Horse Meat-

[Likalizard]

Obama Legalizes Horse Slaughter for Human Consumption
On November 18th, as the country was celebrating Thanksgiving, President Obama signed a law, allowing Americans to kill and eat horses. www.technorati.com.

Saw this on above website. REALLY? WTF. Wonder what
the BI ranches think of this. ugh.

Lika


"To err is human, to forgive divine"

[riverwolf]

People have been eating horses for centuries.
Horses,cows,bison,pigs,goats,sheep,dogs,deer, birds.....what's the difference if that's your choice ? ....other than cooking time and marinade?

riverwolf

[Carey]

UMMM... well that was not quite what the bill signed stated. The agricultural bill only ended a five year ban on the inspection of horse meat....that ban had only caused a depression of the price of horses, as most (ETA:used for human consumption - pet food is not inspected) were exported for slaughter...

Big Island ranches ship most of their live animals off island for slaughter, so that ban, nor its' repeal, would not have an effect their business model.

[amf217]

I have eaten raccoon, dillo, turtle, snake, gator all kinds of shellfish but I will pass on the horse, thank you very much

[Rene]

You just have not been hungry enough...

[csgray]

The 5 year ban on inspections came at the same time as our economic downturn and that combination resulting in many horses being abandoned and neglected. There has been a big increase in horses found literally starving when their owners could no longer afford to feed them. Rescue operations have been overwhelmed at a time when donations are down, so if you are offended by horses being slaughtered donate to horse rescue organizations.

Carol

[lostboystoy]

It's about time, no I don't eat horse, I ride horse!
But since the united states shut down the slaughter houses for horse it has been all moved to Canada. So what you say?
As a rancher, the horse market, what's left of it has gone down the tubes, essentially what has happened is the market is flooded, you can go to auction pick up a brood mare with a colt on her side and bred back , that's 3 horses for as low as 500 dollars. It has left alot of ranchers in the cold with no alternative but to either give them away or shoot them.
Let me explain why
The price of hay has more than tripled in the last five years because of the cost of fuel and that lovely bailing twine around the bails that used to be wire is now a oil n gas product .
So a rancher foals out his broodmares early spring if their not sold by fall, every mouthful of hay that foal eats in the fall and winter is money that the rancher will never see. Period, at least in the way the market is today.
So sad but true the rancher is better off shooting them. If they give them away then the bloodlines that they have been breeding gets scattered and the value of the bloodlines drop.
It might sound crule n gross to think about the slaughter houses but they serve their purpose, they put meat on your table in shiny white packages.

And for you vegetarians out their an Indian friend once said, vegetarian means poor hunter
Oh and you P.E.T.A lovers PETA also stands for people eating tasty animals
Aloha have a great day


setting my soul free....

[lostboystoy]

Got a head of myself, ha the main reason for the flood of horses in the market is because the slaughter houses have been shut down and moved to Canada , now the rancher has to take even less per pound because of the distance to ship the horses for slaughter which had been at thirty cents per pound that was five years ago, now I believe it's half 15 cents per pound. Which for a 700 pound horse your gonna make what 102 dollars .
Ok now figure this 4 horses will go through a ton of hay per month during the winter at the average cost of 250 a ton.
Average winter feeding 4 months that's 1000 just in hay that's not grain mineral supplements vet care ect. Then you have the cost of breeding ( stud fee) 500- 1500 for average alot higher for show n racing horses. So now a colt on the ground your looking at around a 1000 you can cut the cost as most ranchers do by having your own stud on site. Fine n dandy your still in it for the feed.
You go to the market and it's flooded you can barely get 5-700 out of a horse your now 300 dollars poorer.

Just sayin it's about time...


setting my soul free....

[Carey]

The live stock market also was flooded this summer as a result of the drought in the mainland SW....esp hit ranchers in Texas hard....any animal was a feed & WATER liability, something they did not have...so the market completely dropped out for most ranch animals...

& the drought is one of the reasons that there is agricultural support for the repeal on the inspection ban....

[csgray]

I was really shocked at how low prices had dropped when I looked at horses and ponies listed for sale on the mainland recently. Quality registered lines going for peanuts in "herd reduction" sales, and many breeders liquidating lines they had developed over decades, if not generations, of breeding. My personal interest is in old breeds of draft horses and ponies, and the "Great horse" lines that once were used by knights in full armor; these are endangered breeds and it was disheartening to see so many people who had brought some of these breeds back from the brink of extinction desperate to find anyone to take their animals. I don't have the land, time or money to return to being a horsewoman, but horse breeding and ranching are really being threatened by the current drought cycle and economic downturn.

Hawaii isn't immune to this either, one of my students just helped her grandfather in Waimea round up his horse and cattle herds to send to auction. He is keeping a small core of breeding stock to try to eventually bring back his lines, but cannot afford to buy hay for the rest. He said he is back where he was 35 years ago, before her mother was born. How depressing, to spend a lifetime building something, only to end up where you started. My student is supposed to take over the ranch after going to AG school on the mainland, she can recite the lineage of every horse they've owned in her lifetime, and feels like her heritage is going to auction.

When I was a horse mad 4H horse and pony kid, I fought against the practice of rounding up mustangs to be sold for slaughter, but I have a much more nuanced understanding of what is happening now. Slaughter is better than starvation, although not by much.

Carol