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thistlebloom
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This will make me unpopular, but horse slaughter should have never been outlawed. I know lots of otherwise good horses went to slaughter, but also old horses, lame horses and horses at the end of their useful lives went to slaughter. It is now "cruel" and illegal to shoot your own horse to put it down. Now you must pay the vet to euthanize it, then you are left with 1000 pounds of poison meat to dispose of, which can cost upwards of $600, for a horse that probably wasn't worth $200. This is one of the reasons why people dump horses, in addition to rising price of feed and vet care.
Lest you think me heartless, I have two geriatric horses, both of which will die with me. I myself, would probably never carry a horse to sell for slaughter. I could never doom my friends to such a fate. But many don't have the luxury that I have of keeping old horses because I love them. And many don't have the love of horses that I do. I also don't cruise the sale barns, collecting broken down old horses because I am "saving" them. Reality is real.
Now horses are loaded up for a long ride to Mexico. I doubt that it is a joy ride for them, the slaughter houses are not as nice as the ones here. So horse slaughter did not stop, it just got harder on the horses. Way to go animal activists!
@baymule, I don't think you're heartless, and I agree with you about
horse slaughter houses. As it is now horses are transported long distances in trucks designed for cattle, and there is no way that can be considered humane. Yes reality is real, and old horses that are no longer usable can't always be kept forever. Personally I would take care of the final end myself, and keep it to myself. But I have the land and privacy to do that. I could not subject one of my animals to a meat buyer.
I have so far not kept a horse until it's reached the geriatric stage, most all of my horses have been young ones that I started and used and after several years sold to be used in that sport (competitive trail, and endurance).
Now that I have achieved a degree of geriatricness myself, my two "play" horses will be with me forever.
As for the way the spoiled hay and grain by dumped horses... someone is just grasping at straws !!! Just because these so called " mustangs" are decended from escaped Spanish horses as well as all escaped or stolen by feral stallions does N O T make them native wild animals. All of them are nothing more than feral horses. As for all of the bleeding heart animal rights activists ... Y O U step up to the plate and PAY for all of the care, feed, Vet. care, etc. as well as displaced native animals, damaged environment, and endangered species damage these feral horses are causing instead of saddling all of the rest of us with the bills . 
The rest of U S would be most gratefull. 
I also drove a team of Cleaveland Bays ( Quenie and Dolly ) at my Uncle's farm in Michigan to harvest a hay field and plow / harrow a cow pasture to re-seed it. 
