Horse Slaughter, Choice Between Eating Or Roting.

I have had to answer this question so many times in the past that I have decided to write this post explaining my position on horse slaughter for food be it for humans or dogs.

Although accurate numbers are not available due to insufficient data, the Unwanted Horse Coalition estimates that there are nearly 170,000 unwanted horses per year in the United States. Due to the sheer size of these animals and their extravagant nutritional needs, caring for an additional 170,000 horses every year becomes burdensome to say the least.  They become unwanted for a number of reasons, hard time have set in on lots of horse people making providing for a horse's upkeep what was easy to do hard to do.  The horse may become lame or too old to be of any use other than as a pasture ornament.  And of course there are the people who over bread looking for that ideal horse and want to cull the undesirables that fail to reach the standard they were striving to meet.

All horses will die, just a matter of when, where, and how.  I just had to put a horse down because it could not be trusted to not run its rider into a wall or a fence line.  I will not relate the long history I had with that horse and what led me to decide to put it down suffice it to say I killed it rather than risk it hurting another person.  I would have much rather its  meat be of use as dog food, or even human food for those who desire to eat horse flesh than for it to rot in the ground.

Horses are livestock, just like cows, goats, and pigs, they are not companion animals like dogs and cats, but that is the goal of many of the bleeding hearts, e.g., reclassifying by law horses as companion animals.  Many, if not most, of the people support this movement  do not, nor ever have, had a horse.  For example, "The Humane Society of the United States promotes the view held by most Americans that horses are companion animals and partners in recreation, sport, and work."  This is a gratuitous statement and can be just as gratuitously denied.  Most people, I would hazard, do not have an opinion on the matter.  In any case the people whose opinion that does matter are the ones who actually own and provide care for horses.  If these people have their way and horses are reclassified as companion animals then they will be taxed just like dogs are in North Carolina.

If closing the slaughter houses was to make life better for the horses it seems to have failed : 

"Horse welfare in the United States has generally declined since 2007 (when the slaughter houses were closed), as evidenced by a reported increase in horse abandonment and an increase in investigations for horse abuse and neglect. Comprehensive, national data are lacking, but state, local government, and animal welfare organizations report a rise in investigations for horse neglect and more abandoned horses since 2007. For example, Colorado data showed that investigations for horse neglect and abuse increased more than 60 percent from 975 in 2005 to 1,588 in 2009. Also, California, Texas, and Florida reported more horses abandoned on private or state land since 2007. These changes have strained resources, according to state data and officials that GAO interviewed. State, local, tribal, and horse industry officials generally attributed these increases in neglect and abandonment to cessation of domestic slaughter and the economic downturn. Others, including representatives from some animal welfare organizations, questioned the relevance of cessation of slaughter to these problems."  Sourse

Instead I believe that it is an ego trip for people like Robert Redford who is taking a stand to close horse slaughterhouses across the U.S. and protect horses from mistreatment and death. "As a first step, the Sting star is joining forces with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson to form the Foundation to Protect New Mexico Wildlife; this foundation, in turn, will partner with the Humane Society of the United States to back a lawsuit preventing the opening of a New Mexico horse slaughterhouse."  The idea is to force by law his opinion about how a horse should be disposed of on everyone else.

Personally I believe that a person should be free to raise horses for slaughter if they so desired, I think that the slaughter houses should be allowed to operate as long as they do so in a humane manner.  A person should be free to decide if they want their horse's meet to rot in the ground or be used as food and glue.  This should not be made illegal just because it offends some peoples' sensibilities.  No one has to take a horse to slaughter that does not want to.  Galavant, my first horse, who died at 35 and spent the last 5 years of his life as a pasture ornament and is buried at the tree line of my pasture would have never went to slaughter, but that crazy horse I put down is a different matter.