from a pro-slaughter stand point- fire at will

I couldn't watch the drama at FHoTD any longer with out saying something- the fighting has gotten ridiculous and frankly the anti-slaughter crew are about as coherent as the most backwoods pro-lifer and with far less grace and tact. I am staunchly pro-slaughter. I have seen first hand the look of nothingness in a horses eyes after years of neglect, the fear in a load of 1/2 wild horse brought into their first auction after a week on a stock trailer and the total suffering in the eyes of a horse that's been sick longer than it's been starving. These horses will not be rehabbed, if they are lucky, the will die quickly of illness instead of the prolonged death of starvation, and many of them will never feel kindness from any human. Slaughter, in all it's sickening bluntness, is a kinder treatment than suffering endlessly.

Horses are magnificent animals, and it's our culture that has taught us to believe that simply being magnificent is sufficient enough to spare them the dinner plate fate... Hindu's believe the same of cows and McDonalds refutes it every day. Is slaughter, as it was in the US before it's ban gruesome and cruel? Yes. Are horses starving for weeks, months on end with no shelter, no nourishment and no vetting or even a little tube of wormer cruel? Infallibly more so than the few moments it takes to slaughter.

It's easy to trash the financially broke horse owner who cannot afford a vet to overdose their horse, a backhoe to bury it or some other means of proper disposal or even the heart to do such a thing. These are often not the people who take their horses to slaughter. These are the people with the starving animals and no viable outcome, no possible answer other than an agonzingly slow death. To punish these owners is to punish the horses suffering under them and a better solution should be found... a quick, humane alternative to slaughter that is not as expensive as a shot and less frightening than being shoved through a shoot and shot between the eyes. Processing plants should offer a pick up of recently put down horses for use in whatever it is they use deceased horses for.... the remains SHOULD be utilized.

SFTS said:
Hold people accountable for their actions...DON'T reward them. Offering slaughter as a means of dumping the horses they cannot (or refuse to) care for properly or find homes for is a reward for bad behavior and I simply cannot support such a notion.

Let me say this again. It is not the down on his luck horse owner making money via slaughter. They aren't taking good old Rusty to the slaughter house for a few bucks.... they sold him first to a broker or auction thinking, hoping, praying a kind person would buy him... we all of course know that doesnt happen often any more with the market as flooded as it is. Rusty would have been sold and then would have traveled the country in a stock trailer full of other down on their luck horses, catching who knows what illness and getting who knows what injuries from the journey. He may go to several auctions before he finally gets bought- and I'll bet money its a kill buyer. I simply cannot support blaming the wrong person... and frankly, the kids on FHoTD need to stop being such snobs... this is a hard economy on most of the population, people are making horrible, life changing decisions on every corner and the choice for someone to either sell or put down their horse is a hard one- not something to be mocked or even worse... vilanized.