[Hoof Hearted]

I grew up only a mile or so from the Beefalo Ranch in Tracy, CA in the 70s(?). We would buy frozen boxes of beefalo burgers there. HUGE burgers that did not shrink at all when you cooked them! Taste was great.
StepDad fished/hunted and I've had Elk and Deer, though I don't care for deer and prefer elk stew, not steak. I've been told that elk is similar to horse meat in texture and lean-ness.

I have horses, and have owned horses for more than 35 years. I believe slaughter is necessary for the horses, though I would find it difficult to eat them, knowing they may have been someone's pet. Funny, that. I always named our butcher beef...though they were names like Sir Loin and Rumpy Roast.
IF, however, I ever make it to Iceland I would try horse there. They raise horse herds specifically as meat animals much as we do cattle and sheep. The quality Icelandic horses are the ones they train/ride/show/sell. If it doesn't gait, has poor conformation or has a poor temperament, it goes to the meat-herd. What a great cull-system to keep their breed pure and of high quality.

Anyway, it doesn't matter WHAT they are slaughtered for, human consumption, fertilizer, pet food...whatever...it is still slaughter. What difference the body is used for after the horse is gone?
People who love their horses and have the means available to them (some don't due to $ or local laws) will make arrangements to prevent their horse from going to a slaughter plant when the time comes (mine have been euth/buried) but the rest of the horses NEED the slaughter plants or they will suffer untold indignities of abuse and starvation because there is nowhere to go for an unuseable horse.
I do not think the non-human-consumption of horse carcass uses can absorb the overflow of the human-consumption carcasses that will now need to be utilized. I don't know what this will do to the sale prices where the killers purchased the unwanted horses for slaughter. How many people will be forced to take their unwanted horses home, and what will happen to them, then?

I would much prefer to see MORE slaughter plants across the country that accept horses and better shipping for the horses TO these plants. What this (slaughter for human consumption ban) may mean, is horses will now be shipped to Canada and Mexico, which have very few regulations and moral compuctions about handling, to be slaughtered.

Yeah, you bleeding-heart-activists, you've succeeded in halting slaughter of horses for human consumption in the USA, now the horses will have even LONGER trips in trucks, passing over borders into countries with few regulations, poorly trained staff and will suffer who-knows-what indignities before their end at whatever slaughter practice that plant uses.

I would prefer them to stay in the USA and meet their end at the hands of an employee who is trying to do a good job and not overly stress the animal while preserving its dignity.

Sorry for the lengthy horse-post. It struck a nerve.
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