Should old horses be sent to pasture or slaughter?

By Steve Miller, Journal staff | Tuesday, November 27, 2007

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The tall bay horse moved gingerly across the pen, favoring a badly swollen ankle. His shaggy hair covered a skinny frame.

Nearby, a thin dark bay with a rough coat of hair stood on bad feet against the bitter north wind.

A spavined knee protruded grotesquely on an old paint.

An old bay mare limped past.

These horses were being cared for. There was plenty of hay in the pen. Other, younger horses in the pen looked good. But the old ones were thin. When their teeth go bad, horses are not able to eat, and they begin to starve to death.

These old horses on a ranch near Rapid City are among about 60,000 to 90,000 horses each year nationally that get too old to be of any use.

In the past, many of them would be sent to slaughterhouses, where they would be knocked out with a stun gun and then butchered, with their meat likely going to zoos or to Europe or Asia for human consumption.

Sending horses to slaughter is more difficult now with federal and state laws discouraging or banning the practice. Texas and Illinois closed the last horse slaughterhouses in the country earlier this year.

Animal-rights groups say the slaughterhouses are cruel and inhumane ways for old horses to meet their end.

They say old horses should either be allowed to live out their golden years in pastures or be euthanized and buried.

The Humane Society of the United States says horses endure pain, fear and suffering before they are slaughtered.

But many in the animal industry, including South Dakota State Veterinarian Sam Holland, say closing the slaughterhouses will lead to more inhumane treatment of horses, not less.

Some horse owners are able to pay to have their few horses euthanized and buried, says Holland, who heads the South Dakota Animal Industry Board.

But that's not financially feasible for people with large numbers of horses, Holland said.

Some fear neglect

He and others in the horse industry worry that some people will turn out their old horses to starve in pastures or abandon them somewhere.

He is concerned about what happens to the overpopulation of horses.

"We don't have nursing homes for horses," Holland said.

Holland said he hasn't had any reports of neglect yet. But as the price for old horses continues to decline, he expects to get more reports of horses        receiving inadequate care.

Holland also said the slaughter practices in the United States are humane. A single blow with the stun gun renders the horse unconscious, he said.

Holland said laws against slaughter are a result of people who do not see horses as livestock.

"They're really trying to inflict their values and their culture on the rest of the world by the legal means of preventing humane harvest of horses in this country."

Justin Tupper manages St. Onge Livestock, which holds a monthly horse sale. Tupper said the slaughterhouse shutdown has driven down the price for slaughter horses from between 40 cents and 50 cents a pound down to between 15 cents and 25 cents a pound. Fewer old horses are being sold, he said.

But, he said the bigger impact will be more old horses left to a slow, painful death.

"As a horse gets older, his teeth go bad, and he starves to death because he's unable to eat," Tupper said. "The most humane way to end his life is the slaughter process, because starvation sure doesn't fit."

Alternatives are costly

It can cost $75 to euthanize a horse and $150 to hire a backhoe to bury it, according to Cleone Uecker, president of South Dakota Horse Sales at Corsica, one of the bigger horse sales in the Upper Midwest.

Uecker said if the plants were still operating in the U.S., market horses would again bring 80 cents a pound.

Now, it costs $25 a horse extra just to have the required blood tests plus the shipping fee. Old horses are being shipped to slaughterhouses in Canada and Mexico.

But, Uecker said Mexico doesn't have the same humane standards for slaughter that the U.S. has.

Bills pending in Congress would outlaw not only slaughter in the U.S. but also shipping horses to slaughter for human consumption. The South Dakota congressional delegation opposes those bills, but if they reach the floor of the House and Senate, they are likely to be approved overwhelmingly, according to Ryan Stroschein, legislative director for Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D.

Herseth Sandlin and Sens. John Thune and Tim Johnson support humane horse slaughter, industry officials say.

Uecker said she sells between 2,000 and 2,500 market horses a year, and she estimates that up to 4,000 market horses are sold in South Dakota annually.

She said market horses are mostly older animals, but they also can be younger horses that are just not trainable or have bad dispositions.

She said slaughter opponents don't understand the necessity for culling livestock.

Shutting down the slaughterhouses is not the answer, she said. "It's like turning everybody loose from the nursing home, the reform school and the jailhouse," Uecker said.

'Lifetime of service'

Veterinarian Sharon Seneczko of Custer says she can see both sides of the horse-slaughter issue. Seneczko is on the board of the Custer Humane Society.

"It's a really tough situation because a lot of people will perhaps put off taking care of their animals," Seneczko said.

"But I've always felt badly because these animals have given a lifetime of service to people. When the time comes when they need the golden years, they don't get it. It's the harsh reality of the economics of things and of the harsh reality of the horse business."

Seneczko said even though the stun gun is effective, horses experience fear when they're transported and when they enter the slaughterhouse. "They do sense when there is danger and horrific things coming."

She said she encourages people, if they can, to take in older horses and care for them. She said euthanizing a horse is much less stressful than the slaughterhouse.

But Seneczko said the expenses of feed, medicine and, finally, euthanasia probably aren't practical for many owners of older horses.

She said the slaughtering facilities probably are needed.

But she also thinks people who are concerned about slaughter should try to raise money to pay for taking care of more old horses. "People who are upset should step up and do something."

Seneczko has done that herself. She owns seven horses, including three older than 22.

She has one 28-year-old mare, Chrissy, on arthritis medication. The horse has her teeth and is getting along OK. "As long as she has good days - and I'm watching her right now, she's eating grass in the sun, she's having a good day, she's comfortable - it makes me very happy," Seneczko said. "If she was in the hands of someone who couldn't baby her like older horses need to be, she should be euthanized."

Contact Steve Miller at 394-8417 or steve.miller@rapidcityjournal.com