Cannot believe it is not illegal for horses to be sold to slaughterhouses!

There are worse ways to die as already discussed. We need to point the blame at those that breed the horses rather than those trying to make profit out of the mess.

I sincerely hope that you are able to offer this youngster a home for life.
 
i f she carries on and trains the pony to lead a useful life, then all will be well, it can always be loaned out on the yard, its a fact of life that ponies are outgrown and need a different rider from time to time.
all this overbreeding and meat men buying horses has been going on forever! its not new! as long as i can remember people like glenda spooner in the 1960's pleaded with folk to breed less, mainly ponies when she was chairman of ponies of britain.
nothing has changed.
 
Booboos said:
People exactly like the OP caused a crisis in the rescue charities in France by misguidedly thinking they should be buying horses to prevent them from being slaughtered...guess what happened? The prices of meat horses went through the roof, more of them were bred with no thought as to suitability for any purpose either than to be rescued and the charities very soon run out of space.
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This is not strictly accurate Booboos......
 
Spudlet said:
It is better for a horse to be humanely slaughtered at the nearest available slaughterhouse than neglected, abandoned or transported for thousands of miles before being slaughtered. Although the idea of a horse of any age being slaughtered may be uncomfortable, the idea of what I just said happening makes me feel far more uncomfortable. Slaughterhouses provide a service - they are necessary.
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I think I agree with this, it's not nice but it's true. It's who ever keeps breeding these poor quality horses which are causing the problems. I would rather see a horse put out of its misery than be passed from pillar to post and be neglected. It's sad but unfortunately is going to keep happening.
 
kirstinw55 said:
In my opinion tho cows and sheep do not have the same affectionate value a person shares with their horse! Sure some people would disagree with that but that is just what i believe, and of course lamb and beef is a huge trade in our country but would like to think its extremely unheard of for anyone to eat horse in england!
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I eat horsemeat, I have a couple of horse steaks in the freezer now
 
Have to say I have no problem with horses being sent to the slaughterhouse. Its all done very quickly and professionally. There are much worse ways for them to go.. i.e from severe neglect because the owner can't afford to keep said horse and its just left, dumped, to waste away.
If I had of had a choice when my last mare was PTS she would of been shot.
I do however disagree strongly to the live transportation of horses across France and Italy to slaughter.
 
I agree with many of the posts on here. It all starts with breeding. The Gemans have it right - there is no indiscrimate breeding in Germany - all mares are selected and stallions licensed. They do not have this market problem with poorly conformed foals and youngstock then being sold for a few £s., which is upsetting for everyone.
The sad fact is that it costs the same to feed a good horse/pony as a poor one and we all know that keeping horses is not a cheap thing to do.
The British are great animal lovers and the French rescue thing showed how 'taken' we can all be with countless numbers of people finding they had taken on 'rescue' horses with dreadful behavioural problems, which is doubtless to say why the horses were up for slaughter in the first place.
Each to their own in eating meat whether it be horse or any other, but at least cattle are bred and fed for purpose, not left malnourished and wormy and hungry and sold for a few quid in a dingy market.
Well done OP for taking on poor foal - if you have the ability to do so - great for the foal.
 
It's sad I know and I can understand why the OP did this.

But, where there is a profit to be made, there's a market, where's there's a market, there's demand ...or at least no consideration where breeding and numbers are concerned because you are still lining their pockets.

They will keep churning these ponies out if they are getting money back of them, remember it costs them nothing to breed and keep these ponies, you can see that by the condition they arrive at sales in, only thing they have to folk out for is fuel for the wagon to take them from A to B and lovely caring people to feel sorry for them and buy them.
 
amymay said:
This is not strictly accurate Booboos......
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Why not?

I can't for the life of me find it again but I was only recently reading an article about a family that had moved to France without any prior experience of horse ownership. They came across a meat market, were appalled at the idea of slaughtering the horses for meat and rescued a largish number (4-5 horses). They also set up a charity to encourage private individuals to rescue horses destined for the meat market. Within a year they had single handedly increased meat horse prices in their area and were even themselves realising that they were causing more harm than good. They have now refocused their efforts on improving transport legislation and welfare requirements relating to slaughter rather than saving horses from being PTS.
 
It was your assertion that the meat horses in France were suddenly being bred for 'rescue' instead - that is not correct.

However, the general 'con' was.
 
SwingHorse said:
The quick deaths offered with out excessive traveling in England would be, if you pardon the pun, like heaven to some of the ponies suffering worldwide...
Ending slaughter locally INCREASES cruelty worldwide. Where's the nearest slaughtering country to England - France, okay, some will go there, how many hours traveling would that be from somewhere like Scotland? Where else would they go, Italy? Italians generally (from my experience!) like their meat to be killed in the country, because butchers only have to declare country of death not origin. How long would they spend on the road then?

I implore anyone who is Anti British slaughter to watch a video of the UK slaughter (page seven, near the bottom) then youtube HSUS slaughter investigations, where horses are killed with a knife through the spinal chord
or stunned (often taking two or three goes to get it right!) and then have their throats slit. I know which I'd prefer for my best friend...
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So so true, I watched both those videos last year, there is absolutely no comparison, I could not watch the HSUS one all the way through, it was so distressing.

I too would recommend anyone wanting to ban slaughter in the UK should watch both of the above. Ironically the British one was filmed secretly by an animal welfare group in an effort to blacken their name, it backfired a little as many people then realised that in fact the British slaughterhouses (well those that take in horses anyway) were actually very humane. Having said that, I have seen slaughterhouse videos of cows, pigs etc which were not quite so humane :(

Personally, I do not think that ANY animal should travel miles in disgusting conditions to slaughter, and unlike the OP, I would like to see a ban on live export of ALL animals and more effort put in to making sure that the UK had enough abbatoires to make this happen. I would also like those abbatoires slaughtering cows, sheep etc to be policed more effectively by DEFRA to ensure that welfare standards are on a par with Potters or Turners.

On the subject of surpluss pony foals etc., I agree that the meatman is the least of their problems, those breeding these poor little scraps need to be made responsible for their actions, hit them in the pocket and take away their government grants, make them passport and microchip every foal born to their herd, obviously not retrospectively but from say 2011, they knew the legislation was coming through so they should have ensured that they bred no more than they could afford to keep or had buyers for. There has been an excess of these ponies for years, it is now much much worse, in my opinion the breeders are worse by far than any meatman.
 
Personally, I do not think that ANY animal should travel miles in disgusting conditions to slaughter, and unlike the OP, I would like to see a ban on live export of ALL animals and more effort put in to making sure that the UK had enough abbatoires to make this happen. I would also like those abbatoires slaughtering cows, sheep etc to be policed more effectively by DEFRA to ensure that welfare standards are on a par with Potters or Turners.
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Sirena, you know that I completely agree with you. But have to say HEAR, HEAR to a resoundingly brilliant post!!!!!!!
 
Chucking my two pence in…..I could be described as a bunny hugger by some but I really don’t care. I for the last 22 years (since I was 11 years old) havent eaten meat or fish, and don’t eat dairy either. Why? Because I find the factory farming industry abhorrent and I personally believe that in this day and age meat it is not actually necessary for meat to form part of our diet, and in fact it causes more damage than good especially to the environement but that’s a whole other topic.

Its not the killing of animals for food I find particuarly offensive it’s the intenstive factory farming and industrial grand scale slaughtering cycle I hate, you would not believe some of the sickening crueltly and torture meat animals are subjected to. My stomach churns every single time I see an animal transporter literally crammed to the brim with animals on their way to meet their fate, it gets me every single time even after all these years :(

I love all animals and I would go so far as to say I prefer them to humankind at times. What pisses me off though is people up in arms because horses go to Potters or such like but don’t give a fleeting thought to the majority of the millions of cows, sheep, pigs and other such livestock that face a very grim life and grim death. Is there really any fundamental differences between a horse and livestock other than the associated label? Do cows, sheep, pigs, goats have less intelligence than horses? I personally don’t think so and I believe all mammals feel the same level of fear, terror and pain.

Over the last 15 years I have rescued goats and turkeys as youngsters from slaughter and all of them lived full natural lives with me. The experience confirmed to me what I already thought and that was to find that these animals could give as much love, loyalty and companionship as one would expect with dogs, cats and horses (yes REALLY) My two goat guys, I rescued at a couple of weeks old developed dog like traits without me needing to teach them they would .come to call, walk on leads, come and try to sit on my lap for cuddles, lie down next to me if I sat down near by, follow me everywhere, call for me as soon as I was in sight…I could go on but you get the picture……………they were capabable of showing love and intelligence as much a dog or cat, in fact I would say much more so than my even horse who I have had the pleasure of owning for nearly 20 years and she is in general a friendly effectionate equine.

I 100% believe the same bond can be forged with cows, sheep etc if only they were given the opportunity and not just labled as “food” and I surely plan to find out as soon as I have my own land.

So with what I have written above probably makes me sound like the biggest bunny loving tree hugger in the world but because of how I feel about all animals I simply cannot recoil in horror at the topic of a horse being sent for slaughter as I have the same feeling about ALL animals. If you find horses being slaughtered so terrible why don’t you feel the same about all livestock…..smacks of hypocrasy to me.

Also I 100% agree there is a place for the meat/knacker man, he is cleaning up the terrible mess that over breading has left. Sad but a fact. There ARE worse fates than a swift death at the hands of the knackerman.

Sadiemay
 
Jeez is this still going on?!

It never ceases to amaze me how "animal lovers" can be so blinkered. It saddens me there are so many so called animal lovers against humane slaughter. Do you not think there are enough neglect cases in the U.K. without abolishing slaughter houses? Why on Earth should we give crap owners even more of an excuse to abuse these animals through neglect? Some of your arguments are that the horses are distressed before slaughter - maybe you're right, but wouldn't you animal "lovers" prefer half an hour or so (if that) of stress than a lifetime of it and then a slow, agonising death? Was the Jamie Gray situation not enough?

It's time you saw the bigger picture.
 
The meat man goes to all the NF pony sales at Beaulieu Road and has done for decades. He buys up all the little scrubby foals. Better that then them ending up in the wrong homes. I used to help a local transporter and was horrified when we had to deliver a NF yearling filly which someone bought at the Sales; she was totally wild straight off the Forest and we delivered her to the back garden of a terraced house on a council estate in Havant. There was no rear access to the house so she had to herded through the house . . . . I have often wondered what happened to her
 
Sadiemay said:
was to find that these animals could give as much love, loyalty and companionship as one would expect with dogs, cats and horses
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Humanity finds it convenient to treat animals as soulless vessels, put on this earth for us to use and abuse. It might prick a conscience if we were to think otherwise.

The meat man has his place. The OP is being naive to think otherwise. It would take a HUGE shift in consciousness before we start treating animals as sentient beings on a global scale.
 
Sorry OP but you are being very very naive, if we did not have people to pick up the excess animals for slaughter, what exactly do you think would happen to those animals?

I agree with others who have said we need more licensed abatoirs rather than less and we also need legislation to stop those responsible for breeding the poor little mites in the first place. I too would like to see a law which bans live export full stop.
 
amymay said:
It was your assertion that the meat horses in France were suddenly being bred for 'rescue' instead - that is not correct.

However, the general 'con' was.
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Sorry I didn't mean overall prices in France. I meant prices in the markets where people went out of their way to rescue meat horses and inflatted the standard meat prices per animal.

Here is a rescue set up specifically for meat horses:
http://www.phoenixasso.com/horse.php3

Unfortunately I still can't find the original article about the charity that started off rescuing meat animals, inflatted the local price unbelievably much and then re-considered their aims.
 
I wish you good luck with the youngster you bought, I'm sure he will turn out lovely for you. (I have a rescue horse - I didn't rescue him though - but he is an absolute poppet, just has a few odd quirks that stem back from before he was rescued and I love him to bits)
 
Agree with all these valid points - Cut back on breeding. By paying twice his meat value you have given the meatman extra money to now purchase even more. These people provide a service & not all of them ship on the hoof, they provide for zoos, etc so the animals are processed in the UK. I believe it is thought in excess of 2000 ex racers go for meat. How do you expect homes to be found for this amount of horses? This is just the race horse industry, again an area that should be cutting back IMHO. I feel it is more of a waste to see money spent on cripples when there are so many sound, viable horses going for meat.
 
sprite1978 said:
These are emotions that we humans put on horses. I agree that its sad to see a horse go to slaughter, but its no worse than cows or sheep. I would hate this to happen to my horse, but thats because of emotions I have.
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Perfectly said! We humans humanise our pets. We keep them and breed from them for our own selfish needs.

I love my animals but I am realistic about them.

There are far worse, far less ethical things happening on this planet. For that there needs another post or four!!
 
OP, your heart is in the right place and I think it's wonderful that you rescued that pony.

You might find more support for your viewpoint on the Fugly Blog: http://fuglyblog.com/

Cathy Atkinson, aka Fugly, is an American anti-slaughter activist who organizes horse rescues--they buy the horses at auction before the kill buyers can get them. She also writes very scathing blog posts about idiot breeders, trainers, and terrible horse owners. Her take is that slaughter is NOT humane euthanasia. The "solution" to slaughter is not breeding crap horses, training your horse so that it has a useful career and future, and, worst case scenario, humanely euthanizing older or unsound horses or horses with behavioural problems rather than selling them on to dubious characters or selling them to slaughter.

This doesn't seem to be a very popular viewpoint on this board where most people appear to support the horse slaughter industry.

Anyway, good luck with your pony!
 
brigantia said:
OP, your heart is in the right place and I think it's wonderful that you rescued that pony.

You might find more support for your viewpoint on the Fugly Blog: http://fuglyblog.com/

Cathy Atkinson, aka Fugly, is an American anti-slaughter activist who organizes horse rescues--they buy the horses at auction before the kill buyers can get them. She also writes very scathing blog posts about idiot breeders, trainers, and terrible horse owners. Her take is that slaughter is NOT humane euthanasia. The "solution" to slaughter is not breeding crap horses, training your horse so that it has a useful career and future, and, worst case scenario, humanely euthanizing older or unsound horses or horses with behavioural problems rather than selling them on to dubious characters or selling them to slaughter.

This doesn't seem to be a very popular viewpoint on this board where most people appear to support the horse slaughter industry.

Anyway, good luck with your pony!
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I think you will find that Fugly is not anti slaughter, she has seen first hand what suffering a ban on horse slaughter has done to the USA equine surplus! That suffering lays at the door of those blinkered/plain stupid people who campaigned for the anti slaughter law, I do believe Fugly calls them dumbass! What Fugly most certainly is against are the Mexican slaughterhouses the poor unfortunate US horses now have to travel to - have you compared the two videos?

In an ideal world, all horses would be pts at home, this is NOT an ideal world and you have to be realistic not idealistic!
 
The US slaughter ban has been a nightmare for welfare. The horses haven't had their lives saved - they've been condemned to having to travel for thousands of miles, often in awful conditions, and a death that the US can no longer regulate. God help the horse that goes to a slaughterhouse in Mexico. Or they just get turned away to fend for themselves, and starve to death. It was a stupid ban, campaigned for by people with romantic notions of the Wild West and a distinct dislike of the real world.

Do I want horses to be slaughtered? No! I want all horses to live to a ripe old age in green fields and die in their sleep. Am I stupid enough to think that could ever happen? No! So I would sooner see a foal that was born yesterday slaughtered today, than see it end up somewhere like Amersham, and for some horses those are the only two options there are. Not all horses are loved. Not all horses have people that care enough to do the best by them. They may not be the pretty horses, or the talented horses, or the 'nice' horses. They may be the ones no one wants. But the very least all horses deserve is a humane end - and a good slaughterhouse will give that to them.

I live in the real world, and in the real world sometimes tough choices have to be made and emotion has to be taken out of the picture. Sometimes heart is not enough - you need to use your head too.
 
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