Unwanted Horses...a VERY serious issue...what to do?

[FOS]

hi guys

You can click on the following title Kentucky Overrun With Unwanted Horses and retrieve the Associated Press article.

Following are a few lines from the AP article:

Kentucky, the horse capital of the world, famous for its sleek thoroughbreds, is being overrun with thousands of horses no one wants _ some of them perfectly healthy, but many of them starving, broken-down nags. Other parts of the country are overwhelmed, too.

The reason: growing opposition in the U.S. to the slaughter of horses for human consumption overseas.

There have been reports of horses chained up in eastern Kentucky and left for days without food or water.

It is legal in all states for owners to shoot their unwanted horses, and some Web sites offer instructions on doing it with little pain. But some horse owners do not have the stomach for that.

Sending horses off to the glue factory is not an option anymore.

...rescue operations that choose not to euthanize horses are generally full.

Thoughts...ideas...recommendations?

Respectfully

[KamiBrooks]

I read the article and wow, what a botched job of propoganda!

This will certainly sway the public.

Kentucky..... is being overrun with thousands of horses no one wants _ some of them perfectly healthy, but many of them starving, broken-down nags. Other parts of the country are overwhelmed, too.

The reason: growing opposition in the U.S. to the slaughter of horses for human consumption overseas.

-- actually, this has been going on in many states for quite a while... even when slaughter was an option.

Some people who live near the strip mines in the mountains of impoverished eastern Kentucky say that while horses have long been left to roam free there, the number now may be in the thousands, and they are seeing herds three times bigger than they did just five years ago.

As far as I know slaughter ops were up and running until recently so can't blame the anti-slaughter folks for this one. Ponies have gone for even less than $75 for as long as I've been following the results of auctions... over 5 years.

Every state has laws against letting livestock run estray... so maybe this will be one area where NAIS will help. I'd say prosecute the people turning them loose. In ohio, they have to pay the board where the animals are kept until they claim them and get them fenced back in.

I know I'll get flamed by some, but I have no problem with putting down horses where there is no alternative. Owners who are starving a horse should be shown that the $250 to put a horse down and have it hauled away is cheaper than defending an animal cruelty charge and doing jail time.

"I can't absorb the price," Francis said. "You try to hang on until the price changes, but it looks like it's not going to change. ... What do I do? I've got good quality horses I can't market because of the has-been horse."

"Kill buyers" used to pay pennies a pound for unwanted horses, then pack them into crowded trucks bound for slaughterhouses that would ship the horse meat to Europe and Asia.

Man, this is really going to help this guy's business. His name was "Nelson Francis" and he breeds gaited horses.

A federal court ruled recently that Texas must start to enforce its long-ignored 1949 ban on the transportation and possession of horse meat.

Uhh... I thought Texas fought for the right to enforce the law?

What to do? Stronger laws w/bigger fines and jail time... then actually enfoce them. Ohio has a fast track program to prosecute bounced checks, I wish they would come up with the same for animal neglect.

The Days End Farm sounds like they are pro-slaughter, sent it to them to ask if they support it or not.

Too bad there isn't a place to respond to the article.

Kami

[mlwinter]

Has anyone considered the problems that will increase ten fold when the price of corn doubles as predicted? You think there are a lot of unwanted horses now, wait until this summer. Thanks to alternative fuel options, aka Biodiesel.

And while we are at it, when will the Thoroughbred industry (Jockey Club) take a little responsibility and stop all the AI breeding going on and letting any and every horse stand stud to an unlimited number of mares every year. The Thoroughbred industry needs to be the first to take responsibility, start limiting the number of mares booked.

Where do you all think all these broken down two yr olds are going to go? The only good coming from Slaughter Ban would be to drive the prices down at the sales promoting bad images of the Thoroughbred Industry. But I forgot, that won't happen because the sales agencies want to set records with the agents and farms playing tag!

Anyone that doesn't accept that slaughter is a current need until other changes are made before hand are just kidding themselves. Limits on breeding would be the first step, not shutting down the slaughterhouse.

Slaughter is not an answer that any horse lover wants, but at present, shutting it down is not the answer. Not with all the people in the states without jobs and more continuing to lose jobs. And definately not the answer due to over population that each and every person on this board has some how contributed to in one way or another.

[amanda1]

mlwinter....

While I agree that the number of mares being booked to each stallion is absurd, the JC does NOT allow AI breeding, and will refuse to register any foal born that way. You can thank the QH industry for the AI boom.

[certifiedgirl]

Pro-Slaughter propaganda.

[sprucie]

QUOTE: Has anyone considered the problems that will increase ten fold when the price of corn doubles as predicted? You think there are a lot of unwanted horses now, wait until this summer. Thanks to alternative fuel options, aka Biodiesel.

And while we are at it, when will the Thoroughbred industry (Jockey Club) take a little responsibility and stop all the AI breeding going on and letting any and every horse stand stud to an unlimited number of mares every year. The Thoroughbred industry needs to be the first to take responsibility, start limiting the number of mares booked. UNQUOTE

Actually biodiesel is just a byproduct of fried foods. You're probably thinking of ethanol.

AI isn't allowed by the JC! The other problem is that the JC can't put limits on the numbers of mares bred, or the stallion books. They would be sued, and would lose. Think Anti-Trust laws. I agree that ethically there should be far fewer stallions and mares being bred, but who will be the one(s) to decide who will be and won't be bred, and to whom? Think about Communist China's rules about having children before answering that question!

[mlwinter]

If you think AI isn't happening in the Thoroughbred industry then you must be covering your eyes like the Jockey Club. How many years did it take them to finally start 'spot' checking for babies born the first of the year?

And if you think there are issues with rights on limiting the number of horses bred, then what about the rights with shutting slaughter down? Isn't that an infringement of rights?

And excuse me for typing biodiesel instead of ethanol...hardly the point.

[Rokeby Forever]

When deer in the forest overpopulate, some will be shot in an effort to save the others. That prevents the whole group in the forest from starving.

However, the overpopulation of horses is not the fault of horses - it's the fault of breeder irresponsibility, greed, inability to look ahead, whatever reason you want to come up with. Since I blame breeders for the problem (and you can either agree or blame anyone else in the industry you like), I'd shove the problem down the breeders' throats and say "fix it!" If you blame someone else in the industry, demand the same of that party.

That won't solve the immediate problem of horse slaughter, but it's a step that can prevent it in the future.

[sprucie]

Well, since I didn't make the Anti-Trust laws, you can hardly blame me for the fact that the JC can't limit mares bred, stallion book sizes, etc. I'm just stating the facts about why they can't.

As for AI, it is not supposed to be done, and while I understand that it is, it is NOT accepted by the rules, and when it is found out, the horses are then stripped of their papers.

I agree that book size is something that should be limited, but unless the farms all agree to do this, and in doing so, cause the prices to go up for the resulting foals, (limiting supply=higher price) it just won't happen.

Unfortunately there are too many breeders who think that just because a horse has testicles, or a mare has a uterus, that they should be bred. This type of thing has to start with a grass roots sort of mentality, and hopefully it will catch on everywhere. Maybe we should all decide to go to stallions who have farm limited books. Or, geld all of the colts on our farms. Or turn in the papers on any mares we feel shouldn't be bred. But, I certainly don't want that type of decision left up to someone else. Again, who would YOU want to be the breeding police?

As far as ethanol is concerned, there are lots of other options for feeding horses, and corn isn't all that great to feed them anyway!

[FOS]

In the meantime...what's to be done in the short term, and by who or what organizations, regarding what the article describes as unwanted horses?

Best to you.

Respectfully

[Sam]

In the meantime...what's to be done in the short term, and by who or what organizations, regarding what the article describes as unwanted horses?

We could start by shooting all the commercial breeders

I'm kidding, of course.... mostly.

There's too much money in the breeding side of the industry and not enough in the racing side. The gap between what you can make in the ring and what you can make on the track is just too wide. We are a nation of instant gratification and that's what people see when they look at sales figures. Why breed a horse that you have to take care of and will see no return on your investment for at least 3 years (with money going out that whole time) when you can breed a mare and flip the foal in less than 2 years? Never mind that most are losing money -- it's the allure of the $75k+ yearling that keeps people doing it -- this has never been an industry run by fiscal intelligence.

I say we start by making January 1st a holiday. "Cut your colts" day. Anything over the age of 4 that is still running in middling allowances/claiming races should not be entire. Anyone with half a brain can tell if a colt has even a modicum of real talent by the time they are late 3yos. 90% of the colts out there could and probably should be gelded at no great loss to the breed. We'd probably have to start bribing people to do that though... hell there are still people who won't have their dogs fixed.

Truthfully though, I'd start with the QH/stock horse breeds industries since the vast majority of slaughter horses come from them.

[gemini]

Maybe a 2 pronged strategy would work (JC or AQHA) to encourage more selective breeding choices?

Registry assn charges stallion owner a significant fee for filing the annual stallion report - whether you breed 1 mare or 100 mares - plus a charge per mare; for example: $1,000 a year base charge for the stallion report plus $50 per mare.

The breeder pays a higher registration fee for ungelded colts and mares with a portion of the excess funds collected used to support incentive programs and alternatives to slaughter.

Of course this still does nothing to address the unsound race or show horses which are so difficult and (and let's face it!) expensive to retire in a safe and healthy facility. any ideas on this one?

[majxmom]

I didn't like this article for several reasons:

1) The person who wrote the article may never have attended a horse auction before, but the rest of us have heard it: "Who'll give $500 for this pony?, Four, three two one, who'll bid $50 for this pony, alright, 50...50..60...60...65...70...75...sold" That's the way all horses are sold at auction. No auctioneer starts with $10. It isn't that there was no bidding for the poor little pony. NO ONE was going to raise a hand at any starting price at any auction anywhere.

2) I believe that there are going to have to be some sad cases like the fellow who says he can't afford to feed it before the overproduction stops. But the AQHA registered 300,000 horses in the last 2 years, and we slaughtered 210,000. So maybe just a few of the backyard breeders like my neighbor could stop doing that. I have no objection at all to people that breed and keep them. But my neighbor bred her wobbler mare, got the palomino foal she wanted, then threw the mare away. If she had euthanized it, I wouldn't have been so bothered. But this horse does not face a good end.

[madelyn]

I say we start by making January 1st a holiday. "Cut your colts" day. Anything over the age of 4 that is still running in middling allowances/claiming races should not be entire. Anyone with half a brain can tell if a colt has even a modicum of real talent by the time they are late 3yos. 90% of the colts out there could and probably should be gelded at no great loss to the breed. We'd probably have to start bribing people to do that though... hell there are still people who won't have their dogs fixed.

An intriguing idea would be to get racing secretaries to write lower level races for older geldings and mares (only, no horses allowed). Watch how fast trainers with cheap stallions cut those horses.

January 1st is already a holiday, by the way.

Seriously, though, since 65-75% of the horses slaughtered every year are Quarter Horses, that's the breed with the most serious over-population issues.

[skeenan]

Well, there is a definite slant on the article, isn't there. They make it sound like horses just show up on people's lawns and they're forced to take care of them. Ridiculous...

Here are some of the parts I especially liked:

Some people who live near the strip mines in the mountains of impoverished eastern Kentucky say that while horses have long been left to roam free there, the number now may be in the thousands, and they are seeing herds three times bigger than they did just five years ago.

"There's horses over there that's lame, that's blind," said Doug Kidd, who owns 30 horses in Lackey, Ky. "They're taking them over there for a graveyard because they have nowhere to move them."

Sorry... but if you live in an impoverished part of the country, those horses are either being dumped off by other impoverished folks who have no business owning horses if they can't afford to keep them, or they're being driven in by people who, if they can afford to transport them there, can afford the vet bill to have them put down.

And 30 horses?!?! I make a good salary and so does my husband and I'd be strapped with that many...

And this jackass:

Nelson Francis, who raises gaited horses, a rare, brawny breed found in the Appalachian Mountains, said the prices they command are getting so low, he might have to turn some loose. He houses about 57 of them, double his typical number.

"I can't absorb the price," Francis said. "You try to hang on until the price changes, but it looks like it's not going to change. ... What do I do? I've got good quality horses I can't market because of the has-been horse."

So, what, he'd rather just turn them loose to starve than sell them below market value?!? Nice guy...

I'm going to re-quote some statistics that show the TB population has not increased significantly in the last 10 years:

Thoroughbred foal crop:
1996: 35,365
2006: 37,300
Change: +5%

My opinion about the solution to overbreeding? Have some sort of rigorous breeding criteria, like the WB registries do. This would significantly cut down on the number of stallions, and more importantly, separate the wheat from the chafe, so to speak... it would prevent horses who shouldn't be bred in the first place from reproducing. At least for racing purposes...

I'm sure it would cause an uproar in KY, but it certainly would cut down on the numbers.