help these horses!! this is crazy!! read this ad!

[mississippifarmboy]

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I'm gonna get hollered at.... but.....



It taste a lot like beef.

 

[duckluck]

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I have to agree. I know far too many irrisponsible people who breed every back yard piece of junk just because it can be bred or studed out and call themselves a breeder. They say that if it is on their property it needs to be earning it's keep. Well, breeding a junk mare and producing a $250 foal is not making any money and certainly not earing it's keep! All it does is make more unwanted, uncared for junk animals that nobody wants. It is a disgrace! I love animals, all animals, but starving or neglect and abuse is no life for any animal. Better it be killed in a humane fashion and used as food.

I agree; I have a real problem with the government telling us what we can and can't do regarding this, making it illegal for people to sell unwanted horses for this purpose but yet making an unenforcable law that serves no real purpose but to bottom out the market. That's all I've seen it do here; people are slaughtering horses on private property for their own consumption while others' horses starve because their owners can't even sell them for slaughter at a plant.

 

[TrystInn]

There are safety issues when humans eat horsemeat - the medications routinely given to horses are NOT safe for human consumption. If the horse was to be eaten by humans, the vaccinations, dewormers, etc would have to be prescription-grade for human consumption safety. Given the widespread use of Penicillin and antibiotics in horses, there would also be dangers of the meat carrying antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

Also, those who routinely eat horsemeat have been known to develop allergies to Penicillin and Penicillin-derivatives. There may also be poor reactions to horse-serum derived vaccines.

 

[duckluck]

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I sure hope you're wrong about that last bit...I find out any restaurant I go to is serving that, they had better be ready to answer some tough questions.

I can tell you that back in the 80s we used to get it in where I worked as a wildlife rehabber, and we got it in from a local zoo...it was used as dietary base for wild animals because it is lower in fat than beef...and I had to defrost five pound blocks of it. The stuff smells disgusting. There is no way anyone is going to convince me the stuff is palatable, I don't care who eats it. I didn't have a problem feeding it to the wild animals we were helping but no way I'd ever plan on eating it.

 

[CluckyJay]

I just got an image of a huge, frozen block on pureed flesh with hooves sticking out.

 

[Terri O]

It kind of makes me feel ill to think about eating horsemeat...maybe it is an acquired taste? Anyhow, the closing of the slaughter plants just made the last days of ailing horses that much worse to bear. A long ride in a trailer to a plant is unacceptable to me. Mine are humanely put down and buried here...yes, a waste of meat to be sure and maybe illegal too--I dont know...but for a loved member of the family, what else could I do? T

 

[rebel-rousing-at-night]

My ex-husband is from Eastern Europe.

His father used to butcher horses for other people. Horse meat was used alot when making sausage.

 

[SourRoses]

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Thank you for saying what I was trying to say, so well

Those who do it are probably digging their own grave

 

[TrystInn]

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Happily done. We have extended family in Europe and I've heard some horror stories. While not likely to be an issue here, if you or yours are on horse-derived insulin, you can also experience problems. Not likely in America where its not available, though it can be imported, but for folks overseas (dunno about Canada or Mexico) perhaps they can expound on it.

 

[SourRoses]

Most of the issues responsible for the shut down of all but the one horse slaughter operations in the USA had everything to do with the way it was being performed.
There were guidelines in place outlining the methods that were to be used, but instead of adhering to them, many many companies cheaped out and did it abhorably.
Instead of a one on one bolt gun operation, they would gather them in large masses and do them together. So the horses could see and smell and hear every other horse in the room being killed before it was their turn. This was not as safe for the workers either, but of course, it was cheaper.

The difference between horse slaughter and cow slaughter is that horses have much more highly developed senses and fight or flight response. Enough so, that it makes any method of killing horses in the same place where other horses have been/are being killed, completely inhumane and unsafe. That's just the way they are and the only way for it to be humane is with a gun in their own paddock. But of course that would have been too unprofitable for the companies to stomach.

If people have to put down their own horses on their own property to use the meat... well at least there is an enormous likelihood it is more humane than any commercial operation. I'm not going to cry for the people who make that decision, LOL.