Saturday, October 26, 2013

If Most of the Country is Against it, why are Horses Still Being Slaughtered?

Bureau of Land Management Horses. Photo in Public Domain.


If you're wondering what is REALLY behind the rush to send wild horses to the slaughterhouses, read this article:


Friday, October 25, 2013

Stop the Slaughterhouses!

Stop the Slaughterhouses!


Santos to reporter: those against horse slaughter oppose Agricultural business ~ Colts Western Shop brilliantly put Santos in his place!


October 25, 2013 at 4:30pm

From Beverly Hughes:

For those of you who may not know who "Santos" is, Rick De Los Santos is the owner of Valley Meats in Roswell, New Mexico. Santos has petitioned for a waste water permit in order to open his plant and begin slaughtering horses. There is a lawsuit filed to prevent him from opening and the Attorney General of New Mexico is also trying to prevent him from getting the waste water permit. He was in gross violation of EPA regulations when he slaughtered cows in Roswell, was shut down for abuse as well as gross EPA violations. 

After the hearing in Roswell this past Wednesday, Santos told a reporter that this issue is a bigger deal than people realize: that the people trying to stop the slaughter of horses - are fighting against the agricultural business. So Colts Western Shop brilliantly put Santos in his place. And it should be shared with EVERYONE who loves horses and who does not want horse slaughter in this country. Kudos to this business for standing up to de Los Santos!!

The owner of Colts Western Shop has given permission to share this post - you could also send the text to Letters to Editors of newspapers, and to legislators and give credit to Colt's Western Shop ! (link in comments with information about Colts)

Colts Western Shop:

My apologies to MR. Santos for the confusion, as at NO time have WE EVER stated this is against Agriculture since WE ARE AGRICULTURALLY BASED OURSELVES. In fact, we apologize that he misunderstands this IS solely and Completely without exclusion about HORSES, Burros, Wild, Feral, Domestic, US born or Abroad Horses Period. 

In Fact, the Fact that the Agricultural Community tries to separate Horse People From their Base across the US just clarifies the crack in the industry. The Horse Industry has a multi-billion dollar following and only a few thousand people are For slaughter, the rest of the United States let alone the Horse Industry is AGAINST this. Cattle men do not want us in their industry nosing around so may we suggest they back off of OUR INDUSTRY and lets settle this as REAL HORSEMEN AND WOMEN and quit pretending that its about MORE than Horses. IT is NOT, we are not trying to stop other avenues of slaughter-we prefer that they are more animal friendly naturally, but that's to be expected, we are after all human.

We are the REAL Horse people, we feed, train, raise, admire and manage OUR animals, seems to me the Extremists are the cattlemen who cannot care for, maintain, or properly afford these animals that they so desire to kill at slaughter for profit. I think it's high time we called this what it is, a public rip off. The public doesn't need the slaughter plant to make the least profitable horses profit, in fact, this just proves that you have to be patient to sell horses, be knowledgeable in your training skills and presentation to sell, and that Auctions now have to put a minimum bid required on the horses coming in-in other words they need to up their standards of how to market horses for auction.

It's high time the industry made some changes, responsible breeding, more concerted training and making sure your horses are really ready to sell. Then people need to understand selling horses is not as easy as posting a picture, it takes planning. I am certain that the best thing that could happen to the horse industry is to close the slaughter industry completely, we then clean up and care for the industry properly, regulate breeding. Did you realize that the less you have of a specific lineage the more the price comes to when selling it, its a demand issue.

As well, we need to allow the economy to rebound and then see where we are headed, prices on horses are coming up steadily everywhere, and to be honest the sales in auctions really do NOT and NEVER have set the prices outside of the Auctions, that just is a spur of the moment mixture of buying and selling-so the market outside of the auctions always has sold much high more consistently. Remember raising your bottom line on your animals, many people are selling horses easier with higher prices. When the prices are too low they assume somethings wrong with animals.

They also believe that people who live in cities and towns have no idea how to manage animals and clearly indicate that they wouldn't have a say in slaughter or not-keep in mind there ARE many stables dedicated to hardworking people who live inside towns and cities and are veterinarians, executives, CEO's, College Students in every walk of life, Physicians, and the list goes on, so to say they know nothing of animals and have no voice you are ridiculous! There are people who study and work inside their larger communities and have their own stalls and pastures but you say they are not worthy of opinions, I am sorry but all this time people have paid for years to become exceptional riders who live in cities and they are coming out to ranches to do it. They know, horses are not for slaughter, so to minimize their opinions or remove their right to a voice has been ridiculous.

Yes we know this is Nationwide, you may not realize this, but its Worldwide, and the world is larger than just your little plant in Roswell New Mexico! We are in Illinois and we experienced DeKalb plant first hand, you don't want this is your beautiful little town, in your wonderful state, around your amazing people, or happening to your incredible horses. We KNOW, we didn't need a picture, we saw it first hand, we didn't need a report we attended the actual meetings, we didn't need to read the responses of who was harmed, we talked to our friends and neighbors throughout our state.

Until you watch a tiny girl hang pictures of her missing pony up at all the Farm stores and cry explaining that a trailer pulled up and took it-the parents were beside themselves, a couple of weeks later the girl and pony were reunited when they retrieved it from a known Kill buyer. They had to PAY him to get it back. Now that's greed! You do not want this. As for the Agriculture Industry-no ones against what WE are a full time part of, through farming, raising animals, and working in the Industry. Sorry- you have IT all wrong, Santos.

Colts Western Shop Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Colts-Western-Shop/142075632585578