Originally Posted by
jetsmom
Bluey, I am giving you an open invitation to come down here and attend one of our monthly auctions where many of the horses go to slaughter. You can watch how the horses are handled and loaded. Then we can go to Socorro to the holding facility where you can see the lack of food, water and shelter, and see them load again, and we can go sit at the border and watch them wait to cross. You can stay with me or I'll pay for your hotel rm.
This is the auction where I watched them put an elderly blind mare in with a bunch of other horses in a pen about 30x20. Approx 10 horses in there, with one hay rack. She got kicked numerous times. Then I watched about 35 purebred QH long weanlings get herded into a trailer, and watched the last weanling get the gate slammed on his hind leg and latched, because there wasn't room for him to step all the way in. I also watched two stallions get put in with a mixed sex group of horses in a pen about 100'x60. The two stallions started fighting, much like you see in the "Stallion fighting" Youtube videos. They were rearing/striking until one fell backwards and the other went after it when down. It got up and went down again. It was horrifying, and the killer buyers just watched.
You can also watch the video from Animal Angels, and read the report linked on the slaughter thread, about the 2 horses going down in the trailer, and one got trampled to death, while the authorities did nothing, and the driver raced across the border and continued on his way, rather than unload the horses as required. Animal Angels had no way of knowing what day to go watch , it was random. This IS standard operating procedure. Not an anomaly. Your family farmer/rancher who names his livestock, and was there when they were born, probably DOES care about their welfare. The large factory farms, and those in the horse slaughter business care about money, not animal welfare. If they lose a couple during transport, it is just the cost of doing business to them.