Killing Horses for Humans to Eat!

[EweSheep]

Mad cow disease isn't new...been around for awhile until we all quit feeding them brain and spinal matters which it is the source of the disease. We could not take the chance either. Meat muscles are'nt the source of the disease (that I am aware of). Glad we got rid of it before it spread like wildfire.

Either way, we are screwed from anywhere we buy commercially and not all meds are created equally. Ivomec can be used on horses so how can it really be safe. Do we really trust the FDA? They have pulled out so many medications lately in the last decade because it caused problems even deaths. How do we REALLY know how safe our medications to our livestock is safe for us?? If we are to get horses slated for butcher, do they go thru a withdrawal period? I can not see how a feedlot would take on horses and put them on withdrawal period, testing every one of them clean or acceptable for human consumption? That would be very costly and time consuming. I wish I have the insight what all horse slated for slaughter must go thru before they are being butchered. I agree that it is much kinder to butcher our own horses that we dont know or coming down to the survival mode.

Hoof and mouth disease was bad in UK too, remember almost all of their livehood ended up slaughtering thousands of animals? I had a friend that lost her entire herd of sheep and cattle from that disease. It could have been preventable but they dropped their guards too much.

 

[chickened]

I am not sure I agree with this. I have been involved with horses my entire life raised with 50 to 60 head at any given time and have seen horses go nuts just trying to load them. I have seen others that walk in a trailer at first try. They have no more idea what is lying in wait for them than any other creature forced to do something out of the ordinary. It is the level headedness of the animal that predicts the reaction not the destination or the assumed "smell" of death. Put a dead bear on the back of a pack horse and see how they react. I have shot several horses in my life and they never knew what was coming. Now if I led them or trucked them to a strange place they may react to the newness of the situation but not think "hey I am gonna die" they just do not reason in that manner. Despite the facial expressions or method of appearance.
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I'll respectfully disagree with this comment. Sheep are just as finely attuned to the fear response of a herd and have an incredibly strong fight or flight ....more so, in fact, than any domestic horse I've seen.

When it all comes down to the bottom of the bottom, any animal sent to a slaughter house has pretty much a fear and anxiety response to the experience...if you've ever taken a group of animals in, you can see this very plainly.

I've raised both horses and sheep for over 30 years, and I've watched both sheep and horses fight for what I'm sure they believe is their lives, and for escape. I've been right there with the handling and slaughter of all but one of the sheep we've ever culled.

it is my observation that fear and flight are much the same, but many horses will fight until they are no longer physically able, while sheep often give up. while I don't know what their experience is, no one can, I do know they behave differently at the point where it's reasonable to think they fear for their lives.

..........

there are slaughter houses and there are slaughter houses. something near half the cattle processing plants in this country have cattle handling facilities that were designed by Dr. Temple Grandin. If you're not familiar with her or her work it's worth looking up. she's a severely autistic woman who has found a way to function despite her very non-standard brain, a vet, and an animal perception and handling expert.

if you look at slaughter houses in a practical way, they're a business with a bottom line. things like frightened and stressed animals affect their profits. it takes more people to handle the animals which increases cost. there are more injuries and deaths to the livestock which reduces profit. stress and injuries reduce the quality of the meat, making them less competitive than other slaughterhouses. what they need is a process where cattle move easily without a lot of manpower, without significant fear, without having to be prodded with a hotshot, without hurting themselves or other cows. to have that, they need a system where cattle are calm, relatively unafraid. in other words, not a traumatic experience.

there are specific standards for judging the cattle's level of fear. percent of animals vocalizing. number of times a hotshot has to be used in a group to keep them moving. number of injuries to livestock or handlers. percentage of processed meat showing bruising or stress related damage. those are quantifiable measures that tell you how stressful the animals find the experience. while it's not possible to know exactly what the animal experiences, it's possible to measure the responses that are directly tied to fear and stress.

What Dr. Grandin does is design systems for handling cattle (and other livestock) that keeps the animals calm and as unafraid as possible, giving them as little stress as possible, while still making a slaughter house functional.

THAT is what I'd be interested in seeing for horse slaughter facilities. I think there is a need, but my concern is that it won't be done humanely. if appropriate handling and holding facilities are used, while still sad, I think it's a reasonable solution.

 

[zzGypsy]

sorry if I was unclear, I mean "in fear for their lives" in a survival way, not in a human thinking way.

I've certainly had animals fight, or not, based on their temperament.
however, I find "giving up" quite typical of sheep, and not nearly so typical of horses with the same degree of lack of exposure to handling by people. I read that to be a difference in their nature.

regardless, my point was mostly about the proper handling facilities and the kind of work done to make the process less traumatic for the animal. if slaughterhouses that process horses use the sorts of methods designed by Dr. Grandin, and tuned for horses, I'd have considerably less issue with the whole thing.

and also that many people who are greatly animated about the trauma a cow goes through at the slaughterhouse prior to being actually killed have not been in a modern facility, designed according to those standards, and so may not know as much about the process as they imagine.

 

[Matthew3590]

Going off of Gypsy said, I seen videos of cow slaughter they walk right up to the machine as if there is feed there right before a bolt goes through its head. It wasn't expecting anything.

 

[DLS]

I ate Horse meat in the army back in the early 70's (glad to have it to) . Really good eating. I would buy it if I could.

 

[KristyHall]

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temporarily off topic DLS, but your Avatar bug tricked me.I saw something crawling out of the corner of my eye and waved my hand at the screen to shoo away the "fly" only to realize it wasn't real.

 

[phasianidae]

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Preposterous? This is supposed to be a free country, why should someone be kept from having a horse steak? To many horses just going to waste around here, their owners no longer want them but they can't get rid of them. Why not just make some food out of them? Why is a lame horse, or any horse for that matter, higher than a steer or whatever? Just my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone.

 

[BrattishTaz]

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Preposterous? This is supposed to be a free country, why should someone be kept from having a horse steak? To many horses just going to waste around here, their owners no longer want them but they can't get rid of them. Why not just make some food out of them? Why is a lame horse, or any horse for that matter, higher than a steer or whatever? Just my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone.

You are not the only one having trouble with this way of thinking. I do not consider one animal to be of a higher/lower "life value" than another. I believe that as long as the animal is raised as naturally as possible, killed humanely, and processed safely, there is nothing wrong with eating it if you choose to do so.

 

[KenK]

Before the last couple of threads about horse slaughter I really had no particular interest in eating horse meat. Have to say now that I'd really like to try a horse burger. Never had meat from a large mammal that I didn't think was acceptable. Deer, elk, moose, cow, bear, lamb, pig...all tasty.

If horses are free and somebody is running low on grocery money, I don't know why they don't get one and fatten it a little if needed and then do the deed.

 

[sourland]

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Preposterous? This is supposed to be a free country, why should someone be kept from having a horse steak? To many horses just going to waste around here, their owners no longer want them but they can't get rid of them. Why not just make some food out of them? Why is a lame horse, or any horse for that matter, higher than a steer or whatever? Just my opinion, I don't mean to offend anyone.

You are not the only one having trouble with this way of thinking. I do not consider one animal to be of a higher/lower "life value" than another. I believe that as long as the animal is raised as naturally as possible, killed humanely, and processed safely, there is nothing wrong with eating it if you choose to do so.

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