Derby Winner Slaughtered - Page 2

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Derby Winner Slaughtered

This is a discussion on Derby Winner Slaughtered within the Horse Protection forums, part of the Horse Resources category

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        11-06-2008, 03:15 AM
    I will probably be booo'd for this but I believe that slaughter in america served a purpose. There are some horses (of all ages and breeds) that are lame or too dangerous and cannot be used for anything. If they were to bring it back, I think that it should be monitored by peta or the aspca to ensure that the animals are dispatched quickly and without pain. Euthanasia done by a qualified vet would be adequate. If there were more of these types of slaughter houses operating in the US, we would not have to ship horses to canada and mexico to be slaughtered in the way that you see above in the video. (That did make me cry by the way). There should be enough of the companies scattered across the country that the horses would not have to be transported more than 3 or 4 hours and the transports should be monitored as well to prevent overcrowding and inhumane treatment by the transporters. But that is just my opinion.
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        11-13-2008, 10:22 PM
    Slaughter may have its place in the US but there should be strict rules. I've done papers for school on slaugher and there is a book written by a man who worked in the industry reveling such things as cutting foals out of the mother and throwing them off to the side wether dead or alive, I don't think anyone can say that that is not cruel.
        11-14-2008, 07:04 AM
    They have strict rules in place, but people don't follow them, it isn't like it is really monitored. WHen proof of abuse is provided, it is just slid under the rug, maybe a slap on the wrist.

    There really isn't any way to make assembly-line slaughter humane. Best to just outlaw it altogether and deal with the border problem once we have the legislation in place to make SURE there is a federal ban against it.
        11-14-2008, 07:59 AM
    Originally Posted by DarkChylde    
    But have you been to an auction lately? The last one I went to was a week ago. Too many horses were severely underweight and selling between $10 and $50. Good solid horses were selling under $100. The high selling horse of the night went for $700. He was as broke a 7 year old horse as you will ever find with great breeding along the Doc Bar line. His owner claimed that two years ago he gave $3,500 for him at a registered breed sale - I follow auctions and believe his claim.

    People can't afford to keep horses, morons keep breeding them, and we have no outlet for them. Better to let them die a slow death starving in a dirt field and prosecute the owners? It's going to get much worse in the next few years with rising unemployment and foreclosures coupled with the drought in most of the country, giving us abandoned or neglected and starving horses.

    I don't claim to know the answer nor do I advocate either way on the subject but there needs to be middle ground and an end to continued inferior breeding of these unwanted horses.
    A slow death or a quick one - even if it is somewhat cruel for one or two days.
        11-14-2008, 08:27 AM
    Quick or slow these horses don't pop outta out the ground like dew on the daisies, and we ain't talking about an animal that runs wild like dogs and cats (except in some areas of the country, and they are under govt. Regulation supposedly, tho I don't like what has been goin on there either)

    The price of horses right now has ALOT to do with the drought, price of corn and hay, oil prices, the crashing of the economy- far more than legislation that hasn't passed yet.

    Overbreeding IS the problem, and those horses standing in dry lots and starving won't be saved by slaughter anyhow (if you can call the transport horrors and slaughter 'saving') because the fact is they don't WANT starving, skinny horses to take to slaughter, they take fat, healthy horses. Even when slaughterhouses were plentiful and operational, even by THEIR statistics only like 10%to 12% of the horses slaughtered were underweight, skinny horses. SLaughter has NEVER helped them, the industry has hidden behind them to justify their greed.
        11-14-2008, 08:42 AM
    I used to live in PA and went to the New Holland Auction regularly. When it was permissible, horses were selling to the killers for $.75 per lb (never announced but these guys could really estimate) we didn't see skinny horses like we do today. If an owner wanted the best price for his horse he got it to the auction fatter then we see today.

    Today, the weight doesn't matter, horses are selling for pennies per pound and there are way too many of them.

    What's the answer? Education, common sense, regulation? Even if that would work - and you need to laugh if you think it would - it would take too much time and these horses are suffering for it. It takes all of that but it isn't going to happen.
        11-14-2008, 08:48 AM
    Neglect of horses has been around far longer than any leglislation about slaughter, that cannot be blamed for horses suffereing, heartless humans are to blame for that. No amount of laws will change the fact that horses suffer.

    And WHY are there so many? THAT is the ISSUE! Not slaughter! Breed snobs are the problem, people who want a horse because it makes them look rich or preppy or whatever is the problem, and the BIG money in horses is the problem!

    I don't care about the 'industry' as much as I care about horses. There is no answers rite now, but if we outlaw horse slaughter for human consumption then we CAN build a better tomorrow for horses, tho the money mite not be there like it once was. We can't help the ones that are alive because some careless, greedy, reckless human bred them with no concern for their future, but if we nix their abilities to make profit from breeding horses for food then we will stop the REAL problem, which is overbreeding.
        11-14-2008, 06:01 PM
    Slaughter is a neccessary evil, for the reasons that other posters have already stated--over breeding, bad eggs, rising costs, droughth, etc. Euthanizing them is not going to be an option folks. It is cost prohibitive as mentioned, but not said was that the horse meat that was a product of the slaughter houses was sold to Europe and Asia. Meat from a euthanized animal is not edible. Therefore, what would be done with all the carcasses of the euthanized horses? Incineration:more cost + pollution. Mass burial:more cost + where?+ ground contamination.
    Reality is not pretty. But slaughter should be reinstated and better regulated. There is just not enough people to take on the burden. And it's not going to get any better.
        11-14-2008, 10:04 PM
    Green Broke
    I couldn't agree with you more IRidehorses... there has GOT to be a place for horses to go because at the auctions around here you can't even give horses away. The broke ones are still going for a typical price, hasn't bottomed out too much here. The unbroke ones? The untouched 3 year olds? The conformationally scary inbred ones? Yeah, NO one wants them! Last year that was the majority of the unwanted horses around here. They weren't the skinny starved horses, or the ex-school horses that someone loved it's entire life... they weren't even the culls from the breed snobs that someone else mentioned. They're the conformationally hideous untrained barely halter broken 2 or 3 year olds that some idiot thought would be great to breed 30 of, not realizing how expensive it would be to feed them all. Oops, no hay for the winter, guess I'll try to Craiglist them for $100 before taking them to the auction. Sigh. I haven't been to an auction in several months but I have a feeling that those horses are now the skinny ones people are talking about....

    Slaughter's not pretty. I'd love to save a bunch (not going to lie, I wouldn't take them all home. I like my horses to be sane and built to be sound). But taking away slaughter is not the answer. Fighting for better regulations is.

    I'm just curious, is slaughtering a horse really that different from slaughtering a cow? Cows feel pain. Cows feel fear and sense danger. Sooo... are all anti-slaughter people complete vegans?
        11-15-2008, 03:06 AM
    My point is they suddn't have been bred to begin with, if a horse has a baby it is because a human let it happen, they don't run wild like cats and dogs do. Also, IF people would stop overbreeding them then they wuddn't need to be slaughtered. And IF horses didn't bring the big money, their wuddn't be the lure for the heartless greedy types that don't care about horses.

    Backyard breeders are part of the problem, but these huge racehorse and quarterhorse ranches that churn out hundreds of horses are the biggest problem, the Jockey Club alone predicted some 20,000 to 30,000 foals this year, how many of THEM are going to end up in a rescue or bound for slaughter? How many won't make the grade? Breeders don't care, they get PAID by the slaughterhouses TO overbreed. I work in rescue, and at least half the horses that come in are OTTBs, or Off the Track ThoroBreds.

    And the bill WON"T make slaughtering your horse illegal, it just won't allow the heartless humans to make money off selling the meat.

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