U.S. Farm Report Mailbag

Anonymous
Attention true horse lovers while we are fighting to end horse slaughter by the passage of H R 503, cattle producers want the following bills passed so they can continue to pollute our air with greenhouse gas from their cattle and then be exempt from paying the greenhouse gas emission tax that all other business will have to pay. We need to get everyone involved to vote against these bills. they want a free pass to pollute and kill our horses I say no to both and it is high time to fight back lets see how much horse slaughter is worth to them.

Contact your congressmen and senators let them know to vote for the quick passage of H R 503 and against H R 1438 and S 527. Remember it only takes one sympathetic senator to block their bills just as Conrad Burns blocked our bill last year. The pro slaughter associations need to know that as long as they oppose a horse slaughter ban we will oppose any bill they want passed. Let’s see how much money we can cost them; what will they be willing to pay to continue horse slaughter. The cattle associations are also against S 22 so urge your senators to cosponsor this bill as well.

11:59 AM Mar 23rd

Leah
The whole horse slaughter comes down to two things. Greed and over breeding of horses.

The horse industry has not been regulating itself and now they are using horse slaughter as a way of hiding their dirty laundry at the expense and suffering of the horses.

Any true horse person would have made arrangements at the beginning to take care of the horse in its last days. It is called saving money for a rainy day.




5:44 PM Mar 17th

Brad
The horse slaughter issue certainly is a heated one. I'm not a woman, nor do I have any "previously choreographed" response. I've simply been raising horses for years. My family has NEVER sent a horse to slaughter. We just think it is wrong. After serving us for years, we do the right thing and have the lady or gentleman humanely destroyed. End of story.
3:02 PM Mar 17th

John Phipps
It is difficult in this diatribe not to notice a few things:
1) Many replies seem strangely similar, perhaps choreographed from talking points. This strikes me as a search engine trigger for "horse slaugher"
2) Many commenters are women. This is notable on Internet discussion boards.
3) I could get my page count up significantly just by printing "horse slaughter" once a week or so.
4) For the most part we have avoided obscenities - again probably due to the male/female ratio. Thanks for that at least.
9:03 AM Mar 17th

anita
ERNEST:What is your problem;i own horses to;yes times are hard for everyone;not just farmers;all horse breeders needs to stop breeding just to make a buck;that time has ended;for now.Why do you say you have unwanted horses now;cause you can't make money off them now.bet they want unwanted as long as they made you a buck or two.Why?wouldn't the government tax cattle and hogs they tax every thing else.You still have your farm;alot of people has lot there homes.Why you complain so much.
10:51 PM Mar 16th

TerryW
Ernest is part of the problem, and horse slaughter is not the solution. The days of "breed, baby, breed" are over. Why is the agriculture community so intent on lying about horses and horse slaughter? Hello - it's the economy stupid. You'd have a hard time selling your house, your Hummer, your Ford F350, you name it. More horses have been shipped to slaughter from the US to Canada and Mexico in the past year than during the year prior to the US horse slaughterhouses closing. Check the facts.
We have both horses and alpacas, the horses are not for sale and never will be. Several alpacas are and guess what? That market is dead in the water too. Can't blame that on closed horse slaughterhouses can we?
It's a buyers market now on EVERYTHING, but people don't have the money to buy anything. Sorry. We all have to deal with it. Please send thank you notes to Wall St and the banks, they're the ones that caused home prices to skyrocket, gas prices to skyrocket, and couldn't dish out "creative" loan packages fast enough to turn around and sell to investors - while lying and packaging them as AAA loans. Please watch this detailed CNBC report to really understand why this country is in the shape it's in right now and who exactly caused it -

http://www.hulu.com/watch/59026/cnbc-originals-house-of-cards

10:15 PM Mar 16th

Anonymous
You have a neighbor who accumulated horses cheap, let them starve, and you ask what would have been more humane, slaughter or starving?! Good grief, are you mentally challenged, or just the brain-dead village idiot? The humane thing would have been to tie your neighbor to a tree, shoot him full of buckshot and let him starve half to death so he'd know what it felt like to be hungry. Slaughtering the horses because this man was committing an abuse crime against them causing them to suffer, doesn't make sense. The horses were helpless victims of your neighbor's abuse, and the abuse they suffered doesn't have anything to do with horse slaughter. He could have taken his horses to any auction since the meat men are buying more horses than ever and the slaughter option is still as much available as it has always been. Those horses weren't starved because of horse slaughter. It's a criminal offense to starve a horse, and your neighbor is a criminal who was committing a crime, and should be in jail with you right beside him. As his neighbor, surely you saw the horses as they were being starved; you were witnessing an on going crime, and yet you didn't report it. Those horses were victims of yours as well, for knowingly allowing them to suffer, and for not being a responsible citizen in your community by reporting an ongoing crime that you were watching take place. You think watching them die of starvation was okay, but you're complaining that you think ending horse slaughter was mean? How pathetic! You're what's mean. You're disgraceful and if you had any sense, you'd be ashamed!! And if your neighbor does get any more horses, rather than complain to everyone about how you think ending horse slaughter was mean to horses, why don't you try to do something good for horses, and make sure your neighbor takes care of any future horses that are unlucky enough to become his? Instead of showing everyone how ignorant and irrational the minds of the promoters of horse slaughter are and the lack of integrity that goes with it, why don't you show your neighbor how to feed a horse?


9:06 PM Mar 16th

Marjorie
Ernest, you are a "horse farmer"? Well, I guess that means you are a horse breeder and you are part of the problem! There are too many horses. Haven't you realized that?

You want to keep breeding and let slaughter be your disposal unit. Shame on you. Why don't you find something noble to do, rather than use sentient beings to pay your way.

And as for the cattle ranchers, give me a break. They are renting federal land at my expense, because they are taking the land away from our wild horses. I pay taxes on that land and now I'm subsidizing cattle ranchers. I don't like it at all.

I guess you want me to feel sorry that you have to pay taxes on your animals, well, join the crowd.

Horse slaughter is the ultimate betrayal, please call your representatives and ask them to pass HR 503.
7:58 PM Mar 16th

Anonymous
Here is a clue. Stop overbreeding, don't over extend yourself and breed only what you can keep and take care of. That includes your own procreation.
7:18 PM Mar 16th

Anonymous
You have a neighbor who accumulated horses cheap, let them starve, and you ask what would have been more humane, slaughter or starving?! Good grief, are you mentally challenged, or just the brain-dead village idiot? The humane thing would have been to tie your neighbor to a tree, shoot him full of buckshot and let him starve half to death so he'd know what it felt like to be hungry. Slaughtering the horses because this man was committing an abuse crime against them causing them to suffer, doesn't make sense. The horses were helpless victims of your neighbor's abuse, and the abuse they suffered doesn't have anything to do with horse slaughter. He could have taken his horses to any auction since the meat men are buying more horses than ever and the slaughter option is still as much available as it has always been. Those horses weren't starved because of horse slaughter. It's a criminal offense to starve a horse, and your neighbor is a criminal who was committing a crime, and should be in jail with you right beside him. As his neighbor, surely you saw the horses as they were being starved; you were witnessing an on going crime, and yet you didn't report it. Those horses were victims of yours as well, for knowingly allowing them to suffer, and for not being a responsible citizen in your community by reporting an ongoing crime that you were watching take place. You think watching them die of starvation was okay, but you're complaining that you think ending horse slaughter was mean? How pathetic! You're what's mean. You're disgraceful and if you had any sense, you'd be ashamed!! And if your neighbor does get any more horses, rather than complain to everyone about how you think ending horse slaughter was mean to horses, why don't you try to do something good for horses, and make sure your neighbor takes care of any future horses that are unlucky enough to become his? Instead of showing everyone how ignorant and irrational the minds of the promoters of horse slaughter are and the lack of integrity that goes with it, why don't you show your neighbor how to feed a horse?


6:28 PM Mar 16th

Lori H.
"There seems to be too many people getting involved in farming these days. Ending horse slaughter has crippled the horse business. I as a horse farmer have had to pay the price of keeping unwanted horses now for almost two years. " -- Well Ernest, I guess the misinformation out there hasn't served you well because not only has horse slaughter NOT gone, EVEN MORE US horses were slaughtered for human consumption in 2008 than when the three foreign-owned horse slaughterhouses were operating in the US. The same killer buyers, same transporters and same foreign-owned players still in business, and because of our horrible economy and sky-high hay prices driving horse prices down, now they're laughing all the way to the bank. How does THAT make you feel?
5:32 PM Mar 16th

Anonymous
Absolutely correct Ernest, although nonsense isn't the word I would have used. Can you imagine the fate of PETA activists and animal rights groups 70 years ago ?? They would have been tarred and feathered and rode out of town. Not because the farmers were mistreating their livestock either, but because there weren't a bunch of blood suckung lawyers around trying to make a buck off the legal system. 99% of farmers are excellent care takers of their livestock, because they are good people and because it's hard to make money if you don't take good care of them. It's other 1% that you see and hear about and the vast majority of these idiots are employees with no stake in the operation but a pay check. In my opinion, ending horse slaughter was one of the meanest things they could have done to unwanted horses and horses past their prime. I have a neighbor that always wanted to be in the horse business and this was his chance to accumulate a lot of horses really cheap. That is until he couldn't afford to feed them anymore and left them to starve. Now I ask you, what would have been more humane, letting those horses starve or sending them to slaughter??? This guy eventually had the horses taken away, but as I understand the situation, he's free to buy some again. What a crock of ..... nonsense.
4:14 PM Mar 16th