Horses Shipped to Grisly Demise

(NEWSER) - All US horse slaughterhouses have closed, but horse slaughter remains a big business. Thousands are shipped to Mexico and Canada, with sometimes-grisly results. “The treatment of these animals is absolutely unspeakable,” said one Mexico City veterinarian tells Salon. Now, Congress is considering a bill to ban both slaughter and the export of horses for slaughter. But many farmers think it’s a terrible idea. More»

Rising grain prices, abattoir laws doom the animals

(NEWSER) - With feed and fuel prices rising, more US horses are being abandoned and left to die. “It's a growing problem," says Brent Glover, who runs a horse rescue ranch. "Basically, it's the economy.” Glover’s own hay costs have ballooned from $28,000 to $80,000 this year. Many of these horses would be slaughtered if killing them for consumption were still legal in America, Time reports. More»

Collapse in equine market leads to rise in neglect of animals

(NEWSER) - When the sun was shining on the economy, millions of Americans tried to make hay by buying horses and moving into backyard breeding. As things slow down, the animals are getting harder to sell and pricier to feed, making horse neglect and abandonment a big problem, the Wall Street Journal reports. Rescue centers are struggling to deal with starving horses. More»

Congress lifts ban on funding horse meat inspections

(NEWSER) - When Congress passed a spending bill earlier this month to keep the government from shutting down, it quietly lifted a funding ban on horse meat inspections—meaning horses can once again be butchered in the US for human consumption, and slaughterhouses could open within 30 to 90 days. The US has no outright ban on horse slaughter, although two states do ban it and many others regulate the sale of horse meat, but funding for horse meat inspections was cut off in 2006. Congress did not allocate new money to pay for inspections, meaning the USDA would have to find the money within its own struggling budget. More»

The way we treat thoroughbreds is a disgrace, says Marlene Fanta Shyer

(NEWSER) - You might imagine that the horses who run in tomorrow’s Kentucky Derby live lives of "pampered luxury." But you’d be wrong, writes Marlene Fanta Shyer in the Christian Science Monitor . “The truth is often closer to years of abuse and a brutal end at a foreign slaughterhouse.” The vast majority of these horses are given Phenylbutazone, or “bute,” to help them run while injured, which can cause kidney damage, internal hemorrhaging, and other problems. More»