Horse Slaughter

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

Congress is not passing out of committee the amendment that would have defunded inspection of horse slaughter.

That means horse slaughter could return if the bill is passed as written.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/247206-gop-defeats-amendment-to-defund-horse-slaughter-facilities

[sw363535]

Well, maybe there is a chance that line of insanity will come to an end..... 

[ECIN]

Democrats, however, said the practice is not humane and Congress has previously stated it does not support the slaughter of horses

SSSSSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOOOO - Then they think that Old horses - the ones in mud up to the bellys - The sick and cripples - The ones that move to country from the city - that just HAVE to have 3 or 4 horses on 2 acres - and don't have the money for feed - vet bills and what ever is ----- Humane ???  Well OK -

[sw363535]

That is the insanity I am talking about............. The abusive and shollow thought involved in the application of the word HUMANE....

What they did to horses and their owners is not humane.

Of all the BAD legislation we have had over the last twenty years that is the most inhumane one

IMOOOOO

[Kay/NC]

This issue is a true example of unintended consequences. I guess some animal rights activists thought horses would suddenly become better treated in life, by ending this form of death.
The fact is, depressing the value of most horses has made welfare even more trnuous. Throw in the economy, and you get farmers who wake up to five skinny horses abandoned in their pasture in the night, and horses just turned loose to wander into traffic.

Let's say I have seen the ugly underbelly of the subject, given our daughter's horse craziness and her efforts to rehab too many equines to count. They dwell in a gray area:companion snimals to many owners, livestock/implement to others.

We simply haven't dealt with this well, as a society.

[BA Deere]

This is a strange issue.  Okay, rendering trucks  charge $300 to pickup a dead horse, these horse nuts always weasel out of paying for hay that they...oh yah a horse guy wants to buy hay GET THE CASH MONEY before you load the first bale, they`re even worse than dairy farmers...okay I I`m just kidding...alittle, but don`t they have the $300 to pay the rendering truck?  Or do like I do, something is sick, I shoot it and bury it, I don`t advertise to the DNR or anything just shutup and shovel.

The rendering services say that these sick dead horses are so pumped nasty medicines that they can`t use horse carcasses for much, that`s why they have to charge so much to pick them up. Well, if these pet horses are so medicated they aren`t exactly "PQA certified" is that something that would be worth slaughtering?

I am so grossed out by the thought of horse meat if there was any danger of it contaminating our beef supply, I would become a vegetarian.  As finicky as the public has become, we need to weigh the bennefit of getting rid of horses with the risk of totally grossing out the public that eats beef.

[rawhide]

Amen ecin

[Jim Meade / Iowa City]

People around the world eat various foods that others don't care for. Many people in Europe eat horse and like it, as many people in Asia eat dog. Our American Indians used to relish both horse and  dog. I've eaten horse and dog and prefer horse.

The businss of saying "i don't like it so you shouldn't eat it "is silly.

The bigger problem is people being told they eat one thing when they're eating another.  There have been several scandals in Germany about food labeling, one involving kangaroo int he '80 when I was there and one involving horse being passed off as beef,.

[BA Deere]

I guess my concern is if horse slaughter became common here, it would be very easy for there to be a "labeling mistake" especially on ground sausage if beef is $160 on the hoof and horse is 5¢...alot of incentive to make a few "mistakes".  I know some of you hillbillies (I mean that as a term of endearment) that wouldn`t be a big deal, but I`m around younger people that watch what they eat and read labels...and I`m fussy what I eat for a old guy.  But we need to weigh what risk there is from alienating our meat consumers if there was a labeling "mistake" like a case of "Mr Ed" ending up in school lunches.

And a point I brought up of these horse medications given by many times rank novices ending up in this "meat" should be something that those that consume the stuff should wonder about.

[Milligan Hay - Iowa d:^)]

You are spot on.

When they closed the slaughter plants ten years ago, that took away any floor on an old, lame, or mean horse.

That didn't mean that the horse was spared bad treatment , no, quite the opposite. Dead end mud roads had piles of dead horses left to rot. Scores of them were set loose to run around in Stevens State Forest in SouthCentral Iowa, until they starved to death, got hit by cars, or died from sickness. Some scummy people would buy a pair of nice horses in the spring, dirt cheap, ride them all summer, and when the snow begin to fall, take them somewhere remote, and shoot them so that they would not have to buy hay for them in the winter. The next spring, they would get another set for next to nothing. It made me sick.

I sold horse hay for over 34 years, and the closure of the slaughter plants just about destroyed the horse industry. It is now, just beginning to recover.