[QUOTE=M.K.Smith;6113603]
I have a good friend who lost a cousin because a pickup truck hauling lawn tractors wasn’t hooked up correctly.
Wonder how different this story would have been if the trailer accident had involved a bus load of children and people’s kids had been killed? Thank God, it didn’t.
What happens when innocent people lose their lives?
I just can’t envision that hauling 30 plus horses in a trailer is safe or humane. I’m a prove it to me sort of gal… Is anybody here willing to run an experiment with their own personal horses to demonstrate that it is safe? Just have a couple people from different farms get together their nice horses and without shipping boots, dividers, blankets or bubble wrap-- load up 38 of their show horses, stallions, broodmares heavy in foal, yearlings, and to keep it realistic throw in some mild lamenesses, a navicular or two and a few founders, along with some “rescue horses” who can have their ribs counted and toss in a few 30 year olds for good measure and bonus points. Then drive from TN to the Mexico border. Stop only the minimum amount of times the law requires. Feed and water only the minimum times… the minimum is good enough, right… it’s been proven to be acceptable through countless research studies and lots of taxpayers dollars, right?
At the border… unload the horses and we’ll evaluate before and after pics to show that they are in just as good a shape as when they got on. From what I’m hearing from some folks, they’ll be perfectly hydrated, glossy coated, fat, & sleek without a single scratch on them… and of course… no colics… and everything would be just as sound as when it stepped on the trailer…
So… which COTHers are going to prove to us that they’re right?[/QUOTE]
I have seen dude ranches send hundreds of horse from WY to AZ in the fall and back to WY in the spring in double deckers and the horses were fine.
Those horses were not hurt in any way.
Rodeo horses also travel like that and those are worth more than many show horses.
The BLM used to send horses in DD from the West clear to the adoption pens in the East, regularly to some in FL and that was a very long, more than a day long trip.
Remember, not all DD are the same, some are bigger, some have adjustable floors, compartments, etc.
Why would a trader, if nothing else because they have a small margin of profit on each horse, not take adequate care of them so they stay sound and healthy all the way to slaughter, so they are not turned back as unsuitable once there if they don’t pass inspection?
Every horse unloaded was looked over by an USDA inspector and an TSCRA inspector.
No trailer was opened until inspectors were there and no horse unloaded, at the TX plants, without it.
Horses were turned back if they didn’t comply with their requirements and quarantined if there was a match with a reported stolen one.
Years ago, a local trader, that was a farrier and I happen to be there looking at an OTQH, that I bought, had someone came by and was trying to get him to take his horse with a cut on his ankle, that was not healing properly, to slaughter.
The trader told him no, they would not accept him at the unloading dock, to get him healed all the way or shoot him himself.:eek:
The trader was clearly mad at how that fellow was not caring well enough for the horse.
While I am sure there are lowlife horse traders, horse rescues, horse trainers, horse owners, most are not.
Just as with any other, there are good caretakers and bad ones in everything we do.
We need to run the bad ones out and not let those with agendas brand all by them.
If we listen to what the animal rights propaganda tells only, all we hear is about the bad stories of horse abuse and mismanagement.
Tell me any other whole industry, like those that use animals, like agriculture or entertainment, that has mega million non-profit groups out to shut them up as the way they themselves make their millions, like the animal rights groups are.
Animal rights groups are after eliminating all animal use, using abuses to paint it all evil.
There is abuse in all we do, churches, hospitals, nursing homes, schools, Drs offices, government.
I don’t see non-profits asking the general public to have “causes of the moment” drives to outright ban colleges, churches, etc. with relentless, decades long propaganda about the abuses and becoming immensely rich from them.
That is what we have here in these pushes for banning this and that in what we do with our animals because someone was abusive.
Horse slaughter, dairies, rodeo, eventing, you name it, is fair game for animal rights extremists.
We have to keep working to eliminate abuses, but not fall for the propaganda to ban anything based only on some abusers, as some animal rights followers keep insisting we do.
