Opinion on RACEHORSE SLAUGHTER.

[xChry.]

Not always. A lot of horses are raised for slaughter.
What I dont get is why its perfectly right to slaughter cows pigs chickens etc to feed us fatties [its true.. xD], but slaughtering horses apparently isnt.
As long as they are slaughtered humanely, there is nothing to be against..

yapp yapp

[Bad Habit]

These topics are always good reads, but usually much more entertaining than "ZOMG HORSES R SEW PREETY DUNT EAT HORSIES!!!"

There are more horses than there are homes. It is much more cost effective to slaughter a horse than to euthanize a horse and cremate it. It creates jobs, and is a USDA monitored production. The horses that go to slaughter sell cheap. They are usually broken down and no one else wants them. If someone wanted them, it would only take a couple hundred dollars to outbid the meat buyer. Yes, it sucks that some useful horses don't get a second chance, but that's life. You can't save them all, I'm afraid. Horses that you see starving in the kill pens? They came in that way. Why would they want to starve their horses and reduce their profits? The injured horses? Most of them would be injured on the transport to the slaughter house.

What needs to happen now, is transport needs to be further regulated, and both transport and slaughter need to be carefully monitored. There's nothing wrong with slaughtering livestock as long as it's a quick, painless death.

I would also support slaughters checking for microchips before slaughtering a horse, to discourage/prevent horse theft.

[xChry.]

Yes, but the way they kill the horses are inhumane - Meaning they jerk a bolt into the horses head before fully killing it, and worse. All I want is for them to die humanly.

[Bad Habit]

Yes, but the way they kill the horses are inhumane - Meaning they jerk a bolt into the horses head before fully killing it, and worse. All I want is for them to die humanly.

Well, I hope you mean humanely, because to die humanly is a horrible death. Humans have to have the worst deaths, out of all the animals.

What about other meat animals? Do you care how they die? Because it's all the same. A captive bolt gun is placed to the animal's head, in a specific place that allows the bolt to kill the animal quickly and effectively. The trigger is pulled, the animal becomes meat, and so we are all connnected in the great Circle of Life.

These topics blow my mind. Everyone whines and complains about horses being killed and used for meat, but not one single person can explain to me why it's ok to eat cow, but not horse.

[Transkitty]

Yes, but the way they kill the horses are inhumane - Meaning they jerk a bolt into the horses head before fully killing it, and worse. All I want is for them to die humanly.

Take it from someone who has used one on a cow, a bolt gun kills the animal instantly. The people who use them do not miss, or they would not have a job.

[xChry.]

Yes, but the way they kill the horses are inhumane - Meaning they jerk a bolt into the horses head before fully killing it, and worse. All I want is for them to die humanly.

Take it from someone who has used one on a cow, a bolt gun kills the animal instantly. The people who use them do not miss, or they would not have a job.

But thats for cows - Not horses. We took a feild trip to a factory like what we are discussing, and watched some live filming, and the bolt doesn't kill it instantly... It moved around after the bolting, explain that. o3o

[varoujan]

I dislike race horse slaughter, but I'm perfectly fine with horses being eaten if that is what it was raised to be. It's no different from eating a cow or a pig, and in most cases it is done humanely.

[xChry.]

I dislike race horse slaughter, but I'm perfectly fine with horses being eaten if that is what it was raised to be. It's no different from eating a cow or a pig, and in most cases it is done humanely.

Key word is "Most"
Same here, its just the slaughtering that worries me, if its done humanley or not.

[Apperception]

Link to the site where you got your information please. Sorry if this has been given already.

If the animal will never be able to do anything again, or is crippled beyond repair, I think death is better then letting it suffer for the rest of its life. Horses are no different from other livestock, which get slaughtered all the time. Horses everywhere get sent to slaughter for no reason, I don't see how a racehorse is any different.
I don't agree with this, in fact I think that a horse should at least have something wrong with it before being sent, but I don't think of horses any different then any other animals.

[Transkitty]

Yes, but the way they kill the horses are inhumane - Meaning they jerk a bolt into the horses head before fully killing it, and worse. All I want is for them to die humanly.

Take it from someone who has used one on a cow, a bolt gun kills the animal instantly. The people who use them do not miss, or they would not have a job.

But thats for cows - Not horses. We took a feild trip to a factory like what we are discussing, and watched some live filming, and the bolt doesn't kill it instantly... It moved around after the bolting, explain that. o3o

Any instance in which something is killed, you have to wait a couple minutes for the animal to stop twitching. EVERY animal will continue to twitch for at least 30 seconds post-mortum, even humans. These twitches are something many call "death tremors" because the twitching will be made with little to no known restriction, which means they can be made in a series that makes the animal appear to still be living. They're a result of nerves firing their last few times.

Now, if you wonder why older animals who die of natural causes or cancer or whathaveyou don't seem to have these twitches, they honestly probably do... but with age comes the decay of the nervous system... so the twitches will probably be either far less pronounced, or in areas where the naked eye can't measure them (heart spasm, lungs, that little toe twitch that you may have missed, etc.)

In the case of the bolt going through the brain, well, let's put it this way... only one documented person's had a rod through their head and lived, Phineas Gage, feel free to look up his case. His personality lobe took the brunt of the rod, but he also was proven to have a weaker nervous system, he died (i think) 7 years after the accident, that was a case in which the rod went UP through the skull, not horizontally. Now the human anatomy is different than a horse's, but it doesn't hurt to educate yourself.
Now if you still have questions about the kill ratio for a bolt through the skull. More often than not that bolt blasts through the brain matter if it's a penetrating bolt. It's designed to be long enough to reach the CEREBELLUM, which goes straight to your central nervous system, where only the circulation and breathing could possibly be maintained at full par, unless the operator does not deliver a successful blow. In such case, that person isn't keeping their job that long.

My problem with everyone complaining about horse slaughter... is what else are you doing with that FOOD? Burial? Cremation? Skinning? Honestly, kids in Africa are starving enough they'll take down a pig just as easily as a dog and EAT IT, killed humanely or not. We are human beings, we are animals, we are no better or worse than the others on this planet. People will eat what is available to them. Just like any predator. If your life depended on eating horse, you may refuse to for awhile... but, unless you're completely suicidal, YOU WILL EAT IT.

If you really don't want horse, don't eat it. If you don't enjoy gay marriage, don't have one. May not be the same but it is the same. It is something called a WAY OF LIFE, choose yours, they'll pick theirs.
-D

If the horse you saw was still alive, then I feel bad for that animal. Unfortunately, horse slaughter is relatively new to the United States. We're in a period of trial and error right now. How much pressure does it take to kill a cow? Is it the same for a horse? Nothing is going to be 100% perfect for the first few weeks.

EDIT:
Another issue many people don't think about is how hard it is to get the bolt gun in the right position. Horses tend to not like things near their heads, so when the person holding the bolt gun reaches in the kill pen, the horse swings its head away. Responsible slaughter houses don't fire until the horse is restrained and they know the bolt will do its job.