Hi, take a visit to www.equinesection.com and if anybody can help, these are horse/ponies/donkeys that are being fed up to go for slaughter in Europe.

This really annoys me as people forget that these horses were mainly in "loving caring" homes to get in the state which puts them in that position, quite often thats the best thing for them dare I say it, its obvious in most photos its taken months if not years for them to get that bad, the only kind option is for them to be put down, I totally disagree with live transport dont get me wrong, but so called fattening them up, by god how long have they been without food at least they get something before the end and dont die somewhere in a field or barn!
Sorry but it really annoys me!

I don't eat horse meat, I have never eaten horse meat (I don't think) I can't even start to think about eating a horse and whole thing is abhorrent to me.

BUT if I thought about it long and hard I wouldn't eat, sheep, cows,pigs etc etc either which are also farmed to a 'fat' condition for food.

This is such an inflammatory subject - I cannot express an opinion with offending someone.

All I know is, that I can go down the road or the local horse auction and see horses in a similar state, probably without the benefit of being 'fed up' before dying in the corner of a field somewhere. You only have to read the Horse and Hound to see the on going cases of abject cruelty our beloved horses are going through in some places of UK.

Somehow - in a perverted way,as has been already said, being made fat before being destroyed is somehow better???

I would dearly love to give them all a home and I must admit tears were running when I looked at the videos etc - but where do you draw the line.

It was not many days ago I received some pictures of a stray dog tethered in an art gallery and starved to death before everyones eyes in the cause of ART!! Only to be repeated later this year because it was so successful.(France)

Just What sort of world do we live in?

Post edited by: whitewood, at: 2008/05/19 14:59

Exactly. What sort of world do we live in. The only thing you can hope is that these horses will be despatched as humanely and with as little stress as possible. We have very high standards of slaughter in UK horse abbatoirs but I'm afraid it's not always mirrored in Europe.

Well I have one of the first rescues to come through EquineSection. We got Guinevere last July. The fate of these horses is awful, and they are treated MUCH worse than bred for meat animals over here. There were 3-legged horses, horses with awful injuries, illnesses, and the farmers do not care... afterall they are only meat animals. It is preferrable that they are pregnant as, a) they get more money for them, and b) it makes the meat more tender. The horses that have been rescued have been used to hi-light the plight of live transport. All the ones that came to us looked very unwell, even if they were fat.

On 6th April our mare had a foal - Arthur. In fact a number of the 10 rescues that ours came with have had foals. It was lovely to see when their fate could have been so very different. See Guinevere's foal etc here http://ihdg.proboards91.com/index.cgi?board=talk2&action=display&thread=60529&page=1

Lastly, horse meat is commonly called 'beef' in europe and is apparently in pepperami and chorizo (sp?) amongst other things.

Post edited by: westernsaddler, at: 2008/05/19 17:16

Guinevere and Arthur a few weeks ago...