Base value: then $500, now $0

What to do with excess of animals? [link]

David Zizzo | July 20, 2008

When they no longer want their horses or can't take care of them, many horse owners try to find new homes for them. But some of the animals end up being slaughtered, horse people say.

"Everybody looks for a way to make things work. Unfortunately the answers don't fit,” said R.D. Logan, executive director of the Oklahoma Thoroughbred Association. "It is a little sensitive area for horsemen.”

Logan said his organization doesn't condone slaughter or the selling of horses for slaughter. The association was pleased about a recent congressional action that resulted in the closing of the last few horse slaughterhouses in America. Horse protection proponents say horses now are simply shipped to Mexico and Canada for slaughter.

The association has made donations to horse retirement organizations, Logan said. But, he said, the problem of what to do with the large number of unwanted horses is similar to the problem of household pets. "You can become oversaturated with horses,” Logan said.

"We have an overabundance of cats and dogs,” he said. "People hate to see them go to a shelter where they're euthanized, but it's an unfortunate fact that humans do the things we do with animals. Horses are no different.

"It's a side of horses and animals that most people don't like to think about.”

Calvin White, an Ada veterinarian and president of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Association, agrees the glut of unwanted horses is a problem. With the slumping economy and the rising cost of feed, owners who can't afford to care for their animals may be leaving them to starve, he said.

"There's projected to be 100,000 head of horses a year that are not going to have a home,” he said. "Many turn them out. They can't feed them.”

The solution, White said, would be the return of slaughterhouses to America.

That way, he said, government regulators could assure the animals were humanely handled and euthanized before slaughter.

Horses at one time were an agriculture product, he said. With slaughter plants paying 50 cents a pound, a 1,000-pound animal had a base value of $500.

Now, he said, horses no longer have a base value because it's not legal to transport them out of the country for slaughter.

Chris Berry, president and founder of the Equine Protection Network, said that's not correct. California is the only state that prohibits transport of horses for slaughter, she said. She said Illinois, Texas and Oklahoma effectively ban slaughter in their states. Otherwise, she said, no state bans transport of horses for slaughter. Federal law regulates transport of horses for slaughter, she said, and federal legislation banning such transport is being considered.

Berry, a longtime horse owner in Friedensburg, Pa., said the humane solution is to require owners to euthanize their unwanted horses. She opposes the sale of horse meat for human consumption.

"It's like telling me to eat my dog or my cat,” she said. "What if we opened the back door of shelters and started selling them to countries that ate dogs and cats?”

Many people in the horse industry are aware that many unwanted horses are slaughtered, she said. "Anyone who buys and sells horses knows this.”

The issue boils down to personal responsibility of horse owners, said Berry, who runs a boarding facility for retired horses that charges owners $365 to $535 a month. Those who don't want their horses and can't find homes for them should euthanize them, she said. White said he charges $100 to euthanize a horse. Of course, that also means an owner receives no sale price.

"It's definitely about money,” Berry said. "It's all about money.”

XP—More of the same. There is an unwanted horse epidemic. What is the answer?