This is a rant.

I was going to carry the horse slaughter issue through the many variables involved to a sensible conclusion. But good sense often reigns second to emotion and at times it’s maddening.

Sensibly speaking:

Horses in America, as a system, have a great deal of input and less output. This is not sustainable.

 Horses in America, while cherished as pets, must be considered as livestock and managed accordingly.

All systems of livestock, and wild grazing animals, need predation to insure herd health and numbers. Slaughter is predation—human to animal. We are and must be the wolf, bear and lion, “hunting” the horses in America.

Now here is the connection and the rant:

In 1998, I was a full-time horse trainer with my barn full of green (untrained) horses. Half of the horses were Arabians, of private ownership, destined for the show ring. The other half were horses I invested in for resale, the “killer horses.”I named them killer horses because I intercepted them in the process to the slaughter plant.

 Jim Doty and Kurt Moorefield were both good horsemen and kill buyers--those in the horse market that bought and sold horses for slaughter. I frequently was called by them to take on a horse they thought was, “too good to get his head cut off”. They were often right, and the horse could be re-educated and sold for a great deal more than slaughter price. It was a profitable venture that helped keep me working and good horses from being killed.

 Less than a year after California’s ban on horse slaughter three things happened to my business; the volume decreased almost half, the price of non-show type utility horses (my clientele) dropped 26 percent, and demand dropped as supply increased. The direction of my life changed at that time.

Forward to now; horse slaughter was effectively banned in 2007 and it is a repeat of what happened in California, lots of horses—no demand. The herd is poor because of people’s emotional cry, “don’t kill the horses”.

I’ll carry the rant on to the next posting.