She did not deserve to be sent to slaughter. The gorgeous racehorse earned four hundred thousand dollars on the track and weaned nine foals. On the slaughter truck, the gorgeous mare came as close to death as most every other horse in the trailer with her. Every year, countless horses get trucked to their deaths. They may have done amazing things and have been great animals, but their owner either does not care or does not have the money. Some horses need to be put down due to old age or sickness, but horse slaughter can not be the right solution to the problem.
Horses who have lead amazing lives do not deserve to be trucked to a slaughterhouse, malnourished, beaten and abused. Much of the American public sees the situation differently. They say that horses are only animals and their needs are not as important as ours. The opposing side thinks that the horse’s lives are not important. They think that horses are meant to be slaughtered and fed to humans. To many people that live in Italy, France, Belgium and Japan, horse meat tastes like a delicacy (Horse 3). In their eyes, horses do not need peaceful deaths. To the opposing side, horses are wild animals who do not deserve to be treated with respect.
Horses are not being treated fairly. The horses going to slaughter can be of any age and of any location. “… Wild horses are being removed from their range at an alarming rate with some being sold for slaughter. ” (Horse 1). Wild horses are being taken out of their natural homes and sent to die for no good reason. These horses that are being sent to slaughter can be used for a much more deep and meaningful purposes. There has been an increase in the demands for horses, since they can be used as therapeutic teachers for returning war vets, autistic humans and other mentally challenged people (Slaughter 1).
Horses are such amazing creatures that can change a person’s life. Many people that may need a horse may not be able to get one because they are getting slaughtered. “Horses differ from other livestock in that they have never been raised for the purpose of slaughter. ” (Abuse 1). Horses have been domesticated and have not been raised for the purpose of slaughter. At the livestock auctions, anything can happen. A horse is just as likely to sell to a kill buver (slaughterhouse middlemen), as someone who will love and care for the horse. Most of the horses arrive at the slaughterhouses through the livestock auction (Horse 1).
At the livestock auction, showhorses, race horses, wild horses, and family horses are all unknowingly sold to kill buyers. The owners might have good intentions, however, it does not help. Even though US plants are not running, kill buyers still buy and take as many horses as they can to slaughterhouses in Mexico and Canada (Horse 1). The United States no longer has any slaughterhouses. This does not prevent people from taking horses and trucking them over the borders. Getting to the slaughterhouse almost kills the horses.
The transportation methods are repulsive. They are often forced into doubledecker cattle trailers with ceilings so low that they injure their heads. ” (Abuse 1). Cattle are different animals than horses, they are shorter. When the horses are forced into the cattle trailers, they can hardly move their heads without hitting them onto the ceiling. The people trucking the horses put as many horses into the trailers as they can, without regard for the horses and their safety. “… are shipped for 24 hours plus in crowded trucks without water, food, or rest. ” (Euthanasia 1). Horses need food, water, and rest just like humans.
Horses do not deserve to be put on a cattle trailer for 24 hours without food and water. The pain does not end upon arrival of the slaughterhouse. They are tortured even more, sometimes being left in the trailer. Horses are left in the tightly packed trailers for a long time, no matter the weather (Horse 1). The horses are not only packed into cattle trailers, but they are being left in there for hours after they have arrived. Many horses are going to be laying down, because they lack the energy needed to stand up. “Downed animals are unable to rise, and the horses are offloaded using excessive force. (Horse 1). The horses have not had food or water, and many of them are dying. The men have to drag some of the horses out of the trailers, seeing as they will not be able to be forced into standing up. The horses start to smell the blood, they start to smell the reek of death. The horses start to panic, realizing that they are about to be slaughtered.
The workers do not care how they treat the horses since they are about to be killed. “… callous workers use fiberglass rods to poke and beat their faces, necks, backs, and legs as the animals are shoved through the facility and into the kill box. (Horse 1). The men torture the horses without regard to them at all. The fiberglass rods make the horses even more upset and panicked. “Footage obtained by the paper shows horses being stabbed repeatedly in the neck prior to slaughter. ” (Horse 1). Stabbing the horses only paralyzes them, leaving them unconscious at the start of the slaughter process. The horses are being tortured to an unnecessary extent, doing this to the horses is horse cruelty and abuse. The men kill the horses cruelly. They show no mercy as the horses are slaughtered. “…
Each horse is either stabbed multiple times in the neck using a puntilla knife to sever their spinal cords or administered a 30-second shock treatment… ” (Slaughter 1). Stabbing the horses does not kill the horses, it simply leaves them paralyzed and in pain. The horses suffer even more, as they are slaughtered alive. “Evidence showed horses were conscious when they were shackled and hoisted by a rear leg to have their throats cut. ” (Abuse 1). The horses have to endure pure pain and torture when they are hung by a back leg and their necks are paralyzed. Horses feel pain just like humans can.
The horses are being butchered alive. Doing this to a horse can not be moral. The methods used to kill the horses do not go quick and easy. The horses get put through a tremendous amount excruciating pain before they are put to rest. “The methods used to kill horses rarely result in quick, painless deaths for these animals and sometimes they even remain conscious during dismemberment. ” (Euthanasia 1). Dismemberment means to cut off something’s limbs. The horses being put through this have to stay alive while their limbs are being hacked off. The men do not make the slaughter process any easier.
During the slaughter process, the horse gets hung by a hind leg, its throat slit and its body butchered (Horse 1). The horse gets butchered alive. The poor horses are put through more gruesome pain than people care to imagine. The horses welcome death, as it takes them away from a wicked world. The slaughterhouses damage the communities that host them. Having a slaughterhouse in a town does nothing to help it, it only harms it. “Horse slaughter plants have proven to be economic and environmental nightmares for the communities that host them. ” (Facts 1). The slaughterhouses do nothing for the communities that host them except drain them.
It takes up land, and the stench that comes from it smells like death. “These plants pollute local water, decrease property values... and drain local economies and damage the environment. ” (Facts 1). The plants can only damage the environments that host them. They pollute the precious resources of the town and decrease the population. Slaughterhouses are not the only thing causing damage, horse meat is, in many cases, toxic to humans. People from other countries end up eating a horse that has been given medications that have been proven to be toxic to humans.
Horses are given chemicals to treat them that are toxic to humans and are prohibited to animals raised for human consumption. ” (Facts 1). The horses given chemicals toxic to humans are slaughtered and shipped to foreign countries for other people to eat. “The USDA has no system in place to track a horse’s lifetime medical histories… ” (Facts 1). The government does not have any way to verify if a horse has been given medication toxic to human beings. A horse given medications that might kill a human might be eaten by some unexpecting person.
The racehorse that almost died on her way to slaughter barely survived, and could not have survived if Mindy Lovell had not come in and saved her. She came so close to death that nobody thought or even imagined that she would make it. The poor horse was covered from head to toe with deep cuts and she sustained four fractured ribs and blows to the face that caused swelling. For a long time, the racehorse would not eat. The kill buyers abused the horse so much that Lovell did not think that she would live. She finally started to eat. The grain, peppermints, and the fattening diet of hay led to a fine comeback and the the mare came through.
Great horses do not deserve to be abused and killed. Horse slaughter takes a horse that did great things in its life and tortures and kills it. Horse slaughter does not reward good horses with retirement or euthanasia, it shows them that everything that they did in the past does not matter. Horse slaughter says that the only thing that matters is having an owner that makes sure that you do not get into the hands of a kill buyer. The manner in which people treat the horses before slaughter is just as bad, if not worse, than horse slaughter itself.