Horses for Meat

TheMule said:
Remember that many of the horses here have had a wonderful life where they've been adored and theyre due to be PTS for a reason. Potters is very dignified and quiet place- most privately owned horses walk straight off the lorry into that building, they have no idea whats going on and it's all over very quickly. Many ex competition horses go through there and they get excited as they think theyre going to a party, it really is no different to having it done anywhere else and at least you know that the guys at Potters are exceptionally good at what they do.
I have heard so many horror stories about horses being shot by the hunt/ local slaughtermen and not dieing straight away.
I've watched many horses being killed at Potters and have not seen a single thing go wrong.
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That's really interesting, and at least does ease the discomfort of knowing that it goes on regardless of how we feel... but somehow, knowing that these horses are often privately owned and have lived a life just like my own horse, doesn't make it any easier to watch. :(
I don't doubt that this place is a very professional, efficient set up... it certainly looks as thought it is, and if it is going to be done at all, it's a pity it can't always be done like this, however, it just tugs at my heart strings so much to know that there is nothing wrong with a lot of these horses, and they are going to end up on somebodies dinner plate... it seems so much less than they deserve for the years of happiness they have probably given someone.
 
pastie2 said:
Just to add, commercial animals such as beef, lambs etc, are slaughtered at a very young age. To slaughter a horse of say 19 yrs old after it has had a useful life on this earth it would be as tough as old boots. So that brings it round to breeding them for meat inthe first place and slautering them at a young age.
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If you please, I wish to correct you. A man that used to live down the lane from us would have his horses slaughtered when it was time for them to leave this earth. He was a Native America and his people did not let anything go to waste. He gave me some meat from a 26 year old mare and a 29 year old mare. It was very tender and sweet. Like grain fed beef. I am embarrassed to admit that I prefer horse over beef now, but we have not been able to buy horse meat for years and years since the laws were passed against it.
 
Happy Horse said:
If I understand it right a cow or sheep is killed at around 6 months to a year but a horse is best at around 7 years.
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Lambs depending on breed are ready for slaughter from about 4-5 months onwards, however 6 months old cattle would be veal - as much as pink or red veal is fine with me, most of beef animals are slaughtered at around 28-30 months, some between 30 and 48 months and anything over 48 months becomes tricky, but still goes to slaughter and enters food chain.
 
La la laaaaaaaaaa not listening!! Horses are not a form of meat, and death doesn't exist, ie we and our beloved horses live forever-ok!? If I keep rocking and sucking my thumb all these bad thoughts will go away!!!!!
 
Littlesoph, I can see what you mean but it makes no odds to the horse when it's dead what happens to it.

If slaughter was banned, there would be terrible problems. The cost of carcase disposal is high and there are those who won't or can't pay. Those horses risk being neglected or abandoned - much better for them to have a quick and humane exit.

The USA banned slaughter - so now horses often go to Mexico where humane slaughter is really pretty much non-existent. Or you get abandoned horses, or people doing DIY pts, as we see reported here sometimes.

Humane slaughter is absolutely not the worst thing that can happen to a horse, and while I hope I'll never be in the position of having to take a horse to a slaughterhouse if I had to, I wouldn't hesitate.
 
Spudlet said:
Littlesoph, I can see what you mean but it makes no odds to the horse when it's dead what happens to it.

If slaughter was banned, there would be terrible problems. The cost of carcase disposal is high and there are those who won't or can't pay. Those horses risk being neglected or abandoned - much better for them to have a quick and humane exit.

The USA banned slaughter - so now horses often go to Mexico where humane slaughter is really pretty much non-existent. Or you get abandoned horses, or people doing DIY pts, as we see reported here sometimes.

Humane slaughter is absolutely not the worst thing that can happen to a horse, and while I hope I'll never be in the position of having to take a horse to a slaughterhouse if I had to, I wouldn't hesitate.
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Well said - it is a dificult thing to do
 
I don't disagree with the eating, its the live transport that bothers me and the inhumane methods of despatch. I wouldn't eat horse myself. But then I don;t eat lamb either havng had two pets lams in the past.
 
martlin said:
Lambs depending on breed are ready for slaughter from about 4-5 months onwards, however 6 months old cattle would be veal - as much as pink or red veal is fine with me, most of beef animals are slaughtered at around 28-30 months, some between 30 and 48 months and anything over 48 months becomes tricky, but still goes to slaughter and enters food chain.
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cattle over 30 months do not enter the food chain, they can breed for however long but anything over 30 months goes to the incinerator.
 
Direct from the Government:

Advice from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that Defra's proposed robust BSE testing system for older cattle should replace the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule was accepted today by the Government.

New legislation to replace the OTM rule by BSE testing can now be introduced. However, not all restrictions on the slaughter of British cattle will be lifted.

The OTM rule currently imposes an automatic ban on all older cattle from entering the human food chain. The new system will allow UK cattle born after 31 July 1996 to be slaughtered and sold for human consumption.

However, older UK cattle born before 1 August 1996 will continue to be excluded from the food chain and there will be a new legal offence of sending cattle born before August 1996 to abattoirs producing meat for human consumption.

Abattoirs wanting to slaughter OTM cattle must meet strict standards endorsed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Independent Group set up to advise the Agency. These include a two day trial and entering into a legally binding agreement with the Meat Hygiene Service on operational procedures.
 
amymay said:
Direct from the Government:

Advice from the Food Standards Agency (FSA) that Defra's proposed robust BSE testing system for older cattle should replace the Over Thirty Months (OTM) rule was accepted today by the Government.

New legislation to replace the OTM rule by BSE testing can now be introduced. However, not all restrictions on the slaughter of British cattle will be lifted.

The OTM rule currently imposes an automatic ban on all older cattle from entering the human food chain. The new system will allow UK cattle born after 31 July 1996 to be slaughtered and sold for human consumption.

However, older UK cattle born before 1 August 1996 will continue to be excluded from the food chain and there will be a new legal offence of sending cattle born before August 1996 to abattoirs producing meat for human consumption.

Abattoirs wanting to slaughter OTM cattle must meet strict standards endorsed by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Independent Group set up to advise the Agency. These include a two day trial and entering into a legally binding agreement with the Meat Hygiene Service on operational procedures.
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Hence now the new category 30-48 months:)
 
amymay said:
Hence now the new category 30-48 months[/i]

Well to be fair - it's not clear, unless the Beast is born on the 2nd August that is......
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No government legislation is easy clear.... Goodness, they all have exceptions and different rules for different things. Would make my legislation module much easier to underdtand if it was clear!!!
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I have eaten horse meat, I didn't realise it at the time and wasn't told until I had said how tasty it was. It really was very nice. However, I am a meat eater but I don't like handling raw meat. I eat pork but I hate eating those hog roasts where it still looks like a pig etc. I like meat but I prefer to eat it when it doesn't look like the animal anymore.
I would eat horse meat as long as I had no personel attachment to that horse and it wasn't being cut off something that still resembled a horse, same as I couldn't eat a home reared lamb or chicken or somthing. I get to attached.
Transportation for slaughter is a whole different matter though.
 
Blacklist said:
I maybe haven't made myself clear what I meant by 'when the time comes' is when the animal comes to the emd of its useful life as a breeding animal or sports horse.
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Wouldnt it be nicer to let those horse """you say are at the end of use""",to BE either PUT OUT TO GRASS AND LIVE A LIFE WELL DESRVED After all they served their purpose,OR let someone have them as companions.It is sad you send them for meat. Feel sorry for the horses.
 
sharon1959 said:
Wouldnt it be nicer to let those horse """you say are at the end of use""",to BE either PUT OUT TO GRASS AND LIVE A LIFE WELL DESRVED After all they served their purpose,OR let someone have them as companions.It is sad you send them for meat. Feel sorry for the horses.
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One of the saddest horses I've known was an ex-SJer (to quite a high level) who finished her career and then did a little bit of schoolmaster teaching. When that got too much she stayed on the yard but always seemed miserable. When there were shows at the yard she used to get very excited and then distressed and seemed unable to understand that she was "retired" and that was why she wasn't going to jump. She was a super old girl and it broke my heart to see her like that. tbh if she had been plaited up and loaded on the lorry and taken to an abattoir as soon as she finished jumping seriously it would have been a lot better for her.


But as with that old lady if everyone decided to turn their horses out to grass when they were unable to work for whatever reason who would look after them all? Have you got every horse you've ever owned - or have you palmed their future off onto someone else because you can't afford to look after an oldie as well as keep a horse to ride? Perhaps you gave them to a charity which is now spending money looking after an old horse you discarded because it was past it's best and the upkeep of your discarded horse is preventing the charity from rescuing horses still with the majority of their lives in front of them.
 
sharon1959 said:
Wouldnt it be nicer to let those horse """you say are at the end of use""",to BE either PUT OUT TO GRASS AND LIVE A LIFE WELL DESRVED After all they served their purpose,OR let someone have them as companions.It is sad you send them for meat. Feel sorry for the horses.
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In an ideal world perhaps that would be the case, but sadly not everyone has that option. I would hope that I'd be able to keep on an oldie, but people's circumstances change and sometimes there's just no way that a horse can be kept - and if it's an old or perhaps chronically injured horse, there may be nowhere for it to go.

As I keep saying, it's better for a horse to be humanely slaughtered than to be kept alive if it is suffering or has no one to care for it properly. The horse does not know any different.

I feel sorry for horses that are alive and suffering, not for horses which are dead, as they are safe from further harm.
 
In an ideal world they would all be pts at home but it's not an ideal world. I think I would have more concern for an unhandled animal having to be loaded to an abattoir and then slaughtered. Surely the stress is a lot worse for them than a horse who is used to human handling. However, having never been in an abattoir and seeing how an unhandled animal is dealt with, I cannot say in anyway for certain.
 
sharon1959 said:
Wouldnt it be nicer to let those horse """you say are at the end of use""",to BE either PUT OUT TO GRASS AND LIVE A LIFE WELL DESRVED After all they served their purpose,OR let someone have them as companions.It is sad you send them for meat. Feel sorry for the horses.
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It is a lovely ideal that horses, once having completed a charmed ridden life are allowed to munch in a field untill they peacefully PTS. But the reality is that often an owner will only be able to afford one horse, then when that horse is at retirement will not be able to fund one to ride in addition to the retired one. So will sell the retired one as 'companion'. Fair enough if people who purchaced these companions were honourable individuals looking for an equine lawnmower, however all to often people see the opportunity to make a quick £££ and then bute it up and sell it as a 'riding horse' to someone who doesnt know better. Then the poor horse could end up going aound auction rings from one unscrupulious owner to the next untill finally the right thing is done and they end up going for meat or even worse, end up somewhere like the Gray's in Ammersham. That time of passing from owner to owner, situation to situation, is stressful for the horse - let alone the final destination. If people would only do the right thing and PTS sooner then that stress wouldnot have happened. These are the horses I feel sorry for - not the ones that get taken straight for meat.

If you have the time and facilities to have a horse at grass then that is great, but remember that once a horse leaves your ownership you relinquish any rights over them and their future is uncertain. That is a fate far worse than death.
 
"Originally Posted by sharon1959
Wouldnt it be nicer to let those horse """you say are at the end of use""",to BE either PUT OUT TO GRASS AND LIVE A LIFE WELL DESRVED After all they served their purpose,OR let someone have them as companions.It is sad you send them for meat. Feel sorry for the horses"



So you are so experienced in horse matters. We breed sport horses and it is just not possible to keep every elderly horse as a pet or give it to some do-gooder to have as a companion where it will probably end up being passed around the horse markets and ill treated.

All our horses have a wonderful long life with us and when the time comes they go........
 
studentvet said:
It is a lovely ideal that horses, once having completed a charmed ridden life are allowed to munch in a field untill they peacefully PTS. But the reality is that often an owner will only be able to afford one horse, then when that horse is at retirement will not be able to fund one to ride in addition to the retired one. So will sell the retired one as 'companion'. Fair enough if people who purchaced these companions were honourable individuals looking for an equine lawnmower, however all to often people see the opportunity to make a quick £££ and then bute it up and sell it as a 'riding horse' to someone who doesnt know better. Then the poor horse could end up going aound auction rings from one unscrupulious owner to the next untill finally the right thing is done and they end up going for meat or even worse, end up somewhere like the Gray's in Ammersham. That time of passing from owner to owner, situation to situation, is stressful for the horse - let alone the final destination. If people would only do the right thing and PTS sooner then that stress wouldnot have happened. These are the horses I feel sorry for - not the ones that get taken straight for meat.

If you have the time and facilities to have a horse at grass then that is great, but remember that once a horse leaves your ownership you relinquish any rights over them and their future is uncertain. That is a fate far worse than death.
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Absolutely student vet, agree 100%


As for breeding horses for meat, I've been to auctions where unhandled coloured cob youngsters are herded in and bought by the meat man, so I would say that breeding for meat does happen in this country already. The same breeder has dozens of horses every year that all go to markets.

Personally I feel that it is slightly hypocritical to be disgusted at eating horses when we eat other animals without thinking about it. I wonder if horsemeat had a different name (pig = pork, cow=beef,) people would feel differently about it.

My grandfather had a pet chicken and when his dad killed it to put food on the table he never ate it again in all his 82 years, so the emotion can pass from any animal species that you become attached to.

Meat production nowadays is sanitised, we go to the supermarkets and pick it up ready prepared in nice little packages, and in some ways I think that this has made us a little less appreciative of the life that has been sacrificed in order to feed us. We are also very wasteful wanting only select cuts which means that more animals have to be slaughtered in order to provide our wants.

I do think that we have a lot to learn from the native cultures where food was respected, thanks was given for it and it was appreciated and nothing went to waste.
 
touchstone said:
I do think that we have a lot to learn from the native cultures where food was respected, thanks was given for it and it was appreciated and nothing went to waste.
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I think you are right here. But not only do they appreciate the food more, I think that they appreciate the live animal more too. I have lived with communities within the atlas mountains and they effectively eat their 'pets'. They love them, care for them and spend most waking hours with them (and then the sleeping ones too bacause they tend to live bellow the house, but that's a different story!). They then kill and eat them. They feel no guilt. Because the animals are providing them with meat / produce / clothing / etc they have more respect for them when they are alive.

I do think that we need to respect our farm animals more - we do waste far too much. But I also do not think that just because you love an animal you can't eat it. It is about respect. And if an animal has lived and is killed in a respectful manner, I will respectfully eat it!
 
Gosh, the atlas mountains must have been a fab experience!

I agree that it is about respect, strangely enough my other grandfather who was a slaughterman had a huge respect for his animals, and he kept his own animals for meat. Years ago almost every family kept their own pig for food and I think doing that does make you more appreciative. Also much nicer than the mass produced meat and at least you know exactly how it has been reared and the quality of life it has had as it is all your responsibility.
I think we have a lot to learn fromn the less westernised cultures in a lot of ways!
 
touchstone said:
Gosh, the atlas mountains must have been a fab experience!

I agree that it is about respect, strangely enough my other grandfather who was a slaughterman had a huge respect for his animals, and he kept his own animals for meat. Years ago almost every family kept their own pig for food and I think doing that does make you more appreciative. Also much nicer than the mass produced meat and at least you know exactly how it has been reared and the quality of life it has had as it is all your responsibility.
I think we have a lot to learn fromn the less westernised cultures in a lot of ways!
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Yes, it was bloomin' amazing!

You're right, alot of people have no respect for their food. In the west think we are the 'civilised' ones because we can buy a tesco value microwaveable lamb curry for 99p and that is dinner. I'm sorry, but to me - having no idea of the quality of one's food, the ethics behind the animal's welfare that has contributed to the food totally taking the 'convienience' for granted is highly uncivilised. I'd much rather (and do) but whole foods from local shops, lamb of a friend who farms it and beef from a local butcher (it was there that I worked in an abbatoir and have 100% certainty of their humane and ethical slaughter methods). If they slaughtered horses there, I'm sure I'd give it a go! Like I have said before on this post, I care about the live animal's welfare - horse, pig, goat, cow or otherwise! Once they are dead, they become meat and it is an individual's perogative to ensure that that meat meets their own ethical boundries.
 
I have a section A pony who is a companion and NO way would I pass her on to anyone else.Same goes for my Cob,my two have a home 4 life no matter what.
Years ago dealer I saw at a sales told me that NOT all the ponies go for meat,only some of them.Whether its true or not I dont know.The thought upsets me!!!
 
I would never eat horse meat nore send a horse to an abbiator because i personally would rather them pts at home without that last stressful journey but sometimes i do think its kinder for some to go there than be passed pillar to post especially older horses that less people want and there certainly seems to plenty about.

I also think though that people should be less selfish just because YOU want to ride doesn't mean because your horse is unfit to do its job that you want it to do it should be pts so you can go buy another it wouldn't hurt not to ride for a few years to give the horse some sort of retirement atleast lots of love and pampering they take up less time than a ridden horse and theres always hundreds of people with horses they never ride so borrow someone elses. I have only owned old horses and always kept them when i couldn't ride and then when i could afford 2 i got another on loan but shes unrideable also but she still stays with me because shes better off with me than with her old owner i dont really owe her anything becuase she kicks me and does nothing for me i only rode her for probably 6-8 months in the 3yrs ive owned her but big deal i would rather know her future with me than worry for the rest of my life that she was pts for no reason or is rotting in a field somewhere. I also dont have a good job but i manage to get by having two horses sometimes you just have to sacrafice other things to have them instead of being greedy all the time.
 
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