A Must Read about Slaughter hot off the press

[county]

I think the biggest misconception anti slaugher people have is that theres slaugher because theres to many horses. Numbers have nothing to do with slaugher its strictly the same as any other product. Theres a deamand for horse meat without that theres no reason for slaugher. Its no differant then any other species of liveatock or any type product. If theres demand, profit, and supply you have a business. Take away one of the three and it dies. Theres been slaugher since theres been horses and as long as theres horses its not leaving

[county]

Actually saying the reason theres slaugher is because theres to many horse would be no differant then saying the reason theres cocaine is because theres to many plants its made from. Cocaine and horse slaugher exist for the same reasons. Profit, demand, and avalibility. You can get rid of both but getting rid of 100% of horses and the plants to make cocaine really isn't realistic.

[bryn]

There is horse slaughter because of greed. If there was an ability in this country to sell dogs and cats to slaughter for some bucks, the same kind of folk would do that too. Bottom line: It is all called personal responsibility. If you no longer want to care for your horse and no one wants to buy your horse or take your horse for free, then step up to the plate and euthanize your horse in its own environment with YOU the owner present instead of selling your horse for 30 pieces of silver to be hauled by some stranger with a lousy driving record cross country jammed in a cow trailer only to be dumped in a stressed blood stenched environment to be shot who knows how many times by some unskilled laborer. Captive bolt is humane when administered by a vet - these slaughterhouse employees are not vets. Shame on anyone who turns their back on their own horse and sells him to slaughter so they can go buy another one to win more ribbons with or to make more babies with. Ego and greed. Is that what we want to teach our children?

[sanctuary]

For those horses that are unwanted and/or the owners can not finacially afford to care for them anymore, sick or otherwise, how are they going to be able to afford the $500+ to have them humanely euthanized?

I agree the treatment of the horses, how they are acquired, and shipped needs to be addressed.

Besides, the more houses we shut down, the further the horses have to go before they are slaughtered...spending more time in the inhumane system that we all gripe about.

[SafeHorses]

Sorry...not buying the "it's too expensive to humanely euthanize a horse" as a reason to sell a horse into slaughter. It's called personal responsibility...you buy a horse, it's up to you to pay for everything, including humane euthanization.

And that's not a reason why horses are being slaughtered. Bryn nailed it: it's greed, plain and simple. Any other "reason" is just window dressing.

[county]

Just curious how many of you have worked in a slaugher house? Unskilled labor? I've worked in three of them and theres one 17 miles from here slaugher houses are no differant then any other job some are really good, some are really bad, some are everything in between. The people who work in them are no differant then any of you. Theres scout leaders, 4-H leaders, elders at their churches, they work to support there families. If you think being a butcher or skinner is unskilled labor your very mistaken.

[county]

As far as the reason for slaugher being greed does that mean the reason everyone has a job is greed?

[bryn]

ah come on County. . .don't twist words please.

No one said butcher or skinner. . .captive bolt in the hands a vet is humane euthanizing. That is not who is administering not one but several blows to the head in many cases. That laborer is not a vet. Please read the statistics.

The 30 pieces of silver going to the owner = GREED.

[county]

The captive bolt is a very efficent way to slaugher livestock it works 99% of the time first try with cattle. The problem with horses is the restraining chutes they need to be changed a great deal for horses.

[county]

BTW theres a lot of vets that have no clue how to use a captive bolt. When they come out of school they've maybe used one a handful of times. A veteran kill floor worker is much much better with one.

[Sswor]

Ok, I gotta throw my two cents in. I have tried in the past to intellegently explain my pro-equine slaughter views, but the anti-slaughter people don't listen to intellegence.

I firmly believe that the equine professionals in the word unanymously agreed that horse slaughter is a necessary evil.

The anti-slaughter folks are made up of the bleeding heart animal rights people who are forming opinions without having first hand knowledge of the industry and the facts of life within that industry.

It's akin to communism.

I, for one, don't need a bunch of amateurs making decisions and LAWS which will affect MY way of life and MY industry.

Stop trying to make laws and start doing something about it.

Go to a freekin auction. Buy a freekin kill horse. THERE. You've made a difference where it counts.

What's that? Afraid to buy a kill horse? You should be. Especially when you sit on it for the first time. Haha, we weren't so wrong after all...

[hipy]

The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) has added the welfare of unwanted horses in the United States to its priority list for the foreseeable future, according to AAEP leaders during the annual convention Dec. 5-8, 2004, in Denver, Colo.
1. While the AAEP's stand against the national bill that bans slaughter of horses has been seen as a negative by many horse owners, the AAEP is not pro-slaughter, but pro-horse, said incoming president Scott Palmer, VMD. The AAEP sees their role as stewards of the horse, and they see the current bill as only a Band-Aid for a small cut in the otherwise gaping wound that is equine welfare in this country.
The AAEP, in conjunction with other groups, will host a national industry summit on the unwanted horse in Washington, D.C., on April 19, 2005, during the American Horse Council conference. In fact, the AAEP is so serious about the plight of the unwanted horse that it held a session on that topic that was very well-attended during its annual convention.
In the AAEP unwanted horse seminar, Tom Lenz, DVM, a former AAEP president, discussed acceptable euthanasia procedures, carcass disposal, and equine slaughter.
He noted that the term euthanasia comes from the Greek word eu, meaning good, and thanatos, meaning death. "A good death is one that occurs with minimal pain and at the appropriate time in the horse's life as to prevent unnecessary pain and suffering," stated Lenz. "Justification for euthanization of a horse for humane reasons should always be based on medical considerations as well as future quality-of-life issues for the horse."
Lenz noted there are only three acceptable methods of euthanasia for horses as published by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) expert panel on euthanasia and endorsed by the AAEP: Overdose of barbiturate anesthesia, gunshot, and penetrating captive bolt.
Among reasons cited by AAEP in opposing the slaughter ban bill is the limitation of euthanasia to barbiturate overload, with gunshot only allowed in emergency, and the banning of captive bolt. "This restriction does not conform to the expert advice of the AVMA's panel on euthanasia and removes the opportunity for professional judgment when determining the best form of euthanasia for a particular horse."
Also, the cost to keep a horse per year (without veterinary and farrier care) is estimated to be about $1,825 per horse, resulting in needed funds of more than $124 million per year to care for unwanted horses. That number will grow exponentially each year, and there is no provision in the bill to fund for the care of these horses.
The bill also fails to establish standards of care for rescue facilities.
"The slaughter of horses in the United States has struck an emotional chord within the horse industry and the general public," said Lenz. "Although the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act and its supporters are well-intentioned, the passage of these proposed acts of legislation will create a series of unintended consequences that will negatively impact the health and welfare of our nation's horses."
Numbers Don't Lie
Nat Messer, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, associate professor of equine internal medicine at the University of Missouri and a long-time welfare proponent, looked at the scope of the problem of unwanted horses. He defined an unwanted horse as follows:
"Unwanted horses represent a subset of horses within the domestic equine population that are no longer needed or useful, or their owners are no longer interested in or capable of providing care for them either physically or financially. Most unwanted horses will likely be sent to slaughter, with fewer numbers being euthanatized and disposed of through rendering. Still fewer are simply abandoned and left to die of natural causes. Unwanted horses range from being essentially normal, healthy horses of varying ages and breeds to horses with some type of disability or infirmity, horses that are unattractive, horses that fail to meet their owner's expectations for their intended use (e.g., athletic ability), horses that have behavioral problems, or horses that are truly mean or dangerous. In many cases, these horses have had multiple owners, have been shipped from one sale barn, stable, or farm to another, and have ultimately been rejected as ineligible for any sort of responsible, long-term care."
He said there is a lot about the unwanted horse that needs to be discovered in order to better identify horses at risk such as average age and sex, types of things that cause them to be unwanted, and whether they are purebred or grade horses.
Carcass Disposal
Another problem is carcass disposal of horses that die or are euthanatized. Messer said on average, about 1-2% (75,000-150,000 horses) of the seven million domestic horses in the United States were sent to slaughter each year for the past 10 years. Another 10,000-20,000 horses were exported to Canada each year for slaughter, and an unknown number of horses were sent to Mexico for the same purpose.
For example, in 1997, less than 1.3% of the domestic equine population was sent to slaughter (about 90,000 horses). In comparison, according to the National Animal Health Monitoring System report, in 1997 1.3% of horses aged six months to 20 years (about 80,500 horses) on all premises surveyed either died or were euthanatized. Additionally, 11.1% of horses greater than 20 years of age (about 55,000 horses) on all premises surveyed either died or were euthanatized in 1997.
Total mortality in 1997 then would be about 200,000 horses, or about 3-4% of the total equine population. Messer questioned whether the United States was prepared to handle that number of carcasses if 90,000 had not gone through the slaughter process.
Feral Horses
The unwanted horses session also touched on the feral horses removed from federal lands each year. Robin Lohnes of the American Horse Protection Association discussed the fiscal burdens on the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to care for unadopted feral horses removed from public lands. She included in her discussion the recent line item in the federal appropriations bill that allows feral horses greater than 10 years of age or which have not been adopted in three attempts to be sold at public auction (and possibly sent to slaughter).
She noted that according to 2003 BLM statistics, there were 37,186 wild horses and burros on U.S. public range lands. The BLM's five-year plan calls for the removal of 45,000 animals.
Lohnes said the BLM has successfully adopted out more than 190,000 animals since 1978. In fiscal year 2001-2003 alone, the BLM placed 21,541 animals. And as of March 2004, the BLM estimated it had 5,844 animals in preparation or maintenance facilities slated for adoption in 2004.
However, the BLM in February of 2004 had 8,364 animals in short-term holding areas awaiting adoption, 6,993 animals in long-term holding areas, and 5,736 animals in sanctuaries.
Lohnes said that the BLM's adoption program "clearly competes" with the general horse industry to place animals, and that ultimately "it can potentially contribute to the plight of the unwanted horse."
Standards of Care
Doug Byars, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM, ACVECC, an internal medicine specialist from Lexington, Ky., discussed retirement and adoption farms. The AAEP recently began distributing Care Guidelines for Equine Rescue and Retirement Facilities. These guidelines came out about the same time as a similar resource from the Doris Day Foundation. Byars thinks there is a need to establish standards of care for equine retirement and adoption farms.
He feels that if equine slaughter is eliminated, it creates problems in identifying an appropriate number of care facilities with adequate funding, educated management for such facilities, and medical staff to care for the horses.
"Well-meaning individuals can quickly get in over their heads, and uneducated animal collectors, uninformed zealots, emotional individuals, and entrepreneurs seeking financial opportunities may increase proportional to the increased population of horses needing to be accommodated on retirement and adoption farms," said Byars.
He stressed the need for certification that looks at not only care of the physical animal, but management and financial assessment. He stressed the need to have humane, but practical, means of dealing with horses at life's end.
Veterinarians and Neglect
In the Proceedings book from the AAEP Convention, the American Horse Protection Association had pages of listings of groups that assisted horses. During her talk, Lydia F. Gray, DVM, executive director of the Hooved Animal Humane Society in Illinois, said one of those listed groups had been cited by her organization for problems. That underscored the need to have a certification program and continuous checking of the welfare of the horses in various facilities.
Gray said the reasons owners neglect horses could be divided into the following categories:
Ignorance (the owner doesn't understand how to care for the horse);
Apathy (the owner doesn't care about caring for the horse); Lifestyle change (the owner has some financial or other problem);
Intentional (the owner doesn't want to provide proper care); and
Mentally ill (the owner is a collector or hoarder of animals).
She explained that neglect does not mean a horse that has burrs matted in his mane and tail. While that might indicate neglect could happen, that is not something that the law considers neglect. "Simply put, it is the withholding of basic needs from a horse: Food, water, shelter, and veterinary care when needed."
Gray said veterinarians have three options when faced with equine neglect: educating the owner, reporting the owner to the proper authorities, or doing nothing.
She said if veterinarians want to become actively involved in welfare issues, they need to become educated in the proper way to gather and present evidence in animal welfare cases and the proper way to rehabilitate neglected horses.

[SafeHorses]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sswor:
Ok, I gotta throw my two cents in. I have tried in the past to intellegently explain my pro-equine slaughter views, but the anti-slaughter people don't listen to intellegence.

I firmly believe that the equine professionals in the word unanymously agreed that horse slaughter is a necessary evil.

The anti-slaughter folks are made up of the bleeding heart animal rights people who are forming opinions without having first hand knowledge of the industry and the facts of life within that industry.

It's akin to communism.

I, for one, don't need a bunch of amateurs making decisions and LAWS which will affect MY way of life and MY industry.

Stop trying to make laws and start doing something about it.

Go to a freekin auction. Buy a freekin kill horse. THERE. You've made a difference where it counts.

What's that? Afraid to buy a kill horse? You should be. Especially when you sit on it for the first time. Haha, we weren't so wrong after all... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are off base my friend! Is Nick Zito a bleeding heart animal liberal? Or is he one of the top racing professionals in the country? Can't have it both ways...be careful with the "bleeding heart" tag. You end up missing the point completely.

I suggest you read the CBER thread to answer you question regarding any of us buying slaughter bound horses.

You could have educated yourself a little better before firing that shot.

[Sswor]

Are you speaking for Nick Zito? I didn't realise you were a close friend.

[grayarabs]

SSwor - I really cannot believe what you wrote.
There is a saying, "either you are a part of the solution or a part of the problem". Methinks you are part of the problem. I have a sneaky feeling you have taken horses to auction and don't feel a bit of remorse for it.

[SafeHorses]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sswor:
Are you speaking for Nick Zito? I didn't realise you were a close friend. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's it? That's your response? You know nothing about me, and apparently nothing about Nick Zito.

[Sswor]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The anti-slaughter folks are made up of the bleeding heart animal rights people who are forming opinions without having first hand knowledge of the industry and the facts of life within that industry. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, and I forgot to add, they are a hateful and vindictive lot too.

Never sent a horse to auction... but I have saved a few from going there... and bought a couple from Shipshe as well. Their still in my school string. Fat, happy, well cared for. Spoiled really. And they have a forever home.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

[Snowbird]

Oh!For heavens sake! You missed the whole point. All of you so anxious to take on supporting all the unwanted and useless horses are so quick to attack you forgot to read. Is this a generational syndrome? Do you forget to recognize that anyone who thinks differently than you has an equal right to an opinion?

<span class="ev_code_red">OUR POINT was that the Senate of the United States was going to given erroneous information as if it was truth. These elected legislators either don't read their mail or don't care or have employed staff members who can't read to sort it for them. </span>

We do not agree and that is our right, and it is our right that the legislature comprehends that and understands that we are NOT in support of this Law they sponsor.

As horse people who live by this industry and to care for our horses we have a right to differ and we donot believe the Legislature has the right to interpret our letters differently.

My personal concern is not that we disagree but rather that I not be counted as one in your midst.

[SafeHorses]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Sswor:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The anti-slaughter folks are made up of the bleeding heart animal rights people who are forming opinions without having first hand knowledge of the industry and the facts of life within that industry. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Oh, and I forgot to add, they are a hateful and vindictive lot too.

Never sent a horse to auction... but I have saved a few from going there... and bought a couple from Shipshe as well. Their still in my school string. Fat, happy, well cared for. Spoiled really. And they have a forever home.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am very glad to hear that you look after your horses...it's the least any horse owner could do, so good for you. But you would send one of your horses to slaughter if you wanted to put it down? If so, why?

And don't complain about negative responses if you bring it on with negative statements about people you disagree with.

[Sswor]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">But you would send one of your horses to slaughter if you wanted to put it down? If so, why? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

What the hell are you talking about????????