Facebook STOP the sale of horse meat for human consumption in WA!

Over2You said:
I happen to think that any of you who have replied saying you'll eat horse, but not your own are hypocrites. Reminds me of the thread about the BBC's horse herder documentary. There were cries of how humane the kill was (when they botched killing the horse for the first time and the totally panicked mare broke free only to die of strangulation followed by head trauma followed by stabbing). If it was such a great way of killing a horse, then they should ask their vet to do the same to their animals.
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Wrong.
None of the people I know were happy about it,they all saw that it was not "right" but also(thankfully) the people in my life had enough brain power to question if it was "wrong" ;)
This forum also had a few long discussions about it-we were truely interisted in finding out if it was the best way avalable to those men or if they had another option.

In sub zero tempretures,with nothing else to eat their only food source WAS the horses(who had a bloody good life from the look of things) and I am not experianced enough in slaughter methods to know if they was a better way avalable to them in those conditions.
It is not the way we would do it in the west,we have acess to much better methods but those men did not have a UK slaughter house on the doorstap,did they?



Over2You said:
I also think those of you saying slaughter is the best option for the horse instead of keeping it alive are selfish beyond reason. You seem to think that no one could possibly give an equine a loving forever home. There are plenty of people who give horses (who would otherwise have been slaughtered) a new lease of life. Myself included! Guy would have been dead long ago if the racing industry had got its way. He is perfectly healthy and happy. If it had been up to most of you lot, he'd have met the same fate as that poor grey pony.
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Once again, you seem to equate eating meat with not caring
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My Grandfather has always called having an animal put down the last act of kindness.Did not understand why as a kid-then I grew up and was deemed old enough to understand about age and disease.
There is nothing pretty about keeping an old animal alive and in pain simply because you don't want the responsability of calling the vet in.
There is nothing romantic or kind about leaving an animal to starve to death because old age has caused inadaquate dentition.
To me,the above examples are "selfish beyound reason" and anyone who truely cares about their animals will ensure a swift end when the time comes.

As for racing,the "waste" from the sport is a contentious issue and I suspect always will be.
Few can be Denman,and few will be suitable for a ridden working life after racing.
Once again,like it or not it is better for some to be PTS then suffer in the hands of worse and worse owners because they are not up to a normal riding horses life(even those that are well put together may not be able to adapt mentally and I consider mental health every bit as important as physical ;) ).
As things stand,the options for those horses are be PTS swiftly by an experianced person or be sold time and time again untill they are suffering the worst mankind has to offer useless animals because they can not be riding horses.

Option 1 for me please....


Over2You said:
BTW, I am vegetarian and NEVER eat the flesh of ANY animal!! The whole "humane" slaughter makes me sick to my stomach. As does eating a sentient being.
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Up to you and I choose to respect both your choice and your views on the matter-do others the same courtesy.
 
Mulesing ain't going anywhere, the AWB elected a new governing body which voted to halt proceedings.

Why?

There just isn't an alternative!

As for Mulesing, go to the PETA website by all means. Thats not what happens. I sat down with my boss prior to mulesing and explained that I had no idea what would happen except what I had read online, and it wasn't going to be pretty. He told me none of it would be true, and he was right.

From the very start, the idea of tying lambs to fence posts is rubbish. The Mulesing team bring a trailer with a very strange looking device on it. In this you can sit four lambs at a time, held in the sitting position.
Now, as we're bothering to catch several thousand lambs, everything gets done, their tags, vaccines, castrates and ear notches. Then they're mulesed.

The skin from either side of the tail is sliced off. Just skin. Much like grazing your knees. Then the tails are cut and skinned.

It sounds horrific, doesn't it. In reality, it takes less than 30 seconds for an experienced mulser, I'm guessing on the terms there.

And, what is telling, is that having listened to sheep crying in agony for months, I heard not one single lamb cry at being mulsed. Most, if any, cried at being picked up and placed onto the seat like things. A few of the boys voiced a strong objection to losing their manhood. Most of the lambs then wondered off to find their mothers. Their bleats, if you know sheep, were hunger and curiosity, not fear.

I was actually amazed at how little they cried. This is supposed to be the most horrific thing you can do to a sheep, and yet they were wondering off looking for their mothers so they could have a feed. Come the end of the day, most were off grazing with the herd again.

Yes, some do die afterwards. But they have two needles, a drench, two ear notches, an ear tag and are mulesed. So how can you honestly tell me that the mulesing alone is to blame! The Animal Rights Nutters honestly believe ear tagging leads to death from shock...

The reason why the maggots in the eyes are relevant is because I have seen true suffering in merino sheep. I have seen the extent of their problems when going up against flies. I have gone home at night and cried in the shower because of what I saw.

By the time we were mulesing, either I was entirely immune to the suffering those animals went through, or I was glad to be doing something to reduce it.

Most of the animals I treated had body strike, not bum strike. Had they not been mulesed we would have been looking at a LOT more dead sheep. And some days we were finding 40 gone overnight (this is from being healthy one day to dead in 24 hours!).

Fine, so the Merino isn't the most fabulous breed to put in a country ravaged by flies - but we didn't do it. And where are you going to send millions of sheep to get rid of them all? Remember, you don't like packing them off to the middle east either!

They're working their backsides off to come up with a solution that appeases the nutters and the farmers. And thus far most of the comprimises do not please the nutters. Clips, which would remove skin over a period of time and are relatively pain free, are not approved. Surgery with anaesthetic has been scoffed by farmers, who bear in mind, have to pay for this from an already tight margin. Poisoning the skin so it drops off painlessly has been scoffed by nutters.

At the end of the day, Mulesing isn't the problem, keeping sheep is. And until all the sheep in WA are dead, the nutters are going to keep on pushing. They don't care about the mulesing or the horrific damage flies can do. They just want to see all the farmers broke and bankrupt and selling up.

Inevitably, someone is now going to suggest I haven't been mulesing. Fair does. But I know what I've seen and I know I couldn't ever support a ban until a viable alternative is in place!
 
I didn't read all of what I googled, it wasn't a PETA page or even animals rights, just info. It said it would cause some pain but short lived pain (words to that effect) I didn't however get any idea as to why it is done in the frst place? I figured to keep the area clean? Can you not just shave the area? Or would that mean having to do it too often? I honestly don't have a clue :confused:

Oh and I doubt very much that you have been muelsing :P :P
 
Yeah, I make everything up, Sarahsum1 ;)

Merino's have wrinkley skin which allows them to grow more wool for the actual surface area! They're cutting down on the wrinkles, but the worse ones are those between the rump and the tail. In unmulesed sheep, they quite often fill up with poo (you know what sheep are like...) and the flies get their eggs into these nice, warm, airtight, poo filled wrinkles - and the sheep are doomed!

When it's bad, the sweat in the wrinkles is enough to trigger strike! We actually had months of rain, well, drizzle, which kept the sheep damp. The two with eye problems probably had eye infections. Flies won't lay on sheep unless they have a reason too!

We pumped chemicals onto them like nothing else, limited however by the fact shearing was fast approaching and no one will buy contaminated wool!

Anyway, mulesing cuts off the bum wrinkles and tails. The skin grows back shiny shiny and they're then crutched twice a year to keep the wool around their bums and bellies short. It gives them quite a distinct haircut!

Not a great photo, but one of my ewes and her babies - she's got very short wool around her bum compared to the rest of her body. And her babies are just booootiful!!

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Harper_Gal said:
Yeah, I make everything up, Sarahsum1 ;)

Merino's have wrinkley skin which allows them to grow more wool for the actual surface area! They're cutting down on the wrinkles, but the worse ones are those between the rump and the tail. In unmulesed sheep, they quite often fill up with poo (you know what sheep are like...) and the flies get their eggs into these nice, warm, airtight, poo filled wrinkles - and the sheep are doomed!

When it's bad, the sweat in the wrinkles is enough to trigger strike! We actually had months of rain, well, drizzle, which kept the sheep damp. The two with eye problems probably had eye infections. Flies won't lay on sheep unless they have a reason too!

We pumped chemicals onto them like nothing else, limited however by the fact shearing was fast approaching and no one will buy contaminated wool!

Anyway, mulesing cuts off the bum wrinkles and tails. The skin grows back shiny shiny and they're then crutched twice a year to keep the wool around their bums and bellies short. It gives them quite a distinct haircut!

Not a great photo, but one of my ewes and her babies - she's got very short wool around her bum compared to the rest of her body. And her babies are just booootiful!!

10630_135385112629_507522629_2400339_2609998_n.jpg
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Awww, Run babies run!! From the wicked Museling HG :D
 
Mulesing is not a welfare issue it's a MONEY issue. There are alternative ways to keep sheep maggot free as we do in the UK but it is much, much more expensive. This isn't about the most humane way to keep sheep alive in Aus, it's about how to keep them alive at least cost.
 
Thanks HG for such a full account.

Still sounds awful to be honest - but then I suppose we all have different standards of what's acceptable.

My information didn't come from the PETA site.
 
Over2You said:
BTW, I am vegetarian and NEVER eat the flesh of ANY animal!! The whole "humane" slaughter makes me sick to my stomach. As does eating a sentient being.
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But you eat cheese? If you are as ethical regarding animal welfare as you claim to be, then you would be vegan.
 
Over2You said:
As does eating a sentient being.
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Aah, I think I have found where you are going wrong.

I'm fairly sure (though as a vegetarian don't quote me on it) that the general advice is that it is preferable for the animal to actually be dead (and therefore not sentient) when you eat it.

Maybe someone will correct me on this!
 
applecart14 said:
I though that animals slaughtered this way had to be pithed which involves sticking a instrument similiar to a whisk in the hole in the animals head and basically scrambling the brain to ensure all brain stem acitivity is ceased.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852607/
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I understand that is it better for the animal. But how awful does it sound! Just awful :( From what I have seen in documentrys etc, never seen it done and Can't imagine them taking the time to bother. Could be wrong as I guess I don't know what goes on.
 
cptrayes said:
Mulesing is not a welfare issue it's a MONEY issue. There are alternative ways to keep sheep maggot free as we do in the UK but it is much, much more expensive. This isn't about the most humane way to keep sheep alive in Aus, it's about how to keep them alive at least cost.
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How can you compare UK methods to Australian methods?

I mean, for a start, there are various studies which show lambs may suffer more for having their tails ringed, as is the standard UK practise, than having their tails cut off during mulesing...

Then, you're talking about dipping several million sheep in a country where water is hard to come by, compared to dipping a few thousand in one where it rains constantly!!

Believe you me, these girls were treated with the whole shaboosh. We dipped them (well, actually, it was a spangly new fangled hydraulic sprayer, and it was awesome fun!), we treated them individually, we crutched them individually, we checked on them every day (thats a fair bit of fuel when your farm covers 9000 acres!) and if they hadn't of been mulesed and crutched on top of it, we'd have been up poo creek!!!

The ones who did get bum strike were the ones who hadn't been mulesed!!

I mean, we mulesed 2500 lambs after a poor lambing - would be closer to 3500 in a good year - and thats a small farm. There just aren't farms that size in the UK!


And in answer to what they ate, we were feeding them wheat hay (hay cut and dried from wheat that got frosted and died!), wheat, oats, lupins and a bit of canola that snuck in.
My job was to feed 'em!
 
amymay said:
Thanks HG for such a full account.

Still sounds awful to be honest - but then I suppose we all have different standards of what's acceptable.

My information didn't come from the PETA site.
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And that is my original point..animal welfare and conception of cruelty ARE very different in Australia...AND it is still absolutely unacceptable.If this mutilation happened in UK there`d be cruelty prosecutions without doubt.So they don`t cry out..too blooming shocked to do so .
 
Harper_Gal said:
How can you compare UK methods to Australian methods?
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Why should I not? Just because you have more land does not mean that you are forced to run more sheep. A farmer in the hills here would consider 1500 lambs a huge crop, and it allows him to genuinely check them every day. How on earth can you say you checked them every day when they were roaming 9000 acres? How many sheep bottoms did you actually look at close enough to see maggots?

Like I said, this is about money. If you ran a smaller flock you could make sure you caught maggot strike before it did much damage. Or you could take the daggings off your sheep regularly like is done around here. If Australia hadn't bred merinos deliberately to have wrinkled skin they'd have less maggot strike but also have less wool.

And if you did all that then you couldn't pay your bills unless every other farmer did the same level of care. If everyone refused to buy Australian wool, you'd change your methods. It's about money.

For your interest many farms around me no longer remove the lambs tails, it is widely becoming recognised as unnecessary for hill sheep. I have also ringed lambs and while I can possibly see that a clean cut of the tail may compare, there is absolutely no comparison between ringing a tail and cutting and scalping their tails and backsides.

In an earlier post you mention that it takes 30 seconds to mules a lamb, as if it is all over once it's done. If you've ever burnt yourself in 30 seconds and destroyed the skin you'll know that the pain lasts for weeks until it is all completely healed and can continue long after.

Please don't try and kid us. This is not a welfare issue. It is done to save the money which would be required to look after the sheep in a less intensive way, and to enable you to continue to breed sheep with wrinkled skin and lots of wool which are heaven sent maggot paradise. It may be an economic necessity for an Australian sheep farmer who wants to feed his family, but it's impossible to accept that you do it for the good of the lamb.
 
cptrayes said:
Why should I not? Just because you have more land does not mean that you are forced to run more sheep. A farmer in the hills here would consider 1500 lambs a huge crop, and it allows him to genuinely check them every day. How on earth can you say you checked them every day when they were roaming 9000 acres? How many sheep bottoms did you actually look at close enough to see maggots?

Like I said, this is about money. If you ran a smaller flock you could make sure you caught maggot strike before it did much damage. Or you could take the daggings off your sheep regularly like is done around here. If Australia hadn't bred merinos deliberately to have wrinkled skin they'd have less maggot strike but also have less wool.

And if you did all that then you couldn't pay your bills unless every other farmer did the same level of care. If everyone refused to buy Australian wool, you'd change your methods. It's about money.

For your interest many farms around me no longer remove the lambs tails, it is widely becoming recognised as unnecessary for hill sheep. I have also ringed lambs and while I can possibly see that a clean cut of the tail may compare, there is absolutely no comparison between ringing a tail and cutting and scalping their tails and backsides.

In an earlier post you mention that it takes 30 seconds to mules a lamb, as if it is all over once it's done. If you've ever burnt yourself in 30 seconds and destroyed the skin you'll know that the pain lasts for weeks until it is all completely healed and can continue long after.

Please don't try and kid us. This is not a welfare issue. It is done to save the money which would be required to look after the sheep in a less intensive way, and to enable you to continue to breed sheep with wrinkled skin and lots of wool which are heaven sent maggot paradise. It may be an economic necessity for an Australian sheep farmer who wants to feed his family, but it's impossible to accept that you do it for the good of the lamb.
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Thankyou for that! And it needs stopping right now..it is extreme cruelty;also as wool is now hardly worth the cost of shearing..then WHY merinos,a tighter skinned sheep still gives meat does`nt it? Farm animals do not get nearly enough protection.
 
East Kent wool in this county does not cover the cost of shearing precisely because the Australians have bred sheep specifically to produce maximum wool, then they rear them intensively farmed with as little labour as possible which produces vast quantities of wool at miniumum cost. Our wool, which is taken from animals bred almost exclusively for meat, cannot compare. It's not produced in enough volume to compete on price. But for Australian farmers, the wool is a valuable product in its own right, quite aside from the meat, and that's why they bred merinos with wrinkled skin to produce maximum wool.
 
Waterborn,

I forced myself to watch it. I had a rough idea what was coming. The actual slaughter process was a disgrace. There can be no justification for treating any animal in that way. None whatsoever, and I fail to see how anyone could think otherwise. It was sickening.

The dressing out was what one would expect, and acceptable. I would think that looking at the environment it was probably a licensed abattoir, though most certainly not in the UK. Looking at the first horse shot, I would imagine that the man doing the killing aimed initially at the shoulder, intentionally, and in an attempt to anchor the animal. The slaughter gun was operated by an airline, and if being humane is part of a slaughter man's ethos, then it was demonstrably unsuitable.

Horses should never be shot in a shooting box, especially one that was designed for much larger animals, which gave the horse too much room to evade the gun. The lunacy of it is that with the time taken, because of a totally unsuitable system, then doing it properly and in a sympathetic environment, would have been far faster and more efficient, and incidentally it would have been humane.

It may well be that the horses in the film had never been handled, and were being treated like cattle. That is not an excuse. The box was much to large, the size of the gun would have caused the horse to be alarmed, and try to evade it.

I would hope that all those who watch the film, which you have offered, will accept that it was not filmed in the UK, that no competent UK slaughter man would ever consider such behaviour, and finally, that no UK vet would tolerate such cruelty ( qualified vets are in attendance at all UK abattoirs).

Whilst I don't blame you for your post, I am none the less rather saddened by it. I would be particularly interested to hear where it was filmed. Presumably the premises was licensed, and if it was within the EU, then closure should be immediate, without a second thought.

There was a previous youtube placed on this thread. It was Potters at Bristol. The slaughter man was highly skilled, conscientious, and the horse was dealt with in an acceptable manner. If it has to be done, then that was a suitable demonstration.

Alec.
 
GDAY Alec

I read your last post and thought I could approach the forum again with the concern we have here in Australia.

The two main abbattoirs here in Australia are Belgian owned and export horsemeat mainly to Europe and Japan. In 2003 they exported 3.000 tons of horsemeat and by 2009 24,000 tons were being exported. Australians generally don't eat horsemeat.

Horses are not bred for human consumption here. We have no horse passports as horse owners and therefore no one knows what drugs have been administered to horses that are slaughtered. In particular 'bute' is commonly used and reports have stated BUTE is a carcinogen and attacks the bone marrow in humans.

All this information and much much more concerning the inhumane slaughter such as the video you commented on and many others are now available on the Facebook page as stated in the heading of this forum.

The European Union, I have read, is at this time looking into the trace tests for substances dangerous to humans in horsemeat.

The facts that are reported are well documented and referenced and I am only giving a very brief summary of what I have read.

Best Regards
 
G'day to you too, Aus,

I was wondering what had happened to you!

The question of administered drugs to animals entering the food chain is an entirely different point. Most chemicals so administered have a meat withdrawal period, and as in the UK, we no longer have a business which relies upon the meat trade, so we "tend" not to consider this. Some chemicals have a withdrawal period, whilst some, Rompon for instance, will bar the animal from ever being eaten, by humans.

There was a TV programme which I watched, a few years ago, which concerned a woman in America, who campaigned, with a vengeance, to have the slaughter "systems" changed in her home land. Those abattoirs which headed her thoughts found that productivity improved. That those animals being killed were so much easier to handle, and that profits improved. All of this was achieved by a woman who was worried for the welfare of those animals going for slaughter. She faced the fact that humans eat meat, and the best way to deal with it was to address the problem of the slaughter system.

Stopping the meat eating trade will only result in miserable horses living a miserable existence. Better that they arrive at a humane end, and that they are put to some use. There is a need for a meat trade in equines. Properly organised, and if needs be regulated, the hideous film, put up by Waterborn, will become history, and in my view, quite rightly so.

You wont change the fact that humans eat meat. Get the slaughter systems in place which allow us to eat that meat, with a clear conscience.

Whilst we probably aren't, I would hope that we may find some common ground!

Alec.
 
There are problems with overbreeding horses here and good horses end up in the hands of the "dogger", Jamie Grey is a "dogger" I believe.
Also a horse can be administered a substance one day and slaughtered the next. There are no records.

I read an article that many Dutch horsemeat eaters had turned away from eating horsemeat when they realised the inhumane treatment the horses received in the country where they were slaughtered.

Perhaps people who eat horsemeat in Europe think the meat comes from Europe. It is a Belgian company who operate in Australia.

I know Jamie Oliver impacted on me when he disclosed the battery hen issues.

i only buy eggs from a local producer now, who I see has free range facilities.

The market will ultimately decide in the long run.

I believe we are on common ground in that we both do not wish to see unnecessary suffering and we both live on this very small delicate planet.

Might meet up one day, you never know.

Have a good one!:p
 
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