A bill has been introduced in the House to permanently ban the slaughter of horses for human consumption AND to ban the transport of horses to Mexico and Canada for the purpose of slaughter.
I’m interested in hearing discussion from both sides of this argument.
Sometimes the best action for the welfare of an animal is slaughter. Closing ones eyes and ignoring that reality will not benefit the multiple thousands of unwanted, broken, abused animals. I can recognize, however, there is a different mindset between people who see horses as work companions and those who see them as family pets and are horrified by the suggestion that slaughter is a solution to over breeding, injury or even old age. I personally can not see how keeping 58,000 mustangs (2022 figure) in metal holding pens for the rest of their life is a better choice than slaughter, given the ecological and economic reality of dry and overgrazed western rangelands.
By “closing’” slaughter houses in the USA, horses are now obliged to travel very long distances to Canada or Mexico to be killed, so that is legislation that already has a negative impact on animal welfare. The EU won’t import American horsemeat because the meat has a high risk of drug contamination. I don’t know about Japan, but they import from Canada. Banning slaughter for human consumption seems like a pointless exercise as the animals leave the US for slaughter so are beyond US jurisdiction.
The UK has a de facto ban on live export of horses for meat because there is a legal minimum value placed on the animal to be exported which makes British horses too expensive compared with those from Eastern Europe. Also in the UK, delayed euthanasia is one of the top four welfare issues (University of Bristol and World Horse Welfare 2016).
Of course, in an ideal world all horses are beautiful, sane, healthy and in the care of loving and responsible owners. But in reality…
I will not support anything that is backed by the ASPCA. I feel this is just their latest grab for money.
Horrible idea. It’s a necessary evil.
This is a bill introduced so folks can say they did something “good.”
What it actually is, is bullshit. Banning export for slaughter is going to further impact the already stressed rescues . Banning the slaughterhouses for horses on US soil was bad enough, this is worse.
Slaughter is unfortunately a necessary evil
I don’t have an issuing banning international transport for slaughter - it’s often terribly cruel.
But it would require opening domestic slaughterhouses instead. Which I think most horse owners would support. At some point you need to find an affordable way to dispose of 1000 lb animals.
Is horse slaughter legal? It must be…euthanasia is legal so what’s the difference ? There are local beef processing plants….I wonder if they ever dispose of horses? I honestly have no idea.
I’m sure the difference is that it’s a big job if there is no end destination for the meat.
I’m a vet who worked passionately in the shelter world for many years. I also, in full disclosure, grew up on a dairy farm. We consumed what we raised and produced. I am NOT ashamed. My goal has always been trying to maintain a sense of humane management of the necessary production of and management of animals for consumption, for production of goods, and seeing the unwanted/no longer of ‘value’ to the “NORMAL or AVERAGE” care giver provided a humane end/disposal. I have also valued and supported the value of the companionship of our four-legged creatures as long as they experienced true quality of life. There I said it.
I was raised to understand that culling animals is a responsible means of not passing on medical issues, conformational issues, behavioral issues and quite frankly to avoid inefficient use of resources. Giving a humane end to an animal no longer useful and likely unable to sustain itself if left to its own devices or ‘out in the wild’ is better than allowing it to suffer. Resources for everyone is limited (more so for some than others). Slaughter provided a means of disposal without waste if practiced responsibly and humanely. My goal has always been to see that it’s done humanely. That means without fear, anxiety or pain. I do abhor shipping horses far distances for the purpose of slaughter. I do support humane euthanasia if a horse has no one to care for it or if the one who cares for it cannot find a reasonable alternate provider of care and can no longer continue taking care of the horse themselves (including expensive and exhaustive medical care). I have worked with ASPCA in the past with successful collaboration for the good of specific cases however I do not support all of their political agendas. So in short, it’s complicated.
In this case, I wish that we could see and support a way to humanely end the life of the unwanted horse (after all reasonable paths for rehoming have been exhausted, again emphasize the term reasonable) and utilize what is left for the good of others, be that fertilizer, pet food, research, etc. I’ve been to slaughter plants over the course of many years. It’s brutal to watch but once the animal is dead, it’s not suffering. Putting more resources into making the journey to that end as stress free as possible is where I wish we could focus our money and energy.
Flame suit on and fully zipped up. I’m an old bitch with VERY thick, albeit wrinkly, skin. I’ve championed the prosecution of cruelty cases, been an expert witness for many of those, busted dog fighting rings, cock fighting rings and fraudulent trust ‘dependent care’ cases, often involving horses; so, I am all about supporting humane and decent animal welfare/care. I’m not about wasting limited resources to save every creature on the face of the earth for all eternity especially when doing so does NOTHING to enhance their quality of life only their quantity of life.
I fully support the ban on horse slaughter export because I think the process is extremely inhumane, not necessarily the actual act.
It is not uncommon for a horse to go through several different auctions before actually going to a kill pen. For instance, this is the actual path of one horse.
Started in Illinois. Was sold as a driving prospect to a flipper in TN. Horse is transported to TN and sustains an injury on the way. Horse is sold at an auction for very little money in TN. Horse then is shipped up to a feeder auction in Maryland. No sale on the horse. Horse is then shipped to PA. Horse is sold to a kill buyer. Horse is loaded up and shipped halfway across the state to the kill pen. Horse is then kept in kill pen until its turn.
(At this point, someone actually bought this horse out of the pen. Which is a different discussion)
The whole process took months. The horse was extremely stressed and lost a lot of weight. There was of course no hoof care during this time, and very little medical care. The horse was in pain the whole journey. This is not an uncommon path for horses, and I’m amazed more don’t colic and die.
A well placed bullet would have been a much kinder solution for the horses being shipped across the border.
The transport and then slaughter is a horrible end for horses. Personally, I would rather they go to nearby, regulated, slaughterhouses. If Dr. Grandin has a method for the humane slaughter of horses, then that’s fine. But shipping them to another country is a horrible idea. Too many people cover up their crimes this way. BLM horses go all the time because the government doesn’t track them as they should. People who have lost horses, or had them taken via divorce or fake “rescues” have no closure. They can’t track across the border. If they’re going to be slaughtered, have the guts to do it here, legally and humanely (if there is a humane way?). That way, we can make sure stolen horses don’t end up there.
Another well-intended, but ill-thought through move. In the 20+ years I’ve been in online forums, not a single anti-slaughter fanatic has been able to produce a remotely viable alternative. Sure, they’ve come up with alternatives, like giant rescue farms. That’s not viable.
At least if things are kept here, the treatment of the animals can be regulated and monitored. There’s plennnnnnty of money either in a budget that’s not used, or used for utterly useless things (making people happy and lining pockets isn’t useful) that can be used for this instead. We’re doing much of that already at least to the point that horses reach a border, which is where things go south quickly, especially if they’re headed South. So banning international transport for this is good.
Sure, some will find a way to do it anyway, we can’t stop everything.
So I’m curious, again, for those who are vehemently against slaughter of horses - what’s your viable alternative?
Thank you watching over animals in need during your career. It must have been heart-wrenching, especially as a vet, to see so much suffering.
I’m not sure I’ve met anyone against horse slaughter. It’s more that people are against the current system of them being shipped all over the place before the slaughter. The actual act is probably the easiest part on the horse.
I think ideally there would be plants in the USA with decent holding pens for getting weight on the horses first. The issue is that horse meat is absolutely not safe for consumption from horses not raised for the purpose. The amount of horses going through the auctions drugged up is concerning and I don’t have to tell horse people how long some of those medicines can stay in the system for. It’s probably not financially viable to feed those horses for the months it would take to make sure everything is out of the system before slaughter for human consumption.
It could be used for animal feed (dog and cat food) if the horses are kept in pens for long enough to get the majority of any potential medication out of the system. But the American public is very apposed to the consumption of horse meat, and that probably would translate to them not wanting to feed it to Fido either.
The best option I’ve heard is encouraging owners of lame and old horses to give them to zoos and private large carnivore owners instead of sending them to auction. But a lot of those people would rather take the small amount of money than guarantee the horse had a good end.
I think there’s an “out of sight out of mind” aspect. Too many can kid themselves that their horse was bought by a kindly family that would dedicate their lives to nurturing their DSLD gelding or mare with severe founder or navicular. It’s the type of first class, BS plate they serve up for their teary eyed kids.
It’s better to teach your kids about a kind goodbye than a fake fantasy they find out later.
You must not be in many forums/groups where this topic comes up. The ones against it are extreme about it 
We’re eating pets. We’re eating a prey animal (like nobody ever eats a rabbit?). They deserve better than that (and cows don’t?). The issue seems to be cultural - in the US/Canada, we don’t use “pets” for food.
I think this is a terrible idea. Holding pens are crowded, which means lots of manure and urine and how many weeks are you willing to subject a horse to in order put on, say, 100lb, so his weight is acceptable?
The whole drug issue is a totally separate issue, for sure. It doesn’t matter if they were raised for meat. What matters is how long ago X drug was used. And I guarantee many drugs not safe for human consumption are used in cows meant for us to eat, but there’s a withdrawal period.
Zoos are few and far between, and for most, that would require a long trailer ride to get there in order to be humanely shot there. But if they’re that lame, they need drugs for that. And if it’s that far, and they can’t stand in the trailer without drugs, they need to be humanely shot and then transported, which usually means the meat isn’t good by the time they get there.
The holding pens are done now. There’s a massive one about an hour from me. They hold the horses there until they can get them healthy enough to get across the border. Sometimes that’s a few days, sometimes that’s months. If done correctly they are not inhumane. Because horses are pets and there’s no way of confirming what was and wasn’t given to them in order to be safe for consumption they have to be held somewhere for a while. Ranchers have accountability. They keep records of what cow got what. The random horse owner doesn’t have that accountability. They give reserpine right before the horse goes through the auction house.
Usually the animal is shot on property, loaded up with the tractor onto a flatbed and then taken where it needs to go from there. There actually was a guy who used to do this in my area for his pack of hounds. It’s not the solution for everyone, or every horse, but the answer to most problems is usually not a simple ‘do this one thing’ but a large collection of different solutions so that the issue can be resolved.
The unwanted horse problem has many, many different causes and it will take many different solutions to resolve it.
Agreed and the withdrawal time/medication issue prevents the zoos from taking many horses that have been offered too. There are rendering options that don’t require consumption.
How many of those pens end up with injured horses due to over-crowding? How many have protection from the sun in July or the hardest Winter weather? Are they actually humane, or just “not bad”?
Agreed, there’s no single solution. My point about the zoos was that’s not an option for the vast majority for a lot of reasons, including that the reason the horse is being put down is because bute no longer keeps the horse sound enough. It IS one solution for a small %.
Absolutely, and it’s a whooooole separate issue to try to address the number of horses to start
Because there’s a slaughter plant in every state in the US?
No, they will still travel very far, and be abused every step of the way, if plants continue/reopen in the US.
Period
Unless we all want to pay for a vet signature for every Bute (etc) we give… which would be one lame step towards an attempt at insuring it is safe.
On the public lands where I used to trail ride no chemical methods were allowed to euthanize. Only a gun, to protect scavengers from being poisoned.
In the olden days it was considered quite respectable, even noble, to feed disposed foxhunters to the hounds.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
