anyone who has a “horse business” and says that they cannot deduct the cost of putting a horse down is flat out lying. I’m not talking hobby, and if you can afford a hobby you can afford a burial (it’s 100 dollars to bury here in coastal georgia btw) and if you are in business, you depreciate your horses and your trucks and other equipment, don’t tell me otherwise. oh, and I did take business courses at my women’s college and also at my state law school, thanks for the tip, but I don’t run a horse business cause it is hard enough to put down my beloved horses when they are old/sick, I sure as hell wouldn’t sell them!
so those of you “in business” simply say the truth…you’d rather get a couple of hundred dollars to kill your horses and not care if they suffer, rather than spend a couple of hundred dollars and put them down. and I hold mine when it is done, dogs cats and horses. but then they are worth it…
maybe you could lay off a little alcohol and steaks and save up the money??? if you aren’t making a profit in the horse business, maybe you should stop breeding??? just admit what you do and that you don’t care about the horses and what happens to them…I wouldn’t be happy, but at least you’d be truthful… or maybe you think we should start eating Chows and Daschunds???
Well as usual the anti slaughter crowd has to make perrsonal attacks and lies to get their point accross I honestly think alot of them are just to dumb to do anything else. If I ever hear a logical reason not to be pro slaughter based on fact not emotion and personal attacks I’d be shocked. Some of you people can’t see reality if it was right in front of you. There has not been one time I’ve defended anything illegal yet.
And BTW an anti slaughter person on this thread asked where I was I didn’t come looking.
BTW cloudy and callie could you show me please where I ever said something could not be deducted? I really doubt you have a clue I’ve sure never seen anything that makes me think you do.
Well, I’m not “in the business”. I don’t breed horses, nor do I send any to auction. However, I have done more than take a couple of business courses in college. Perhaps you should listen to the voice of experience.
If you think that I am lying, than your best course of action is to read up on the subject, or contact your old professors. Or better yet - you could ask the sport horse breeders on this forum - since they file tax returns.
I did not say you cannot deduct the cost of euthanasia. And what it costs in coastal Georgia is not what it costs in other areas of the country. For example, euthanasia of one of my goats was almost 200$ - and I buried her here. Think beyond your little corner of the world and consider what people have to deal with day to day.
You seem to be more interested in pointing out how wonderful you are. Crowing about your moral superiority smacks of hubris. Everyone on this BB is a horse lover - you don’t need to hit us over the head with your halo to show us how shiny it is.
You speak from a position of total ignorance. Take this as an opportunity to educate yourself instead of calling your betters liars. No one here has lied. No one who has refuted your statements hates animals, or wants them to suffer. In fact, some of us are farmers and raise our own animals for the table. You could probably learn a lot - if you would just take the chip off your shoulder.
And if you are truly interested in trying to solve the unwanted horse issue, you might not want to support PeTA. They don’t operate any shelters or rescues, and they save no dogs or cats. Almost all are killed. They even kill them after they’ve promised the owner a good home for the animal.
What you may want to do is support the Unwanted Horse Coalition - there is a good article in this weeks COTH, and a vet on their Board posts on this BB. These are groups within the horse industry trying to work on ways to reduce the number of unwanted horses. Not just racehorses.
huh? Bute is harmless, since you took it with no side effects, but will keep a horse running on a broken leg?
My brain hurts. I should start a list of things I learned from CandC- among them- bute will keep a horse running on a broken leg, and “the state” takes any unwanted horses… oy.
Doing something about horse slaughter (which I wish didn’t happen actually) is like putting a stopper in the bottom of your bath tub, but leaving the water running full blast out of the faucet. Doesn’t make much sense does it? Something needs to be done to slow the tide of CREATING these marginal horses. Yes I’m a lurker from the Hunter Jumper World, and have seen too many there that breed pretty, and some pretty fugly too.
And someone is going to pay big IF Brown turns out sterile because of the steroids he has received.
Threads like these show me more and more just how little anti slaughter people know on the subject. I really don’t think reality visits them very often.
YOU KNOW… If you feel that way … Then WHY , WHY on earth would you keep coming here and trying to make a point. IT is not going to go over well. YOU are not going to get your point across…WE DON"T CARE… just give it up and let this go… You really are wasting your time here.:no:
cloudyandcallie…i think you have a bad misconception about bute and othe r meds… first place bute is not a pain killer …i will let you look it up…and you will see how foolish you really sound…you have no facts on slaughter…i think you are one of these people who like to stir things up,just because you can…a very small amount of knowledge is dangerous !!!~
I come here because I DO care. As do the vast majority of horsemen. Rather than point fingers - I think it’s more productive to examine the reasons why any horse ends up at slaughter - and think about ways to provide an owner alternatives.
Blaming everything on breeders is rather simple minded, since, if you look at the average age of a slaughtered horse - they’re generally adults. No one in the US is breeding horses for meat - they’re breeding them for the sporthorse/pleasure/work market.
Again - it does not seem that a few of you are interested in solutions - which I find very sad. In the end - it is the horse that suffers from our inability to set asides our egos and work together.
And at least in my case - such attitudes from anti-slaughter groups and individuals have pushed me into the pro-slaughter camp - especially after the plants were shut down in the US - essentially outsourcing slaughter to two countries who will fight tooth and nail to keep those animals going over the border. It makes me sick - to have any of our nations livestock forced to travel over enormous distances like that.
I cannot imagine the hard heart you’d have to have to be the one who operates the bolt at the processing plant. For no amount of money could I do that. There HAS to be a better way. Instead of trying to put a finger in the dam by making slaughter illegal (and simply having the meat men go across the border) we need to find a more humane and ethical way to euthanize livestock.
And in my opinion, an animal who has served a master should never end up being thrown away. We as humans should feel more responsibility and less greed.
moonriverfarm - these folks are just trying to make a living. No “hard heart” required.
I have a slaughterhouse down the road from me - family operated. Nice folks - they take good care of the animals.
Shooting or captive bolt isn’t inhumane. I’ve seen it done. Honestly - it happens very quickly and the animal never knows what hits it. Generally.
The same is true of injection - generally it’s very humane. However, like the captive bolt/.22 - animals do not always go easily into the night. The most horrific euthanasia I’ve seen has been by lethal injection - and yet - the vet did not have a “hard heart”. It’s a rather cruel thing to say, actually - to assume that the people who put the food on your table are subhuman.
They’re not. They’re just people who work at a plant. Vets put animals to sleep all the time - and yet - they do not have hard hearts. Shelter workers kill people’s pets all the time - by the millions - and yet - they do not have hard hearts.
So - please think about what you are saying. We’re all human - and killing, no matter how humane, is still killing a living thing.
J. Swan, I don’t always agree with you, but I think in this case you have made some marvelously logical points. I wish people would approach this issue from a logical perspective rather than emotion.
I am basing my emotions regarding the ones who hold the bolt gun on the fact that in the HBO report, the person with the gun missed on several tries, causing horrid trauma to the horse. I’d feel the same if it was a cow. It is INHUMANE. And I could not do it. But I could never shoot a deer either, so maybe it is just ME.
Most of the horse owners I know, and several cattle ranchers, say they could not deliver the blow. It just isn’t in them. And I disagree that it is the same as the vet doing euthanasia. It just isn’t the same. The horse/cow is not in a metal box, surrounded by the smells of death, thrashing to try and escape while someone up abpve him tries to hit the right place so as only to use one bolt.
You can think of ity as the same if it makes you feel better.
Once again Dick you have no clue what your talking about or maybe your just a liar. Not once have I ever said I know anyone who breeds and raises horses for slaughter.
I never understand those who think slaughter plant workers are hard hearted or those who raise livestock for meat etc. Their no differant then anyone else is they have a job to earn a living to support themselves and their families. If you eat meat you better be very glad they do that.
My idea of someone thats hardhearted are those who supported shutting down the slaughter plants in the U.S. so horses are not hauled longer distances to Mex. especially when according to those same people transport is a terrable thing.
I didn’t post this topic or any post for that matter to point fingers, but rather to show what the general public, non horsy people see. It gives us as riders and horse owners a bad name, no matter which sport we participate in.
I posted this topic to try to have a civil discussion on possible ways to get us all out of this crisis. ALL of us. But then again, this IS COTH and it is rare that things stay civil.
it seems as though the responsible thing to do would have been for the USA to figure out its own problems instead of conveniently arranging to ship the “problem” of unwanted horses to foreign countries like mine and Mexico.
Contrary to what J swan asserts, people in Canada are not “fighting tooth and nail to keep those aninals coming over the border”. The horse slaughter market is small compared to the main business of abbatoirs in this country.
In fact, horsemen all over my country fought and lobbied very diligently to keep this from happening, but the USA has such good control over our border and trade (due to free trade legislation) that we were unable to stop the importation of horses here for market purposes without causing huge hardship to our own horse industry. I.e. we would have had to slap huge import duties on all horses crossing our border. That would have negatively affected all our pleasure and sporthorse breeders and riders.
Its very similar to the mad cow thing. If was easy for the USA to ignore NAFTA and stop importing canadian beef for years when there were a couple of cases of mad cow detected here a few years back. yet, because of the power of the US government and its “free trade”, we’ve been unable to stop the huge amounts of USA beef coming across even though we know now ( and most of us “knew” back then) that the only reason mad cow wasn’t being detected in the USA beef was because your country was not routinely testing for it (as ours does). Recent news in the last week has sadly vindicated our fears.
So altho it is very popular for the USA to Blame Canada as South Park cartoon show sings, in this case, your home grown problem needs a homegrown solution.
Like J swan, I feel, chemical euthanasia is often NOT as humane as a well managed captive bolt. I have not seen a humane lethal injection of a pet animal or horse that did not involve some degree of panic or discomfort to the animal. I’ve seen half a dozen. I have seen as many cows and a couple of horses killed by captive bolt and they drop like stones.
Just to be clear, I am not “pro slaughter”. My elderly horses are living out their years with me. The conditions under which meat animals travel are without exception, inhumane by modern standards. To improve that situation will mean doubling or tripling of the price of meat for human consumption. The USA food animal industry will fight against that idea for a long time.
