[Equine_Harmony]

Originally Posted by xiphias21034

Humm this thread was started to show the inhumane way our table meat is treated! I live in a state that raises alot of chickens, if you saw the inhumane way chickens are raised and transported to the slaughter house, it would make you cry! I raised and butchered my own chickens, they were happy chickens, they got to run around and eat bugs, and scratch in the dirt, and take dust baths, chase one another around, and act like chickens are suppose to do....the chickens in the chicken houses, are kept in the dark, have their beaks cut off so they don't peck one another, and then are put in little wooden crates and stacked on the flat bed of a tractor trailer and taken down the highway at 60 miles an hour! the wind whipping their feathers off! one truck passed me and left me in a cloud of white feathers! that was so sad! I don't even want to think of how they were treated while they were getting stuffed into the crates, and what happened to them when they arrived at the processing plant, I am sure the workers there were not gentle with them! at least my chickens were happy, and did not know what was happening , (they got their heads chopped off, and were instantly dead! no bad memories for them) sorry graphic, but, they never suffered....and for you guys who love lobster! poor guys living in a big old fish tank, and one day they get taken out and dropped into a pot of boiling water! Alive! do you think that lobster suffered at all? My dad steams live blue crabs, he puts them in a pot alive and turns on the gas flame and cooks them! you can hear them moving around when it starts to get hot! poor crabs! they get cooked alive! btw, I eat both lobster and crabs, but you need to think about it when you eat anything that was alive, how did it die, what did it go through, did it suffer? I always give thanks to the animal that I am eating for giving it's life for me to have something to eat! I buy free range chicken eggs, because, they come from happy chickens! they cost more, but I would rather support the free range farmers, than the ones who keep 4 chickens to a cage, where all they can do is eat and lay eggs, no room to move around, and when they are done laying, they get shipped to the processing plant the same way the other chickens do....ok done with my rant....just think about it when you purchase your meats, and wonder if that animal had a good life, and give thanks to his spirit! Cathy

Oh no, they do this to Chickens? this is so cruel, to cut off their beaks and shove them in the dark
My Mother she went to dinner one evening and drank a bit too much wine, they brought a tank with lobsters in it and she had to pick one, she could not and she loves lobster, what went so wrong? She actually went in the back where the big tank was and was throwing bread in and feeding the lobsters and clogged up their filter system, she was asked to leave, she was crying and it was a disaster...My Grandfather would make lobster every sunday and I recall the cries the lobsters make or is it the shells cracking? BTW: I never liked fish ect...and I am a veggie person, this is going to seem very odd when I did eat steak I would think about the cow, how he might have been a certain persona, it was getting so bad, my husband at the time thought I was going nuts. I am not into PETA at all. I do feel that in our culture the cows and chickens should live happy and die without pain.

I am sorry you had the in sight to the chickens, I ttok a look at a viddeo in France? I could not watch the entire video, they were force feeding these ducks, think they were Ducks...

[apachegrl]

the cows, chicken, all the other animals are raised for meat. there are the ones not raised for meat and the ones who give milk. horses, on the other hand, are not raised for meat. they are here to help. they are entered in shows, put out to pature, raced, and riden. if we expect so much of them and put all that hard work, time, and money into them then why do we resort to slaughter when they dont listen or get too old. its not fair. think in terms that the horses are deciding our future and our fate. you work so hard to please them and they end up killing you. how would that feel? i am sorry if anyone takes offence to this. i hope you understand why i am against slaughter.
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ps-- did you know that they round up healthy and fit horses from the wild to be killed?

[arabgirl15]

I tried to stay out of this as long as possible. But I guess not.

Originally Posted by apachegrl

the cows, chicken, all the other animals are raised for meat. there are the ones not raised for meat and the ones who give milk. horses, on the other hand, are not raised for meat. they are here to help. they are entered in shows, put out to pature, raced, and riden. if we expect so much of them and put all that hard work, time, and money into them then why do we resort to slaughter when they dont listen or get too old. its not fair. think in terms that the horses are deciding our future and our fate. you work so hard to please them and they end up killing you. how would that feel? i am sorry if anyone takes offence to this. i hope you understand why i am against slaughter.
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ps-- did you know that they round up healthy and fit horses from the wild to be killed?

Did you know they probally kill Healthy and Fit cows?

Seriously, Horse slaughted will never end. I think this is a 7 star thread Tara!

[Serendipity Zip]

I thought the slaughterhouse in Texas was closing this year? Just a question...

[Cheeky Monkey]

my husband worked at a lrage chicken farm, 55,000 chickens, and they did not cut off their beaks or keep them in the dark. It is dim inside because they want them mellow, so they dont fly around and stir up the dust, make a mess, etc.
I ahve no problem eating meat or that it has to be killed. I do have a problem how they kill the meat though. Chickens are easy and I am sure painless (plus they have a pee sized brain so I am sure the way they live isnt a huge deal to them, IMHO) but they way they kill beef and horses (not sure about pigs and things) is cruel, cruel, cruel. To hang them upside down and have them bleed out, its just not right.

[Jig]

I hate knowing that such an animal goes to slaughter when it potentially can live up to a great life.. usually. I think that most of us feel somewhat strongly about it because we work with horses and love them and to imagine your own horse being slaughtered is just .. well.. unimaginable.

I actually just psoted one of those slaughter threads until the people here at HGS put me into my place. What I was forgetting was the chickens, cows, ect. My friend's neighbor's cow is pregnant. The baby is being raised for slaughter.. like that's its only purpose. I just think that's really sad. But I can't debate becase I do eat meat.

I think you're right.. man ate meat ever since he walked this earth. It's just hard to imagine it being something you love so dearly. I agree, though, it is the human intention.

[Equine_Harmony]

Originally Posted by Serendipity Zip

I thought the slaughterhouse in Texas was closing this year? Just a question...

Department of Agriculture is
considering a petition surreptitiously submitted by the three foreign-
owned horse slaughterhouses in the United States which would enable
the horse slaughter industry to fund the inspections of horses for
slaughter. If the petition is granted, the horse industry's crooked
plot would allow the slaughter of tens of thousands of horses for
human consumption in 2006. This would circumvent Congressional intent
and fly in the face of the will of the American people.

The info: of this and the entire is on http://www.marynash.org

[Super Step]

I still do not see how the life of one animal is more important that the life of another?
When a foal is born, does that mare love the baby more than the momma cow loves her calf?
There is nothing in their DNA that establishes one higher than the other. Both are domestic animals, raised for a purpose.
I bet a beef would change places with a horse any day. He would live past his second birthday.

USDA is not funding the inspectors of horse meat used for human consumption. That is the only link the government has any control over in dealing with slaughter for human consumption, the use of tax payer money.
The thought of the industry paying for the inspections was the plan all along.
Once that is done, the government can wash their hands of any pressure, because no tax payer money is being used.

Horse meat will still be used in our pet food and zoos.
Ending slaughter for human consumption will not stop slaughter.

[Serendipity Zip]

I would like to know the name of a brand of pet food that has horse meat under ingrediants.

Do we not use dead horses in zoo's and pet food anyway?

[Sandra-A1]

Originally Posted by Super Step

Horse meat will still be used in our pet food and zoos.
Ending slaughter for human consumption will not stop slaughter.

I agreed with everything you said Tim...plus the above is an important fact we should pause and give serious thought to.....
The European & Asian (and anywhere else) horsemeat markets will still exist.
Buyers will simply purchase horses that are still alive and ship them overseas.
When that happens the animals will have an even further distance to have to travel! The demand and price for horses that are able to withstand this longer journey across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans will increase.
When the prices go up horse thieves will have even more incentive to steal and the Horse Dealers who buy for the "meat market" will be looking for and buying even better quality of horses to sell for importation!