~QUARTER-ACRE RESCUE RANCH~

HORSE $LAUGHTER NO MORE IN THE USA!

Many people are under the popular misconception that all horses bound for $laughter are sick, lame or old and dying anyways, and that their meat will be used for dogfood or glue. NOTHING could be farther from the truth. GOOD horses DO go to $laughter, ----- all the time, in fact, the vast majority of them are young and healthy, and their meat will be used for human consumption abroad, not for dogfood or glue.  As long as there is enough flesh on its bones, any equine, even donkeys and mules, are  worth "so much a pound." at the $laughterhouses. At todays market, a 1,000 pound horse will bring $500 - $800. (They deduct 200lbs off the weight allowing for bone and grizzle). In turn, the $laughterhouses will process the meat and ship it frozen over-seas where the meat will sell at high-end restaurants for human consumption, prime cuts costing up to $15.-$20.00 per pound! We are not talking meat to feed the poor here! Only the wealthiest of comsumers can afford those prices. In the world market today, due in part to the threat of  mad cow disease, the demand for horsemeat abroad and the monies generated therefrom are very nearly surpassing that of the beef industry! Horses dont get mad cow disease.

Above photo borrowed from the Alex Brown Racing Discussion Board (ABR)  and the "Fans of Barbaro" (FOB's) that post there - a wonderul group of people  working hard to save some of the horses pictured above. Do these horses look decrepid, old, sick, lame and ready to die anyway? Most of them are young healthy draft horses,  favored for slaughter  because of their extra large size, of course,...which means more $$$ for the slaughterers. 

WHERE DO THEY COME FROM? HOW DO THEY GET THERE? 

“KILL-BUYERS” and “BUNCHER’S” and other unscruplous people who act as middlemen for the $laughterhouses. These are the people that will outbid you at auction while you are trying to buy a cute little horse or pony for your granchild, these are the people that will answer FREE TO A GOOD HOME ads for your horse and will promice to provide a "forever loving home" to your beloved animal - and take him directly to $laughter.  These are the people that CHOOSE to earn their living bringing horses, yes, even "good" horses,  to $laughter as a way of life. They travel all over the country and keep 'kill-pens" or feedlots at various locations throughout the U.S., Canada & Mexico. These are the people that will keep seriously injured, sick and suffering horses alive that SHOULD BE, NEED TO BE euthanised RIGHT AWAY but keep them alive anyways and let them suffer because they know a horse must be alive and standing "on at least three legs" to go to $laughter. These are the people that realize and exploit the fact that there is a BIG demand abroad for horsemeat and BIG money to be made right here in the good ole' USA supplying that foreign demand.   

Logo above bought to you by the good folks at Equine Friends; check out BOTH their sites, this for LOADS of more info on the horse-slaughter issue:  http://www.stophorseslaughter.com , and this one http://www.equinefriends.com  for their FREE horse classifieds and other great "horsey' stuff!   Thanks Barb!

KILL-BUYERS

Here is a list of some of the  known "kill-buyers" bringing horses to $laughter at the Belgian owned Dallas-Crown facility in Texas, bought in the year 2004. (For a more complete listing, see our "Black List" page of this web-site) You can see that of the 2,306 horses that were bought in between Sept. and  Oct. of that year, - more than half, ....1,660,  were QUARTER-HORSES . FOR SHAME on the AMERICAN QUARTER-HORSE ASSOCIATION for its PRO -$LAUGHTER stance! Eventhough this facility is now closed, you can bet these killbuyers  are still in the horsemeat business; only now they are trucking the poor unfortunate animals into Mexico where they are even more BRUTALLY killed than they were in America. Why do they go to such great lengths simply to bring horses to $laughter? Look at the first entry in the log below, and see Mr. Leroy Baker bought in 233 horses to be $laughtered within a six week period, look a little further down the list to see another kill-buyer, a Jack Reinert,  - bought in 687 horses to be slaughtered within that same six-week period! Did he have a busy and profitable month!.........realizing  $500 dollars or more per horse, - you do the number crunching,......Bringing horses to $laughter brings BIG BUCKS to the bringers, and even BIGGER BUCKS to the foreign $laughter-house owners. Do you want these un-scruplous American Kill-buyers and their foreign cohorts getting rich off the blood & suffering of our American COMPANION ANIMAL equines?. We dont think so. Let your representatives know!

* For a more complete updated list of known killbuyers by name, be sure and see "Our Black List" page. We are "on the march" against killbuyer abuses and are out to shut them down! Here are some links to the Killbuyer Haters Club(s)" All are welcome to join.

* PMU & NurseMare Farms:

* American Wild Horses / BLM Approved!

* The American Quarter-Horse Association (AQHA) who is responsible for over HALF off all horses slaughtered!

* Race Horses; 35% of all racehorses go to slaughter, but we think this a conservative number.

* Careless, indiscriminate breeders

* Irresponsible Owners

*We say "Horsemeat IS NOT good for your health, as all the DRUGS we inject them with, wormers, vacines, etc. are labled "NOT TO BE USED ON ANIMALS MEANT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION." There is a reason for this warning. These drugs pose serious health risks in human beings.  

IGA Selling HorseMeat Burgers! Here is a petition calling for a boycott of all IGA stores;

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/horsemeat-burgers-anyone-boycott-iga

..The rest are just ignorant.

You may be suprized to know, that such professional organizations such as The United States Dept. of Agriculture, The American Association of Equine Practionioners, The Animal WELFARE Counsel, and as stated above, The American Quarter-Horse Association,  are actually for HORSE $LAUGHTER!  Below  is a link where you can read their reasoning why, but bear in mind that their FIRST mistake is to equate death in a $laughter-house as a "humane means of euthansia." Nothing could be farther than the truth! $LAUGHTER IS NOT and never will be HUMANE in anyway! $LAUGHTER is $LAUGHTER ( a wanton killing motovated for other than humane reasons) and HUMANE EUTHANSIA is just that, - a 'humane" death, a "soft, peaceful death' with NO PAIN, NO TRAUMA, usually done regretfully but out of necessity in the  best interest of the animal.. "Humane' euthansia CAN NEVER be accomplished in a $laughterhouse environment which by its very nature is highly traumatic (and painful) to the animal. $LAUGHTER and HUMANE EUTHANSIA are two different things altogether - they ARE NOT one and the same as these people would have you believe.  Those who believe or proport to the public that death in a $laughterhouse FOR ANY ANIMAL  is "humane euthanisa" need to STOP insulting our intelligence and to WAKE UP and make a visit to one of these horrible places. 

Thanks to the good folks at HORSEKILLERS.COM and SHARK, in the link below you can see actual footage of horses meeting their end in an American  $laughterhouse (now closed) ...this is what supporters of horse $laughter describe as 'humane euthansia." WARNING, THESE VIDEOS ARE GRAPHIC and may be disturbing. Once you access the site, page down to where it says: THE HORRORS OF HORSE $LAUGHTER to see the American $laughterhouse videos, and just below that, where it says HUMANE EQUINE EUTHANSIA, there is a link where you can compare and watch a video showing what HUMANE EUTHANSIA really is. The "Humane" video shows two "beloved" horses, good buddies,  that are HUMANELY EUTHANISED together by their owners & a veterinan  at home. View both these videos, death in a $laughterhouse and death at home by lethal injection, and YOU be the judge as to which method is or is not TRUE "humane euthansia." 

http://www.sharkonline.org/?P=0000000528 

Cllick below to read all the LAME-BRAINED excuses the 'so-called' experts give in support of horse-$laughter in this publication entitled, "The Un-Intended Consequences of Ending Horse Slaughter." .... buried on a page  in small print, they readily admit that should horse-slaughter end,  ---- $26,000.000 a year in LOST REVENUE will occur.  Therein lies the real reason for their Pro-$laughter stance, ....bottom line (What else is new?)  Its all about THE ALMIGHTY BUCK, special interest & pork-barrel politics! Click and read on, but BE WARNED, the BS is deep so wear your manure mucking boots before entering this HALL OF SHAME Directory of Horse-$laughter supporters: 

Follow this link to "the manure pile." : http://www.animalwelfarecouncil.com/html/pdf/consequences.pdf

Here is a link to a rebuttal to the report above by another group of "Independant" Equine Practicioners:  http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/news/2007/11/167.shtml 

Then read an EXCELLENT rebuttal to same report in the "White Paper" submitted by The Equine Protection Network;

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OTHER "PROFESSIONAL"  PRO-SLAUGHTER FOLK:  WHO ELSE?

The Professinal Rodeo Associations:

  http://www.sharkonline.org/?P=0000000618

THE FOR's & AGAINST's OF  EQUINE SLAUGHTER:

Here are some articles and letters, both published and not,  from various sources voicing different opinions either FOR or AGAINST horse slaughter: As always, I am high lighting those "For" slaughter in red for the blood of the animals killed:

FOR:  "Anti-Slaughter Folks Make Matters Worse," by April Huges, Pub., The Daily Herald, 11/17/07:

"People have been eating horseflesh since time immemorial. There are breeds of horses, the Breton, for instance, that were specifically bred to be used as food. This abhorrence of using horses as food seems to be an American cultural construct. Do anti-slaughter people have a problem with cows, pigs and chickens being slaughtered for food? If not, why not? Are their deaths any less vicious or less important?

Over 100,000 horses were slaughtered for export from the U.S. every year. Add to that the hundreds, if not thousands of mustangs that are rounded up from public lands, standing idly in feed lots, waiting for adoptions that will most likely never happen. At cost to the taxpayers averaging $1.50 per animal per day. What will happen to all the old, unwanted, lame or sick domestic horses that their owners can't sell or afford to keep? Will they just be neglected, abused and left to die in their barns and pastures?

How many horses are the anti-slaughter activists willing to adopt? One hundred head apiece? Two hundred? If slaughter is so reprehensible, it's time they put their money where their mouths are, and each be required to adopt dozens of unwanted horses.

Thanks to the anti-slaughter activists, horses are now being shipped longer distances for slaughter, in even more inhumane conditions than they were before slaughter was banned. Thanks for your hard work. Thanks for exposing even more horses to abuse and neglect.

People who own and breed horses are a huge part of the problem. Kids outgrow the pony? Sell it on. Get tired of taking care of the horse? Sell it on. Foal doesn't have the conformation, speed or color needed for its breed standard? Sell it on. But by all means, keep breeding more horses until you get the one you want and to heck with the ones that weren't. The lack of responsibility people show to their animals in this country is appalling. The six million-plus perfectly healthy dogs and cats that are put down every year are a testament to that.

Cattle, pigs and chickens are sentient beings, also. A horse is special because … why? Because you can hop over a fence on it?

How were the deaths of the horses in Wadsworth (trucking accident) any kinder than the one they would have received at a slaughterhouse? Personally, I hold the anti-slaughter activists partly to blame for this horrible accident."

April Hughes

Wauconda

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AGAINST:  by Marjorie Caruso, a true friend and lover of horses, in reply to above:

"It baffles me when someone writes that they "love horses", but yet they come out in favor of horse slaughter.

Ms. Hughes blames the anti-slaughter activists for the deaths of all of these horses, i..e, over breeding and apathy. I would like to correct those statements.

She asks the question of what we are to do with lame and sick horses. Well, the facts are that most of the horses slaughtered for human consumption are very healthy; some have even gone on to win ribbons, after being rescued. There are a quite a few, but I'll name Ying Yang Yo as one example.

She also discusses over breeding. The fact is that the over breeding is caused by people who are pro-slaughter and who use their animals for profit. Of course they don't care what happens in the end to their sometimes haphazard creations.

She compares horses to pigs, cattle and chickens. Well, I am wondering why she did not compare horses to dogs and cats, because that is a much better analogy. We interact with our horses. There are seeing eye dogs, therapy dogs, military dogs and police dogs. And guess what, there are seeing eye horses, therapy horses, military and police horses. Horses work for us and entertain us. It is unethical to teach a horse to trust and work with you and then ship that horse off to a slaughter plant to a horrific death.

And as for the Wadsworth horses, they were being shipped in a double decker trailer not designed for horses. Again we have horses being shipped to slaughter in illegal transport, but yet Ms. Hughes blames the anti-slaughter folks.

The only reason horses are being shipped to Mexico for slaughter is because the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act has not been passed by Congress. In Mexico our horses are facing an even worse death, as their spine is cut so they cannot move and then they are stabbed to death. Shame on all of us for allowing our horses to be sent there for any reason. Instead of blaming the people who helped to end this barbaric practice in this country, I hope that Ms. Hughes will call her senators and representatives and ask them to support S. 311 and H.R. 503 to end all transport of our horses to slaughter.

I hope that in the future, Ms. Hughes will educate herself on the subject before writing to the world.

I have been riding and around horses for most of my life and have studied the anti-slaughter debate for the past two years. My absolute conclusion is that this was "America's Dirty Little Secret", but it is no more. We will pass our bills and end this grisly business. If our dogs do not belong on the plates of foreign consumers, nor do our horses. "

Sincerely,

Marjorie Caruso

http://horses.generitek.com