when YOU were PAID for your pts

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lamehorse

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years ago abbatoirs used to advertise for horses. if your horse needed pts for any reason they would come out shoot it there and then and later send a cheque to YOU for how ever much it was per pound. if they took it to kill they would pay more. of course all that has changed , but why ? they still use the horses for dog food , same as before . so why do we now have to pay them ? there certainly wasnt a " horse crisis " when this was in place !!!
 
As far as I know, you do still get paid if the horse goes to the slaughterhouse; it's price per kilo now - and it's always lower than before because there's a surplus now - which is what a friend was told a few months ago and that they now have a waiting list, you can't just turn up on the day as you could before.
 
Abbatoirs do still pay you. But the stricter regulations surrounding meat production & the closure of small local abbatoirs means unlike years ago when an individual knackerman could dispose of a carcass at enough profit to pay the owner, it now actually costs the knackerman to dispose. I also suspect given the prices horses fetch from the meat man at low end auctions compared to years ago that meat value hasn't kept up with inflation in the slightest, so there's little or no profit in it.
 
Without going into the grisly details you won't get paid if your horse is shot at home, but if you deliver him live to a slaughterhouse then you will.
 
Well vet shot my horse.
Then we paid fell monger/knacker manto come pick him up, his carcass went to the hounds.
How else would we of rid ourselves of 600kg of horse meat otherwise?
To put it bluntly, they can get carcasses for pittance but provide a service to owners who can no longer just dig a big hole.

Fyi it would of been cheaper for knacker man to shoot and remove but Iwanted his usual vet to do the deed as he was a nervy sort.
We don't have any hunts anymore who directly shoot and use. They go to knacker man first and hunts just get meat. Other bits go elsewhere.

Hope that wasn't too much to the point... Once my horse was dead his body was just old clothes. I have no qualms as to where the carcass went.
 
Its the same with cattle - if you have fallen stock then the farmer does not get paid, and will have to pay for its removal.... but if they can load him or her and transport to the slaughter then they will get paid. :(
 
I suspect it's because of food safety regulations (yes, even for dog food) that they have to be killed on site if the abbatoir wants to sell the meat.

Also, disposal of any parts they don't use ie bones has to be paid for now.

It's different for hunts/zoos as they don't sell on the carcass, they use it themselves.
 
If knackerman despatches at home, then you pay (locally in NW Surrey its around £200/250) for the service.
They still charge the same collection fee if you have vet out to despatch.

You will (must) also be given a copy of the triplicate form for the movement of deadstock given to you, knackerman/hunt has the other 2 copies.

OP, yes I remember the old days too, tho then there were many more knackermen and also slaughter houses (pre the change in rules in 1977 for EEC regs).
There were also more hunts who rendered for hounds, tho in our neck of the woods hunts currently have a very tight area they work in & its not practical for them to attend many and some now feed dry food, making carcass collection un-necessary for them.

Its a long way for many to take equines to a slaughter house for despatch, and yes - you will be paid there but often the cost of getting a horse there negates any payment you might get (particularly if you have no own transport), unless taking 2 or more.
 
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My old section A pony died in the field in the late 70s, the knacker man collected his body and I received a cheque in the post a few days later. I also received back his copper pastern strap (for arthritis), I still remember how upset I was when that fell out of the envelope.:(
 
lamehorse said:
years ago abbatoirs used to advertise for horses. if your horse needed pts for any reason they would come out shoot it there and then and later send a cheque to YOU for how ever much it was per pound. if they took it to kill they would pay more. of course all that has changed , but why ? they still use the horses for dog food , same as before . so why do we now have to pay them ? there certainly wasnt a " horse crisis " when this was in place !!!
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Yep, i also remember this, a friend of mine lost her mare to colic years ago, the vet shot her & then she was collected the following day by the knacker man, a few days later she received a cheque in the post.
Not really sure why it all changed, but its not just horses it affected either, you used to be able to just go & drop your dead farm animals at our local knackers yard & not have to pay, these days you have to pay for them to dispose of anything.
 
our old abattoir used to be in the village next to the primary school so only a few minutes up the road from my paddocks and the butchers shop used to be out the front next to the school gates so when mine was killed on the road they took her and gave a cheque to my dad, I still have it never had the heart to cash it in :(
 
Does/has anyone taken their horse to slaughter and had the body back to eat/use themselves? either for dog food or own personal consumption?
or horse has died naturally or been shot at home and they used the body themselves for own/dog food?
 
It would be a rare leisure horse that could be taken back home by the owner and eaten - most of them will have had it declared in their passport that they aren't for human consumption, which affects recording of medicines, etc.
 
el_Snowflakes said:
All about Romeo, if they have it would be in extremely poor taste IMHO
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As long as the horse was well cared for while it was alive, and the end was as humane as possible, what happens to the "old clothes" is nothing to worry about, and entirely up to the owner. Anyone who did this would certainly be thought very odd in our culture, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea. Lots of pigs or sheep or chickens are kept as semi-pets before, er, fulfilling their destiny.
 
Theocat said:
As long as the horse was well cared for while it was alive, and the end was as humane as possible, what happens to the "old clothes" is nothing to worry about, and entirely up to the owner. Anyone who did this would certainly be thought very odd in our culture, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the idea. Lots of pigs or sheep or chickens are kept as semi-pets before, er, fulfilling their destiny.
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I'm not entirely sure how I would feel about it TBH... I have always injected so never been in that position of having the option of using the carcass but I think if my horse died naturally then I would consider feeding him to my own dogs as it would be much better for them then the rubbish dog food companies put in dog food! (I would have to pay a professional butcher to cut up carcass though) but it would prob still be cheaper then paying for disposal!!
 
PandorasJar said:
Lamehorse they still do. Last one I knew go went for 400. People's view on sending them is what's changed.
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I think the OP is talking about local knackers yards that used to pay you to take your horse away, my friend had about £50 for her horse when they took it, rather than places like Turners & Potters. If you use your local knackerman now you have to pay them to take your horse away.
 
You have to pay the slaughterhouse here now, Martins at Braintree is the nearest horse one. I rang them last year to find out.
 
I'd assume it's because regs have changed and also times have changed and they don't use so much now. Last one collected cost 250 and they said would just burn as they not shot so made nothing on it.
 
The EU regulations stopped all the local places that could process horses for meat so now you can only take horses to 2 (until the other gets its licence back) so all the other knackermen are offering a service to the horse owner rather than buying to use. if you look back a lot of horses used to be retired from work and have a summer in the field and were then off to the hunt or knackerman which does not happen anywhere near as much now as people hold onto the horses until they need to be pts for old age reasons. as has already been said there are also far to many horses now that have been bred but are unwanted for whatever reason so even if you take the horse to one of the places thats licences for horses the price per kilo is lower
 
The regulations that closed down a lot of the small slaughter houses stopped slaughter at home for entry into the food chain. The hygene regs mean that nothing slaughtered at home can be used for sale, only personal consumption, by the producer. I assume that this is the same for horses.
 
Not illegal to bury at home but you just need to avoid underground water tables, which iirc you are supposed to get approval of position of burial.
 
all about Romeo said:
Does/has anyone taken their horse to slaughter and had the body back to eat/use themselves? either for dog food or own personal consumption?
or horse has died naturally or been shot at home and they used the body themselves for own/dog food?
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No although I can see why some would. I've had chickens and turkeys that were brought for the table that became pets and then refused to eat them :o:o Rest of the family enjoyed them though... not my dad hes a soft as me. My game birds are a different kettle of fish though and I try not to get attached pretty easy really as once past a certain stage you don't see much of them anyway.
 
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