended for human consumption.
Again... though you seem to be ignoring the point. It never stopped. It really hasn't made a lick of discernible difference to the horses.
There is a quantifiable difference between shipping a horse 100 miles to slaughter, and 1000 miles.
Maybe 1/2 the year...around here...they don't probably feed them much. Plenty of grass...
Again... Before the ban there were precisely two horse slaughter plants still operating in the US. I think one was in Illinois, one in Texas.
To horses in Washington, I don’t think they see much difference in which highway they shipped over, they traveled a long ways.
The days of old there were more plants... back when pet food companies were still buying it. They haven’t been for years... because it’s not safe, people didn’t want to buy it, and there is plenty of other, better meat available. But it’s been decades since they went out of business.
There are still rendering plants, that will cook remains down for fertilizers and whatever else... there is one of those in this state. And they will (the one here will) euthanize the horse for you... but that is a very different process than what we’re talking about.
What’s odd is that anyone thinks it’s a good idea now... in this operating climate.
It is impossible for a human to detect the source of one gunshot.
Yeah, but my neighbors (who live far away, but not far enough) would look out the window.
A couple are like the people on this thread who think Wal-Mart produces meat in little packages and no animals are harmed.
I also have a flock (?) of giant veloci-turkeys. I DO have a suppressor for my SR10-22, so one of these days . . . .
Looking out the right window would be an accident.
I always get the arm off my shoulder, stick my hands in my pockets and look around as if pondering "What was that"?.
A very good response, I must say. I commend you -- actual argument is rare here.
Nonetheless, I think it fair to draw a distinction between animals who can never become aware of themselves to humans with afflictions [or lack of development] that may or may not be permanent.
Your neighbors are straw men? :-)
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