Equine Cruelty- Which is Worse?

I know I won't make any friends by what I am going to write about, and many of you may choose not to read my site anymore.  But I think the topic needs to be discussed.  In 2007, the last horse slaughterhouses in this country were shut down by state law.  With the rising cost of hay, grain, transport, etc., many horse-owners are struggling to take proper care of their animals.  However, without domestic horse slaughterhouses, many are choosing to abandon their horses, like this one above or pay somebody to transport the horse to Mexican slaughterhouses that are still open.  A recently introduced resolution (H.R. 6598) will ban export of horses to other countries for slaughter.  Will these tighter restrictions only lead to more black market sales of horses to Mexico and more abandonment, thereby creating MORE cruelty to horses?  The other options to deal with older or disabled horses is to euthanize them, incinerate them, or bury them.  However, with a worldwide food crisis (one that is politically manufactured however), why would we want to waste this food source that many choose to eat?  Just because some people see horses as pets, does that mean that horse meat consumption should be banned?  What if all the pet-owners of pigs decided to make pork production illegal in this country because they think pigs are sweet and intelligent?  I only ask that you put aside your notions of pets versus livestock and think about which is worse- horses killed at slaughterhouses (usually with a stun gun to the head, just like how most cows and pigs are killed) or horses wasting away in cramped, poop-filled paddocks with minimal feed and water because their owner can no longer afford them?

Comments

[Susan Walker]

I'm sorry, but I'm a Horse Lover from birth.. It breaks my heart to see a horse that has suffered from neglect.. I own a horse that was neglected and one that has never known neglect or abuse.. I don't want the slaughterhouses..! But we need an alternative solution for all the starving horses and the ones that the owners have more money than sense.. I think there should be programs, such as mounted police to take these animals and do something with them.. Handicap children benefit from riding a horse. There are things that could be done with them, besides killing them for meat.. I know you need money.. I just watched a video of a horse slaughterhouse in the UK and I'm pissed off about all of this.. The horse lovers need to get together and try to do something??!!! thanks

[cord]

Hi i agree with you i want the slaughterhouses should be open

[Rebecca Thistlethwaite]

Louche brings up the idea of 'animal sanctuaries' so that the animals we bred for consuming or pleasure can live out their full lives until they die of natural causes. I'm sorry, but I don't support that idea unless it is for abused animals or for trying to get them adopted. Just to sustain millions if not billions of domesticated animals until the day they die naturally would consume vast quantities of water, grain, and create mounds of waste, overgrazing, etc. To use that quantity of resources without feeding people is arrogant, preposterous, and unsustainable.

[Louche]

You're absolutely right in thinking that a vegan would be saddened by your posts, though I can just tell myself, "What do I expect?"

Your supposed horse "cruelty" is a temporary situation caused by the systematic slaughter of horses AND the subsequent insufficient laws to promote animal welfare. The systematic slaughter of horses, as deemed legal, is a long-term solution involving the subjugation of these creatures ad infinitum. The liberation of these animals, too, is a long-term solution.

Why shouldn't we take care of the animals we liberate from ourselves? There is one solution called animal sanctuaries. You seem to think that because there's no animal welfare outside of subjugation, that we should focus on animal welfare within it - even though there never was any within it either. Yes, we do need to take responsibility for any consequences of liberation as the need for liberation is directly caused by exploitation. But continuing to slaughter the creatures as an answer is saying, "We will take responsibility as long as we still profit from it."

To simply suggest that this is the inevitable reality takes us back to so many social justice issues: homelessness, poverty, etc. "Let's do what we know is inherently problematic because doing what sounds right has problematic consequences": this is what I call favoring the symptoms of a problem over its root. Actually, we can address both if we're truly honest and willing.

[scotia]

Hi there, I found your site 'googling for images of "horse transport cruelty" since I am a campaigner for World Horse Welfare, & their "MAKE A NOISE" campaign - (formerly the ILPH - International League for the Protection of Horses). The closure of any legal Scottish "Horse Disposal Facilities" would force Scotland into being yet another country which fattens up ill, aged or dying horses, to then travel thousands of miles & 40hrs minimum (often with no stop, water or feed) to a European facility where they are slaughtered for best meat price.

If you have a local facility which can dispose of equines within the law, humanely & with whatever dignity that these places can muster - please support this form of "horse slaughter". Not everyone has thousands of acres upon which to find their once glittering horse lying dead from old age & then to bury them. Most of us must make the most humane choice & sending my horse to some god forsaken place is not one of those for me. Many eat meat, but whatever meat eaten is from animals which once gambolled through meadows. Closing humane facilities will not stop the consumption of equine, bovine - or any other "vine" you want to list, only drive illegalities, inhumanity & suffering further underground.

...we "humans" need a bloody good shake & wake up call. We want to eat meat, but get squeemish about where it comes from, (sorry to offend any vegetarians/vegans reading this) if we must eat meat, (& I do) then lets at least make sure the conditions in which they are raised, kept, transported & finallly "disposed of" (however harsh that sounds) - is with the utmost care, attention to welfare, humanity & the animal dignity.

scotia

[JackieDee]

Thanks for bravely addressing some ugliness people don't want to see, hopefully you're not just preaching to the choir here.

I am so frustrated with the Disney-ish attitude people insist on holding regarding animals. I LOVE my horses and I feel that when I purchased my horses, we made a deal. They work for me, and I care for them. When they suffer an injury (probably because of the work they are doing for me) I can't just cast them off to homes that I know will contain suffering. That's part of the deal.

In addition, so there are no restrictions to bringing new equine lives into the world with goals of profit. As we are trying to dispose of these unwanted horses, Premarin producers are breeding more unwanted horses with no pedigree or hope of useful free lives.

First, how can we remain so determinedly ignorant of the sources of the products sold to us by big business, and second, how can these two industries operate so unrelated to one another? In America we are so focused on avoiding death, we are creating horrible lives for our 4 legged friends.

[Rebecca T. of HonestMeat]

MJW objects to horses being slaughtered for meat. I object to neglected horses and a black market for horse meat. Some people consider pigs pets (thousands of people in fact have pot belly pigs) but we still allow pig slaughter. Euthanasia of horses is expensive and many owners these days can't even afford to feed their horses, let alone pay to euthanize them. I also don't believe in wasting a good protein source that millions of people consume. This issue is completely different than dogs and cats because Anglo cultures have no history of eating dogs and cats except during war and famine. On the other hand, there is a long history of breeding and raising horses for their meat within Anglo cultures.

[MJW]

I don't think we are really addressing the issue here. It is not one of telling someone that they cannot put down an animal that they cannot care for or that is in poor health. What is really at issue here is money. By closing horse slaughterhouses we are eliminating the ability of an owner to make a last few bucks off their horse (i.e. the meat) and are instead requiring them to pay to humanely euthanize the animal. Also, wouldn't we be bothered if feral cats and dogs were rounded up and sent to slaughterhouses? For many of us, horses are on the same level as dogs and cats. To see horses rounded up and slaughtered is just as offensive and upsetting. When ranchers no longer have a use for their hearding dogs should they be sent to a slaughterhouse and their meat shipped to countries that eat dog?

[Ulla]

You are right! Thank you for being brave enough to say the truth!

[Cathy]

Oh. I agree. Starvation or slaughter in Mexico is MUCH crueler.
One of the horse right's groups that lobbied for closure of the DeKalb plant is now lobbying, begging, for people to take foster horses. They are now turning horses away.
Our county in WI has lost 14,000+ jobs in the last year. We have a HUGE amount of starving, neglected horses that are worth nothing because it costs too much to feed them, and it costs too much to move them.
Before the Delkalb plant closed, you could get at least $200 fcr a horse. Now, you can't give them away.

[Chris]

Excellent question! I think there should be an option to humanely slaughter horses in this country. I think that our society has gotten so far removed from the reality of food supply, that policy gets created based on emotionalism that is not connected in any way with actual responsible management. Maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that not every animal is a potential for dinner. Not every society has that luxury. However, the disturbing trend has developed that we would rather euthanize "excess" animals than actually manage them in a way that would utilize the sacrifice of their life.
So, people get horrified at the idea of eating horses, and I'll take it a step further, dogs or cats. I get horrified at the idea of senseless slaughter of said animals simply for taking up space, or their languishing to death in abysmal conditions for lack of care. There has got to be a better way. That way has got to include a management policy that incorporates death as well as life. In that way, we can eradicate the cruelty and suffering of non-action.

[Anna]

What you say makes a lot of sense, IMO. I'm learning through experience, that good meat is good meat, regardless of the animal (most of food acceptability is cultural). So I wouldn't have anything against eating horsemeat per se, but I wouldn't want meat from a neglected emaciated horse any more than I would want it from any unhealthy animal (I seek out producers of healthy meat and avoid factory farmed). But processing for pet food makes sense and I'm pretty sure my cats would eat it (I prepare raw food for them) and I'm sure my friends' dogs who eat raw food would eat it too.

I was in Italy a few weeks ago and while shopping in a typical supermarket, and noted the meat cases marked with the various meats, including equina (horsemeat). Not a huge section compared to the more familiar meats, but there nonetheless, looking a lot like beef.

On another note, I've been enjoyed range-fed bison lately, as well as goat. My local "hobby farm" just notified me that the butcher she used from the county fair included the pig head with her order (cut in half) as well as the trotters (dressed pig feet), so I'm trying those soon, too.

[Rebecca T. of HonestMeat]

Hrsygyrl brings up some good points, although I believe the last two horse slaughterhouses they shut down in the US last year dealt exclusively with horses. And if we think we don't kill horses humanely in the US, how about across the border in Mexico? I don't imagine it is more humane there. How about instead of legislating away the option of horse slaughter in this country, why don't we keep it here and regulate it? How about requiring that they shoot the horse in the head or some other quick, effective way to put the horse down? I absolutely agree that breeding of any pets needs to be regulated. I live in an area in which dogs and cats breed uncontrolled and them get dumped onto neighboring farms where they become feral, covered in ticks, and slowly starve to death.

[hrsygrl]

The problem with horse slaughterhouses that they are not made to deal with horses, rather other livestock like cows. On average it takes 3-5 blows with a stun gun in the "knock-box" to stun a horse so that it can be bled and butchered. The issue is not whether or not horses should be slaughtered, but that if they are they need to killed quickly and humanely. The horse slaughterhouses in the US did neither. In addition, maybe there needs to be a ban on breeders and the racehorse industry who breed and breed and breed looking for that one "one in a million" horse and leave the others to the wayside to either be slaughtered or left to starve.

[Jean]

This is yet another case of well-intentioned laws making things worse. I believe it is better for a horse to be humanely slaughtered close to home than to be trucked hundreds of miles before being slaughtered or worse, to slowly starve to death. Culturally, we do not eat horsemeat in the US, but it makes excellent pet food.
Another thing that really irks me is the anthropomorphising (sp?) of animals' tastes. Just because you wouldn't want to eat entrails doesn't mean your dog won't think they are luscious (from humanely raised pastured animals of course!). Let the pets eat the offal and leave the preferred cuts for the people.

[YayaOrchid]

Well, you do post an interesting question and or dilemma. I can't say I have an answer.

[GaryM]

Rebecca, this is why I read your blog, because it poses difficult questions many of us try to avoid.

Cruelty, abuse, and neglect goes on all around us, in the way we treat our fellow humans, the animals we are responsible for, and the Earth in general. Most of us ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist, which to me is the moral equivalent of condoning it.

Please, keep making us look hard in the mirror!