All horse processing facilities in the US are already closed. They have been since early summer 2007. Unfortunately this is causing severe overpopulation of herds and depressed horse prices. Here in Kentucky many horses at auction cant be sold because it cost more to feed them than they are now worth. If you are feeling charitable you can buy lots of horses for five and ten dollars each. Most people see beautiful horses running in well manicured fields of plush grasses. The type of scene you often see here in Kentucky. Those well intentioned folks equate this with the senseless slaughter of beautiful animals. Horses that are in good health and those that have been properly cared for are not sent to slaughter. The horses which are slaughtered in almost all cases are very old, or in very poor health, and near death. I do not wish to see any animal put down inhumanely but many do need to be put down. In the coalfields of Eastern Kentucky where mining lands have been reclaimed with lush grasses some horses are thriving. But a lot of these horses have just been dropped off here. Many are old and also in poor health. Making these areas into dying fields where animals die a slow and sometimes painful death. If horses are allowed to be put down humanely in a properly run slaughterhouse the carcasses can be disposed of properly. This is necessary to protect drinking water supplies and other livestock. And horse prices could return to normal levels making most horses too valuable for slaughter. Most people who put horses down don’t do it because they hate horses most do it because they hate to see them suffer.
That’s true. Horses live a long time, especially if they don’t have to work (like most modern horses), and they would often be better put down than allowed to get decrepit, arthritic - and turn into candidates for shipment to a Mexican slaughterhouse.
> Most people see beautiful horses running in well manicured fields of plush grasses.<
Come on out West and see the skinny Mustangs we have running wild on BLM land in Nevada. Talk about over population! Three quarters of them need to slaughtered. The BLM would rather let them starve when nobody buys them at the auctions.