Ya know, if somebody wants to eat old horse, that's fine with me. I'd hate to see the horses suffering and being ignored as glorified pasture ornaments. I say that if we are going to use animals for any purpose, we should not waste any of them or any part of them.

It is not always old horse that they are eating though. We go to the sales and watch some really nice looking horses go to the killers, can't save them all, but it still sucks! If they can actually ride them through the ring it up's the chances that they will go to a home, those killers do not buy anything that people want, they wait it out and bid on only the ones that no one wants, seen them get a little cutie pie that went for 35 bucks because she was unrideable:(

There are too many horses and anyone with a mare or 10 feels they need to breed them all every year adding to the problems. Most breeding done is indiscriminate, done by those with little to O experience or breeding knowledge, just making more worthless foals.
A lot of those nice looking horses/ponies going thru the ring do actually have some serious problems, either physical or mental not observable to the untrained eye. Its a darn shame to see so many horses standing around in poor conditions with inadequate feed and care; a good killer market would help to alleviate some of these conditions. because many people think of equines as pets, they mistakenly petition against horse slaughter, adding to the existing problems.
I have never seen so many horses go thru the ring which dont even bring a minimal bid, I never saw that before a year or 2 ago.

I just got a call while typing this, some folks want to unload their horses and am going to look at them now. They will most likely be at the next sale as I dont expect they are of much value to me.

It is too bad horses are regarded as livestock. My horse Ralph is 29 years old. I got his mother as a unhandled 14 mo old she died in 1999 at the age of 30. Ralph is her only foal. It does take more effort and money to keep him in shape as he ages, I think that goes for all of us. I work at a feed store and advise people with older equines on feed and care. Ralph gets equine senior, oat pellets, oat/alfalfa pellet. all in one(grass hay ground with molasses) and hay, oat, alfalfa and grass hay. He eats only the soft stuff on the hay so I put his leftover food in the goat pen much to the delight of the goats. He still is a trail horse and a great friend.

I agree there is too much backyard breeding and if horses aren't trained they have no value. The worst is horses spoiled as pets and have no regard for manners.

went & looked at the horses, 1 had to be kept seperate from other horses due to lousy disposition, might be ok for a single horse owner; 1 had recurring laminitis problem & will likely never be ridable only for short rides by a light person and always need special attention; 1 had navicular. None of these horses were of very good breeding from the get go.

My mother is always getting calls like that, another big one she gets is they will come and look at what she has for sale and then try to trade her for some wonderful specimen that they have (not)
She has a 20 year old QH stud that has all sorts of breathing problems (the eqivelent of COPD) but she would never think of unloading him, he is there to stay.
Hey fancifowl, the one with a lousy disposition wouldn't happen to be a halflinger would it? Those guys love people but sure hate one another! They will get into some serious kicking matches, hind end to hind end, they like to take chunks out of one another as well.

I used to breed Haflingers from about 1982 till 4 years ago. I have to say them and the Welsh were my best horses. I had no problems with the Haflingers at all, drove 4 stallions in a 4 horse hitch a few times too.. Had 6-8 at a time usually. Actually, my main stallion(Sam) was Ohio state fair gr,. champion stallion in 1988 and was one of the easiest horses to work with ever.

These horses, I looked at yesterday were just horses, run of the mill 1/4 cross types.

Oh the teams are fantastic togather, it is putting a team in with another team, that usually causes a problem. She just sold a team of them, bout broke her heart, those were her boys:)
watched the Stud to a lot of her Halflingers go through the sale ring down here, he sure was a pretty thing, but mom said somebody had been mistreating him, wasn't the same horse she knew from 5 years ago when she was offered him:(

Old or sick horses are not slaughtered for human consumption.
People only want to eat young healthy animals.

Horses that are sick or injured or old are rendered, not eaten.

The two slaughterhouses in Texas are being closed.

That leaves the one in Illinois as the only slaughterhouse left in the US that processes horses for human consumption overseas.

fancifowl, Micke, I would love to see pics of your teams.

I had a couple teams on my msn web site but took them off and never got any back on, see if I can get it done??

I got a few photos up, havent located most horse pics yet, there are hundreds so will keep looking for the Haflinger hitches. I have photos back to the early 50s of horses I have had, theres been hundreds.

try this
WINDOVERFARM@groups.msn.com

let me know if it works or not?

My mother has Hackneys too! They are so pretty to watch move.
I will see if I can get some pics, not all are teams, she has a big draft type horse she uses for weddings and so forth (looks like a gypsy but I don't think that is what he is)

{{!gwi}}

not good at sizing but it is clickable

Nevermind, clicking on it don't help any

I added 1 photo of a 4 horse hitch of Haflingers, sire-dam and their 2 colts.

fancifowl -- I can't seem to bring up the page -- are yu sure about the address?

yep

Thank you fancifowl, I am impressed at your horses. I really liked the colt that became your stallion.
micke I couldn't open yours, I'll try again.

I deleted the pic from photobucket. I don't like leaving my pics out there forever, sorry you didn't get to see it! Splash is something else:) I think he is absolutely georgeous, I am trying to con them into not selling that one as he rides as good as he drives.