Berlin, 1945
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 ...
Do you sell your old dogs to Korea?
Horses with mains and tails tied in knots by cockleburs. Horses with worms, and who knows what...just being fed the minimum. Basically being warehoused until they die.
You know...I like to see them out free and running, Most around here...nobody see's unless they are "hunting" for them....and it's a waste of productive pasture land...
Why are WE paying for this....when "supposedly" according to the libs...we have people "starving"...
Nevertheless we could be helping some Vet's or someone truly needy....than feeding wild horses. That aren't even native to America.
I agree we need a better plan for the mustangs. Better than the warehousing we do now.
And cattle are doing dressage? You really think they're domesticated in the same way?
They are animals ~ both vegetarian ~ live in herds. You can train cattle and horses to do various things ~ crows are smarter than either one.
...If everything you learned about either one, you learned from driving by them on I-70.
I also read and pay attention. Those are clues.
Berlin, 1945
There are somewhere around 90,000 head of horses in this country every year that no one wants and that does not include wild horses that the Bureau of Land Management is in charge of caring for/adopting out. The 90,000 figure is how many went to slaughter the year before the slaughterhouses were shut down a few years ago.
Anyone that doesn’t believe in horse slaughter needs to figure out how to solve that problem. Breeders are breeding too many and most of the excess comes from people who don’t intend to breed but are so ignorant they keep mares and studs together or have such sorry facilities they might as well put them together. Many of those horses are inbred and worthless for any use. Many are bred on purpose by folks that don’t understand horse breeding or the market conditions and think they can breed their inferior mare to a neighbor’s inferior stud and get the next show champion or Secretariat.
After the slaughterhouses were shut down, there was no market for the approx. 90,000 unwanted horses per year, many could not be sold because they were inferior, or crippled and no one wanted them at any price. Owners could not or would not feed them, dumped them or starved them in their backyard.
The BLM is having major problems with their wild horse program. All the folks that lobbied Congress to save them assured everyone there were tons of people who would adopt them. Nope, there are around 40,000 of them standing crowded in pens all over the US being fed and having their feet trimmed, vet care, etc.- all at taxpayer’s expense and their life is much like a person being in prison.
Anyone complaining about slaughterhouses needs to first find a solution to the problem of large numbers of unwanted horses.
Trying to educate people about responsible horse ownership is as tough or tougher than trying to educate many about responsible dog and cat ownership if not tougher. There are many publications, videos, books, programs from the USDA for children and adults, still the problems. For many years people have been trying in vain to educate people about horses, and still are. Seems like those that need the information the worst are the last to want or heed advice from anyone.
The WHIP is currently running near a quarter million a month per three thousand head and they are in several state prison systems.
It would put some supervisors out of work or lighten their load to do away with the program but would sure free up more money for taking care of humans...
I’m sure you’re right. I don’t know what the answer is. It would be a lot easier for me if I didn’t love horses, I guess.
Most of the time the irresponsible horse owner that is the most to blame for the thousands of unwanted horses will not or cannot pay to get them euthanized, usually they starve them in their backyard or dump them on others or to fend for themselves and starve.
Every so often there will be news stories about horses left to starve. So sad. Breaks my heart.
Most of that number (excluding the BLM horses) exist now because there is a low end, always available market for them.
If there wasn't... most people would just do right by them. Those who don't.... there's solutions for that too.
The horse market does not rise and fall on the existence of slaughter as a cheap way out for horse owners.
Whose fault are the horses starving today? Because there very much is a slaughter market.
Neglect may in fact be on the rise, with this economy, but it really is not connected to the existence of slaughter. It's not the bony starved ones going to slaughter. It is a myth that slaughter will solve that problem. It hasn't yet.
There are simply not enough resources for all the unwanted horses. I have tried to get help for starving horses, very little help is available compared to the number needing help. I have to help them myself as I can, many areas don’t even have horse rescue organizations and humane organizations are not usually set up for horses at all. In some areas there might be enough help, but not around here or even at a distance to here. A friend of mine found a place last year with over 50 starving horses and tried to get authorities or anyone to step in, she was told there was no resources to deal with them if they took them from the owner. In order to get the horses seized she had to get a veterinarian to donate his services and she had to become responsible for them after they were seized. She had the facilities and took the horses in temporarily while they received needed Vet care and found homes for all of them, took her a while and she had to care for them for months. Few people can do what she did, so many horses just suffer.
There was a time when horses were valuable because you could keep them as pets and then sell them to the dealers to be used for horse meat.
Then the do gooders stopped the practice and horses became valueless. you could often see them where people just turned them out because there was no market for them. like what happened to the Emus.
Now they have value again and again the do gooders are having a fit about it.
Lewis and Clark did well on dog meat. They preferred it to horse meat!
From the movie HOMBRE...
Woman: I would never eat dog!
Hombre: When you are hungry enough you will eat dog, and fight over the bones!
Then there is that dog eating scene in KING RAT.
Keep reading. What you’re saying is all myth. The slaughter market never went away, and it never solved neglect. Not then, not now.
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