Hi everyone, I know this is a very controversial issue to a lot of people but I would just like to hear some other people's opinion, because there are only a few people up here who really know.

*sigh*

http://forum.equisearch.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?q=slaughter&o=Relevance

A lot of discussion on this already...

Why not try a ban on breeding instead?

KCS:

*sigh*

http://forum.equisearch.com/search/SearchResults.aspx?q=slaughter&o=Relevance

A lot of discussion on this already...

LOL. Precisly what I was thinking when I read this.  As I recall there was a fairly long thread about this quite recently.

... and some of that thread wasn't very pretty, either.

A ban on breeding???????????????

And WHO decides which horses get banned from breeding? How can you tell someone they arent allowed to breed their "livestock" anymore? Im all for SMART breeding choices and personaly, I SEE them being made. People are cutting down, leaving mares open and getting out altogether...so I have to ask...why is there still an abundence of unwanted horses? I keep hearing folks say it will take 5-10 years for the market to even out...my heart aches for the poor horses who will have to suffer because some squishy hearted congressmen/women who wouldnt know a horse ball if you hit them in the back of the head with it, decided to "ban" slaughter in the US.

Let me lay this out.

Horses are classified as livestock, similar to hogs, goats, sheep, cattle..NOT similar to dogs or cats.

Livestock's value is based on a per pound price, the "slaughter" price if you will. this is the base of the pyramid. More tiers are added(price increase) based on the individual animals show record, produce record, bloodlines, potential,ect...and YES, this is ALL livestock. Go and look at a top winning show heifer's price tag.

When the bottom market(the per pound price) is taken away, you have no base, and the upper tiers crumble down, this is what we are seeing. I think there are afew different factors affecting the sorry state of the horse industry right now, but the ban on slaughter IMO, has prob. the biggest impact.

I think a better, more positive way to have handled this was making BETTER and TIGHTER regulations on the transportation of the horses.

 Thinking about horse slaughter sends shivers up and down my spine!! I am 100% against horse slaughter. Coyotecreek is right though horses are considered livestock and the main purpose for livestock is meat. But i see a huge difference between a horse and a cow or pig. i raise goats cows pigs and horses we value our horses alot more then any of the others. when we sell our steers they usually make around $500-700 as to where my registered quarter horse is worth $6,000 easily and all we do with the cows and pigs  is feed them twice a day for a couple months then we sell them the horses we actually do stuff with they are useful animals what can you do with cows and pigs. Horses also can live up to 35 years and cows and pigs life spans are not nearly that long

i had no idea about horse slaughter when i first got into horses until i went to a local horse auction. A friend showed me a man that bought the horses for slaughter and he bought about 98% percent of the horses there and some of them were awesome looking horses one was a gorgeous appaloosa gelding he had beautiful confirmation he was a western pleasure horse the only problem with him was he wouldnt load in a 2 horse trailer he sold for $150 to the slaughter house.

I do feel breeding has alot to do with the slaughter. I know a girl who bought a stallion and has bred it to about every mare that she could get her hands on which is only creating grades and crossbreds which not many people are looking for. Slaughter houses are cutting the lives of many horses short

I'm against the ban. I used to be for it, but my trainer changed my view when he explained that we can't save all the horses, he put it this way: "If you save one horse because you don't want it to go to slaughter, then other people will begin dumping their unwanted horses on you until you'll become broke" or something like that. I know, it would be great to save all those horses who are slaughter-bound, but the reality is you can't save them all & with the slaughter ban, I think it's causing problems within our industry. We have the goverment telling us we can't slaughter our horses in our own country so we have to close down our slaughter houses, which cuts jobs, so we have to send them down to Mexico and Canada where the horse's right to be transported in decent trailers and humane execution  is questioned, but now there is talk that the goverment  wants to ban shipping slaughter-bound horses out of the country, which could affect our horse industry even more because we could be clogged with more unwanted horses and that could affect the value of wanted horses and it could change our breeding standards. We need to tell the goverment to get the heck out of our industry and to quit listening to ppl like PETA because they think its so cruel to slaughter unwanted horses. They don't understand what they are doing to our industry, and we need to persaude our goverment leaders  to get rid of the ban. Representives from our industry should try and work with our goverment leaders to correct this issue or provide alternatives besides slaughter and we need to educate the public more about slaughter and horse buying. Hopefully it will get some attention. But the most important thing is we need to better eduacate new horse people. I think some of the root of the unwanted horse problem is they buy a horse for looks then temperment or they don't have that much info on horses and they buy a horse because it's cheap, they find out its dangerous and then they're stuck with something they don't want.

Your horse commands that price due to his training and the inherent fact that horses and anything with HORSE on the label is about 10 times more in price then basic cattle equipment,meds,ect. 

Are your steers registered? You say you just feed them twice a day, so they have no "training"..you cant breed them..sure they are only going to command the "per pound" price I spoke of earlier..then, you add adtional $$ to the animal based on breeding, showing potential, or training..hence your QH is higher due to his training.

My cows are extremly useful..they supply me with beef and income..how can you say livestock used for meat and other products isnt useful????

IRRESPONIBLE breeding does not help the current situation, no.

I am incredibly against the slaughter ban because of the amounts of horses that i have seen being neglected, or abused.  If no one wants this animal, let it be put to good use.  And if we're going to ban the slaughter of horses, why not ban the slaughter of chickens too? and for that matter beef, and pork, and turkey, and every other meat on the market.  For those of you reading this post that are against the slaughter ban, and feed canned dog food, look on the label of the dog food can, and tell me that there are no animal by porducts in it.  Usually there is some form of horse meat, oy meat by product in dog food

pdstables:

  And if we're going to ban the slaughter of horses, why not ban the slaughter of chickens too? and for that matter beef, and pork, and turkey, and every other meat on the market. 

That is the goal of all the super fanatical groups behind the horse slaughter ban.