Action needed on horse slaughter bills!!

[county]

If they don't want their horses slaughtered for meat then by all means they shouldn't be. I'm 54 and its been around all those years knew it from the time I was a kid.

[county]

I'm curious, for all the people who feel slaugher is a bad thing, inhumane, etc. do any of you eat meat? Use leather, brushes made from livestock hair, any other products made from livestock? If so how does one think slaugher is bad but yet me the exact people needed so that slaugher exists?

[Lildunhorse]

If it were that simple, none of us would be here.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
If they don't want their horses slaughtered for meat then by all means they shouldn't be. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[county]

It is that simple, if you don't want your horse to be slaughered don't ever sell it. Keep it till it dies or you are the one that kills it.

[SweatySaddlepad]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
I'm curious, for all the people who feel slaugher is a bad thing, inhumane, etc. do any of you eat meat? Use leather, brushes made from livestock hair, any other products made from livestock? If so how does one think slaugher is bad but yet me the exact people needed so that slaugher exists? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well I'm a lacto-ovo vegetarian and I eat only free range products. I use no leather products and or real hair brushes ect, but you know some of those products do come from rendering rather than slaughter, so not quite the same. My husband eats meat and I do prepare it from time to time but all meat products come from a free range farm in my hometown. The lady that owns the free range farm is as adament about no drugs in her products, and a real life for her animals, when it comes time to process she takes them to the closest plants, in her case the beef cows only have to travel about a mile and half and pigs, chickens and sheep about 15 miles. It is important to her that her animals live real lives and are as stress free as possible when it comes time to process.

We have talked about how easy it is to distance yourself about where our meat comes from, this is an extremely important point and it really hit home years back when I started buying locally free range. I now have to face the fact when I buy meat it is an animal NOT a wrapped product and it is harder for me even though I know these animals have been treated well and not stressed. I now have to pull up to a farm and get this meat, the sad fact of slaughter of all animals has always hit my heart, but when your faced head on with it it's tough. Horses are not food animals...

[county]

Horses are not food animals, in this country thats true in others thyey are same as beef is here but not in others. Something people don't usually think about but most products made in rendering plants while coming from dead animals also come from remains of slaughtered animals. Semi loads every day of blood, bone, entrails, feathers, hides, and waste come from packing/slaugher plants to the rendering plants for processing.

[Lildunhorse]

What if it's stolen?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
It is that simple, if you don't want your horse to be slaughered don't ever sell it. Keep it till it dies or you are the one that kills it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[Lildunhorse]

Also, what happens to my young horses that are going to outlive me?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
It is that simple, if you don't want your horse to be slaughered don't ever sell it. Keep it till it dies or you are the one that kills it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[county]

What happens to young horses if they outlive their owner? I'd think same thing as old ones whatever plan the owner has made for them. What happens if ones stolen? According to the AMC the largest share of stolen horses are sold or used as riders, next is they turn out to be not stolen at all, and some are sold to slaugher the amount sold there varies a great deal with price. When the meat market is low so are the number of stolen horses sold there. Market is high the numbers go up. Right now top price for finished fat horses delevered to the plants run at about .48 a lb. The closer you live to a plant the better the odds one is stolen and sold there. You live a long ways away theres not much money to be made selling stolen horses for meat these days.

Now stolen cattle is another story prices have been at record highs for the last two years.

[Lildunhorse]

I don't think it's as simple as you try to make it sound.
I live 30 minutes away from a holding facility for Bouvry. They take walk-ins. I am away from the farm every day for 8 hours a day. If someone got it into their heads they needed money, they could have all five loaded up and gone before I even knew it.
I could die tomorrow and the same thing could hold true. There are people who know that I have easy cash just waiting for them to load it up. By the time my family got up there to deal with the situation, my horses could be long gone. They are draft crosses and draft/quarter crosses. Popular varieties.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
What happens to young horses if they outlive their owner? I'd think same thing as old ones whatever plan the owner has made for them. What happens if ones stolen? According to the AMC the largest share of stolen horses are sold or used as riders, next is they turn out to be not stolen at all, and some are sold to slaugher the amount sold there varies a great deal with price. When the meat market is low so are the number of stolen horses sold there. Market is high the numbers go up. Right now top price for finished fat horses delevered to the plants run at about .48 a lb. The closer you live to a plant the better the odds one is stolen and sold there. You live a long ways away theres not much money to be made selling stolen horses for meat these days.

Now stolen cattle is another story prices have been at record highs for the last two years. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[county]

Same thing could happen here I live 17 miles from the largest cattle cow proccessing plant in the upper midwest. Someone could haul my or any of the 10's of 1000's of cattle around here. I choose not to let it control my life or how I live it.

[Lildunhorse]

How many hours of training have you put into your cows? How many hours of trust building, round pen work, trail riding, and practice? How many hours have you spent observing your cow's behavior to find just the right name? What was their Sire's name? Their mother's name? Do you have a photo album filled with pictures of milestones, such as the first halter, the first backing, the first trail ride?
It's not the same thing.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
Same thing could happen here I live 17 miles from the largest cattle cow proccessing plant in the upper midwest. Someone could haul my or any of the 10's of 1000's of cattle around here. I choose not to let it control my life or how I live it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[county]

Manby many hours have gone into our cattle there all halter broke, many have been shown at fairs and exhibitions. All have records kept from birth until they leave here. We raise and sell reg. bulls and I assure you theuir dispositions are watched very closely just for that fact. Had one that was broke to ride and pick up its feet like a horse for farrier work. Pictures? Literally 100's including two portraits that we paid to have painted. Cattle, hogs, sheep, horses. There all livestock and raised the same way here. To you a cow is a piece of meat to us there livestock and all our livestock is treated equally.

[nettiemaria]

I am just wondering if County has any children, did they lay awake and dream each night of getting their own calf, and running off into the sunset with that calf, and that the calf turning cow would be with them and their "friend" forever, because that's the way many little girls and even boys see it. I remember when I was only four, my mother brought me to the mall, and they were selling raffle tickets to a bay arabian colt which they had in a temp pen. We lived in town, but I had all these Breyer horses, and wanted one more than anything in the world. I begged my mother to buy two raffle tickets, and I talked to the big old rancher with his Texas sized hat, about how beautiful the horse was and what kind was it, and how many did he have, etc. I lay awake all night dreaming when my ticket won, but the call never came. Until I was ten, that's all I wanted, and I finally got the ugliest pony anyone ever seen, Dandy Red, true and heroic, faithful pony! I was so PROUD of that pony. My dad traded one of his guns for that pony and $15.00. What a wonderful day that was for me!

[county]

Yep I have two daughers and a son and now 5 grand kids. All three of my kids showed, cattle, hogs, sheep, rabbits, poultry, and horses in 4-H, FFA, and breed shows. They all were given a two year old filly for their 8th birthday to train, ride, and show. They all were given the option of what ever livestock endevor they wanted to work, raise, and show if they wanted to. The oldest daugher choose poultry and rabbits, the next daugher choose hogs and sheep my son cattle. Today none farm for a living but all three have horses and a few ancestors from the stock they started out with of each species. Each live on whats refered to here as hobby farms theres are 3 to 12 acres. The oldest and youngest have children and they will be offered the same options with livestock just on a much smaller scale. Unless someday one of them decides to take over this place if I ever decide to get old. Who knows?

[nettiemaria]

Sounds like your children are very lucky, to have always had that lifestyle available to them. I didn't, and that's all I wanted, and dreamed about for as long as I can remember. My mother must have spent at least $1,500 on Breyer horses from the time I was four. Too bad I don't have them now, I'll bet they would be worth something.

[Lildunhorse]

Well, as nice as that sounds, it has nothing to do with what we were discussing originally: if they don't want their horses slaughterd for meat, then by all means they shouldn't be. Now you tell me your cows could be stolen just as easily as my horses. Either way, we have no control over what happens to them if they are stolen, or if we die unexpectedly, or the bank comes and takes them or whatever. So it's not simple.
And at the risk of revealing too much about my personal life, I don't think cows are just a piece of meat. I give sincere thanks for their sacrifice on the rare occasion when I do eat beef. I am very conscious to the fact that they are living breathing creatures. I prefer not to eat beef, avoid pork like the plague and have the obligatory twinge of guilt over the treatment of chickens. (I have 40 rescued layers that were marked for the compost heap)I prefer fish if I need any sort of flesh at all.
My tack and my boots are synthetic. My hairbrush is synthetic. I wouldn't touch Jello with a ten foot pole.
I realize that cows can be ridden. I've heard that argument before and it just shows the silly lengths to which people will go to prove a point. You can ride a goat too, by the way. I have a friend who rode a dolphin. I've seen pictures of people riding enormous turtles, for goodness sakes.
I know that there is a difference between horses and cattle. But the single biggest observation that I have made, is that the cattle industry is carried out in a manner totally opposite to that of the secretive horse slaughter trade. The owner of the auction nearest me flat out lied to me when I asked if there would be killer buyers present. He swore up and down that killer buyers didn't come to his auctions. If this were strictly a cattle auction, would he have felt the need to lie? Of course not, because he knows that the majority of people feel differently about horses. I don't like being lied to and that in itself would be reason enough to oppose the slaughter of horses.
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
Manby many hours have gone into our cattle there all halter broke, many have been shown at fairs and exhibitions. All have records kept from birth until they leave here. We raise and sell reg. bulls and I assure you theuir dispositions are watched very closely just for that fact. Had one that was broke to ride and pick up its feet like a horse for farrier work. Pictures? Literally 100's including two portraits that we paid to have painted. Cattle, hogs, sheep, horses. There all livestock and raised the same way here. To you a cow is a piece of meat to us there livestock and all our livestock is treated equally. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[county]

So if someone lied to you about a car would you then never drive a car? I base life on reality not if others tell me a lie.

[nettiemaria]

Signing off - Fighting on the home-front, NO not on this forum only, as some think that some of us anti-slaughter folks only do. Real live home-town fighting on the homefront.
Good weekend to all!

[Lildunhorse]

The reality is, the horse slaughter trade is a secretive business. It's not out in the open like the cattle industry. Everyone knows where that truckload of cattle is going, or that truckload of chickens. Everyone knows where those steers are going when they get all fattened up.
I've been lied to about cars, so I have one dealer that I go to anytime I need a new car. I trust him to tell me the truth about the car I'm looking at, even if it means the sale waits until the right car comes along. He knows if he lies to me, I take my business and go elsewhere, along with my friend's business and my family's business. I live in a small town where reputation is still important.
Your reality is not my reality. I don't disagree with that.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by county:
So if someone lied to you about a car would you then never drive a car? I base life on reality not if others tell me a lie. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>