Reply #16: Horses are different.

[Caoimhe]

I have no data to back this up, but I honestly think that horses are just plain smarter than other animals that we eat. They have the loyalty of a family dog if given the chance. Besides that, the horses I have seen that are sent to slaughter are very unhealthy, skinny, often with lingering, untreated injuries. Behind my work used to be a transitional corral for these poor creatures. The owner never got any veterinary help for them because they were destined for the slaughterhouse. I called the animal control many times, but nothing was really done. There were often horses with broken limbs that had healed wrong, or that had fought with a barbed wire fence and lost. The saddest was a beautiful old gelding with a tattoo "US Army" on his hip. Guess he couldn't pass the muster anymore. What a terrible fate for an old soldier.

One such pathetic horse he got at auction had a foal the next morning. He had no idea she was pregnant. He had tied her in a tiny stall and she didn't have enough room, and she either kicked the baby or layed on it. The poor foal had a head injury and though he could stand up, he would spin in one direction. He'd bump into things. He couldn't stay focused enough to find her milk. After the owner decided that the foal was disabled, too disabled to sell, he shot it right there in the corral with it's mamma. The next day she went to slaughter, her use as a mother gone.

I think there are other ways of getting protein. Don't you?