Horse slaughter is a national issue

[Guest]

If you are hooked on horse meat and the US is the only place providing, and they are only providing tired old lame nag, I image that is what you would eat.  Then again, I'm not french.

Im not sure if this is still done, but the manufacture of estrogen medication is (or was) made from the urine of pregnant horses (really). Obviously if one had to maintain a whole bunch of pregnant mares for this purpose one would have to find something to do with the eventual issue. In Canada (where these farms were located) the colts were often sold off for slaughter. Thats a lot of (ostensibly) tasty "horse-veal" on the market from up north.

[gunsmith]

I was a vegetarian for a long time, I eat a lttle meat now and then now though...a good steak oncem or twice a year, fish, fowl and the occainsonal BLT...never aint gonna eat no horse or dog...nope!! no way..

but them horses aint indigenous and need to be culled, or we need more mountain lions and wolves

[Sindawe]

but them horses aint indigenous and need to be culled, or we need more mountain lions and wolves.

AHHH!! But aren't they?

It was the one-toed horse Dinohippus, which first appeared in the middle Pliocene deposits in North America between 3 and 4 million years ago; that created several different species of horse during both the Pliocene and the Pleistocene epoch. This resulted in the ancestors of many of the types of horses that we know today.

Source: http://www.newrider.com/Library/Misc_Tips/origins_horse.html

And in time time they died/were hunted out here, until we brought them back to the continent of their origins.

As too the fitness of Horses for the table, well people eat just about every other animal do they not?  I've never supped on them myself but I do wonder...

...do they taste like chicken?

[mustanger98]

Here's another angle... the bigtime horse breeders. (Somebody mentioned what happens to the PMU colts and I think this goes along with it in its way.) We all know how pet breeders contribute to the overpopulation of dogs, for example. The horse breeders keep turning out a lot of animals, some higher priced than others, and are trying to make money selling those animals to either working ranch people, exhibitors (show ring types), or "weekend warrior" types. Then, the weekend warriors wind up with a high priced animal they don't know how to deal with, so for lack of enjoyment they wind up selling and often selling at a loss. Meanwhile, the breeders just keep on and keep on and keep on. So we have a surplus of horses whether they're grade (un-registered) or registered with any number of breed associations that run the prices up based on what the horse's parentage is. After a while, with so many horses on the market, the prices hit bottom and good horses go for little or nothing and many wind up with the killers. IIRC, that happened in the mid-to-late 1980's. The situation I just described happened between 1970 and 1985, so ya'll can see how people breeding anything to anything goes too because that was part of it too... folks thought "so what if I can't ride 'em; breed 'em" and they really hurt the horse industry.

As to mustangs not being indigenous, horses were indeginous but were on hiatus for a long time as was described. That's why the horse was new to the American Indian 400-500 years ago. Some of them thought the horse was just something else to eat. Others caught on, took up riding, and became the best light cavalry the world had ever known as well as being much more effective at hunting the buffalo. Now, my question is if some would be happier if the US Army had continued the program of killing off mustangs. If they had, some of us wouldn't know a world that includes mustangs, but wouldn't be happier for it. As for the mountain lions, I understand mustangs have a habit of avoiding areas they know to the cats to be in. Wolves? Re-introduce them and listen to the working ranchers in a chorus of wailing and gnashing of teeth for the loss of livestock and I don't blame them one bit on that part.

[mustanger98]

The horses show every characteristic that's regarded as bad:  Swaybacked, Roman-nosed, narrow withers, cow-hocked...They're the Jukes and Kallikaks of the horse world.

I've heard several opinions, positive and negative, about feral horses. I've seen examples of the quoted opinion many times among domesticated horses too.

Swaybacked- Depends on the physical condition of the individual horse. It's caused by weak muscles along the horse's backbone coupled with a "hay gut". Any horse can develop this problem if they get out of shape.

Roman nose- Seen it in some domestic horses. Some of those were registered stock.

Narrow withers- I recall an article I read a while back... it had to do with restoring a 190something McClellan saddle. They said the fork of that saddle is way too narrow for today's horses. As horses have evolved over the last century worth of human intervention in their breeding (not that it began recently) the withers have steadily become lower and wider. However, I also recall another article on picking a barrel racing horse... this article said pick on with higher withers because it'll hold the saddle better.

Cowhocked- I've seen plenty of domestic horses with this "problem" too. Again, some of those were registered.

I had a mustang once. If she were still alive she'd still be with me. I know for sure she was a mustang because she had the BLM freeze brand on her neck to prove it. She wasn't swaybacked. She wasn't any more Roman-nosed than the average Quarter Horse. She was somewhat cowhocked. But she could run fast and hard and stop real short. Mustangs may not be the prettiest of horses, but they're outfitted to survive. If somebody knows how to deal with them, they're great horses and I know I'm not alone in this opinion.

In my opinion, this aspect of the debate has little or nothing to do with the issue of horse slaughter.

[Art Eatman]

"In my opinion, this aspect of the debate has little or nothing to do with the issue of horse slaughter."

Well, of course not!

Glad your mustang deal worked out.  But, a halfway-decent Arabian mare would work better and be prettier to look at.  I'd bet a nickel or three that it would have a smoother gait, too.

Art

[mustanger98]

Something I've been trying to say here is that basing the arguement FOR horse slaughter on like or dislike for a particular breed is a lot like arguing FOR gun control based on "let's disarm anyone we don't like" (one ethnic group passing laws against another group being armed). Most of us here are pro-gun and pro-human-rights. Yet when it comes to how each of us looks at horses, it's just like politics and religion and "let's get rid of whatever we don't like".

But, a halfway-decent Arabian mare would work better and be prettier to look at.  I'd bet a nickel or three that it would have a smoother gait, too.

I'm not planning on expounding further on how great my mare was, and her being a mustang, any more than I already have. I am however wishing I had a photo online where I could show ya'll what I'm talking about in her case. But as they say, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I like all types of horses, so I won't discount an Arabian either, but I've seen Arabs I liked and some Arabs I didn't like based on personality. I've seen racking and quarter types I liked or didn't like also based on personality. I recall an ugly little Appaloosa gelding I liked based on his calmness and gentleness. I've seen a high-dollar AQHA stud- and he had I forget how many halter points- I didn't like him just because of his tendancy to jump through the ceiling just because I walked by his stall. Smoother gaits... I've understood some of the gait's smoothness is in the horse's conformation and is also effected by shoeing (angle, weight of shoe, breakover, etc.).

[mustanger98]

Wait, I thought republicans were about SMALLER government.

I thought it was the democrats who went around banning everything they don't like (such as horse slaughtering).

Holy smoke, talk about the republi-fascists showing their true colors.  If you burn your own flag they want to throw you in the gulag.  If you slaughter the (apparently now sacred) horse, and DARE to make a profit at it (I thought repukes loved the free market), you guessed it, OFF TO THE GULAG!

One thing my college poli sci professor said in class is that people love labels... Democrat, Republican... you have to have a label, but in reality, someone in NYC can be a Democrat and so can somebody in south Texas, but the two individuals will have nothing in common aside from the label. And... Zell Miller, in his book "A National Party No More", said we all have conservative and liberal opinions and politics is about reconciling the two. I don't recall anything in this thread saying anybody should be sent to the gulag. I'm no PETA freak, but I'm not into slaughtering horses either. But then, when you consider I'm also a deer hunter, there's those who'd like to throw us hunters in the gulag too.

[Perd Hapley]

I believe the ban is on using horse meat for human consumption, not banning the slaughter of horses altogether.  

Regarding labels.  Many "liberals" still call themselves liberals, but many have also moved on to "progressive."  I'd say they're regressive, but the point is that "progressive liberals" want something to identify themselves, to set themselves apart from those they disagree with.  

While labeling can be overdone or misused, it is useful to have words to identify a particular point of view.  I often call myself a conservative, not because I really am one, but because it helps people understand where I'm coming from.  It does have it's baggage, of course.

You are right that conservatives often want people to clearly identify as liberal or conservative at times when that doesn't matter.  But I wonder if labelling people is any different than making generalizations like, "Americans can't think for themselves," or "Bush supporters are all denial queens."  I also notice you use the label "neo-con" without hesitation.   Isn't that the same thing?