Andrea Allen Says "Slaughtering Horses Must Stop"

While the entry below is a very difficult article to read, with graphic pictures that depict the plight of these horses, I felt compelled to post it today. We can do something to help these horses in dire need of rescue. We can take action by writing to our congressmen and to other people who do have the political clout to make sure that no more cruelty such as shown here will happen. We are responsible for the lives of these horses. We are responsible for protecting these gallant animals and to prevent the cruelty and their inhumane and brutal way that they are treated. Slaughter must end. Please do what you can to support legislations pending. Educate your friends. Talk about it as much as you can. Horses have taken care of us historically. Isn't it about time that we take care of them?
Farm and Outdoors
Greene Publishing,Inc

 Horses stand patiently waiting for their turn to die in the horse slaughter plant in Kaufman, Texas. (Photo submitted)

Salvation a yearling that was bought and saved from being slaughtered. His mother went to slaughter. He’s still wearing his slaughter tag. Foreign diners enjoy the meat of young horses. (Photo submitted.)

By Janet Schrader
Greene Publishing, Inc.
  
Andrea Allen is feverishly calling her congressmen, her senators and anyone else she can convince to help support her cause. She is stressed out, sleep-deprived and living on her last nerve. She spends all day and all night on the computer keeping track of the news and the current situation with the proposed ban on horse slaughter, bill number HR 503.
  
The bill, known as the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act, would amend the Horse Protection Act to prohibit the shipping, purchasing, selling, delivering, or receiving of horses to be slaughtered for human consumption. It would probably close Dallas Crown in Kaufman, Texas and other slaughter plants in Fort Worth and DeKalb, Ill. Horsemeat is not marketed for human consumption in the United States, but the slaughter plants process hundreds of horses each week and ship the meat overseas, over 90,000 horses per year. Horsemeat is considered a delicacy in Europe, Japan and other places. HR 503 was passed by the United States House of Representatives 263 to 146 on September 7. The bill is now before the Energy, Commerce and Agriculture Committee, renamed S 1915. It looks like the Senate will adjourn for the elections before the bill gets voted on. After that there is a short session that should be dominated by appropriation and spending bills that will keep the Senate occupied until the session ends in December. The Senate reconvenes the first of the year and at that time the bill will have to be reintroduced and voted on again by the House and the Senate. It’s up to concerned folks like Allen to keep the bill alive and to see it gets passed. In the mean time, Allen says, more horses will be slaughtered for their meat and shipped overseas.
  

Allen got hooked on this cause when she became interested in Barbaro. Remember Barbaro? Everyone including Allen watched with interest as the two-year old colt got ready to run the Preakness.
  
“I thought I was watching a Triple Crown winner,” Allen said. “But what we were all watching was a horse that could change the world.”
  
Barbaro broke his leg in the Preakness and the world mourned. His owners decided to try to save him, and his slow recuperation has drawn much interest. Allen began searching for information and condition updates about the injured colt. She happened on to the Tim Woolley Racing site. Woolley is a trainer at Fair Hill Training Center, the home of Barbaro. Barbaro’s owner, Gretchen Jackson, learned a lot about horses and caring for them from her colt. She took on the cause and is in Washington D.C. promoting the ban on horse slaughter. The website devoted to Barbaro has become a hub for the discussion of the proposed ban.
  
Agriculture in general and the cattle industry in particular has come out against the proposed ban. According to Allen, a rancher herself who used to be against the ban, this is because most farmers and ranchers fear and oppose any more government control over agriculture than there already is. “Agriculture is barely existing now due to government intrusion,” Allen said.
  
R-CALF USA, a website devoted to the cattle industry, says, “R-CALF USA opposes legislation that would ban horse slaughter in the United States. Horses are the private property of ranchers and cattle farmers all across the country, and under a free-enterprise system this nation was founded on, horse owners should be able to maintain their right to dispose of their private property as they see fit. The horse industry is extremely large in the United States, and producers need options to economically market unwanted horses.”
  
Allen says those who approve of the slaughter of American horses claim that only old, unwanted animals are killed.She says this is not true. The USDA has stated that 90 percent of the horses sent to slaughter are healthy, fit horses. The kill buyers don’t want old or sick horses. They obviously would want nice, fat healthy horses because the animals are sold to the slaughterhouses by the pound. And the price per pound for live slaughter horses is going up. Per-pound prices have recently risen to as high as 77 cents and an average of 60 cents per pound.

Currently, according to Allen, all three horse-slaughter plants are foreign-owned. She said “kill-buyers” all around the country show up at horse auctions to buy horses to sell to the slaughterhouses. Horse owners who take their family pets to the auctions hoping to find them a good home, can unknowingly end up selling their horse friend to one of these kill-buyers. Horses have sometimes been stolen right out of the pasture and sold to the slaughterhouse.
  
Allen said the horse slaughter plants are operated in an inhumane manner. She said the horses are often shipped in cow haulers, which are not designed for horses. The low ceilings of the haulers force the horses to stand in an unnatural way. Fear of close confinement and the horse’s natural instincts create disasters during shipping where many animals are killed en route or arrive at the kill plant seriously injured. Allen has literature listing in graphic detail testimony of one kill plant worker about the conditions at the plant and the atrocities that go on inside it. It’s not something many people can read and not be emotionally moved. Horse slaughter plants are designed ina similar fashion to cattle slaughterhouses. Horses have a far different temperament than cows. The result is pretty terrifying.
  
Horses are dragged off the trucks, often with chains. They are lined up assembly-line style just like in a cattle kill plant. They get prodded with a hot shot. They can smell the blood and sense the fear. In the kill box (knock box) a captive bolt is shot into their head. If one shot of the “Bolt” doesn’t hit the right spot, they do it again and again. A slaughterhouse worker said, “You move so fast, you don’t have time to wait until the horse bleeds out. You skin him as he bleeds.”

Dallas Crown in Kaufman, Texas owns one of the kill plants. Allen contacted the mayor of Kaufman, Paula Bacon, who has come out in opposition to the plant in her town. Allen spoke to Bacon Saturday, September 23. Bacon told her families in the nearby Boggy Bottoms neighborhood say odors from Dallas Crown keep them indoors. Bacon says the plant’s “stigma” stifles development and job growth in her town located 30 miles southeast of Dallas. At the time Allen spoke to Mayor Bacon, Bacon said there were 400 horses in good condition standing in the kill pens. Monday, September 25, all 400 were killed. Kill days are Monday and Thursday. At 5 a.m., they start the killing. Prices for horsemeat in European markets and in Asia are going sky high. Bacon said USDA slaughter numbers are way up.
  
More obstacles have recently sprung up, slowing the passing of S 1915. Holds have been placed on the bill by senators who don’t want to see it passed. The bill can’t be voted on until the holds are removed. These holds are done secretly, so one knows which senators have placed the holds or objections against the bill. When Senate leadership announces it will bring the bill to the floor, the names of the senators with the holds on the bill will be revealed. At that point it becomes public knowledge and the holds are usually dropped. But all of these problems slow the processing of the bill down and make it even more likely to be tabled until 2007.
  
There are 25 more kill dates before the senate reconvenes, at the Kaufman plant alone. Hundreds more horses will be slaughtered before the Senate even has a chance to vote on this bill. The only thing that can get it passed is if concerned citizens call their senators and congressmen and make their desires known.

“I understand the emotion of it and the business of it,”Allen said. “But if this bill doesn’t pass the first of the year, it could be buried.”

For more information about this matter log onto timwoolleyracing.com