Horse Slaughter Facts

Before Prop 6 was passed in California

FACT: The slaughter industry provides a quick no-questions asked outlet for stolen horses.

FACT: People fall victim to scams. They donate their horses to promised good homes or organizations under false pretenses only to find that these animals have been slaughtered.

FACT: The slaughter industry is bad business for California. Primarily foreign owned slaughterhouses, a hand full of killer buyers, a few truckers, and several other states and Canada benefit form the slaughter of California's horses.

FACT: Slaughter horses that are leaving our state are gone from our economy FOREVER, and NO TAX OR REVENUE IS PAID TO CALIFORNIA BECAUSE THEY ARE SOLD AS HUMAN FOOD!

FACT: The humane death of horses in California will add to our economy and industry by their rendering and by-products.

FACT: It has become increasingly harder to find horses, as many good sound usable riding horses have already been killed, and the killer market has driven up the prices for people just getting started or needing a horse that they can afford.

FACT: Many horses sent to slaughter are good sound usable horses that fall into a cheaper price range or a shippers contractual need to fill a quota with a slaughterhouse. These are horses that would generate millions of dollars for California in any number of ways-feed, supplies, tack, clothing, rides and recreation, vet care, horse shows, trailers and vehicle sales, etc., and the taxes on these products.

FACT: The horse meat industry prefers good fat healthy horses.

FACT: Horsemeat does not go to feed starving people in third world countries, rather it is a gourmet delicacy selling for many dollars a pound.

FACT: The United States is also the looser from the revenue that slaughtered horses would have generated here.

FACT: When people ask, "What are you going to do with old crippled horses"? Know that it is already against California Law to transport diseased, sick, blind, dying, or otherwise disabled horses, as well horses that can not bear weigh on all four feet, unweaned foals, and mares in their third trimester of pregnancy out of state for slaughter- Penal Code 597o. Also Penal Code 597x states that it is unlawful for any person to sell, attempt to sell, load, cause to be loaded, transport, or attempt to transport any live horse, mule, burro, or pony that is disabled, if the animal is to be sold, loaded, or transported for commercial slaughter out of state. However, at this time there is little or no enforcement of these laws, and horses in all conditions are being shipped.

FACT: Many plants pay for horses that are slaughtered on the grade and yield system-The more the horse dresses out (Fat and healthy), the more the dealer is paid per pound.

FACT: While people may think that the initiative could be "Big Government" telling us what to do, the Initiative will be the will of the people, and the majority of voters are saying, "We are against the slaughter of horses for human consumption."

FACT: Humane euthanasia is readily available form a vet and can usually be done inexpensively. If a horse can be loaded into a trailer, it can be taken to a local veterinary hospital and euthanized for a pre-agreed upon nominal fee, and dropped at a render at usually no charge. If it can't make it to a trailer, it can't make it anywhere else.

FACT: We don't eat our horses.

FACT: Slaughter is a betrayal of our horses.

FACT: Nothing about the slaughter of a horse is humane, nor can it be regulated into being humane.

FACT: Horses deserve and are entitled to a swift painless death.

QUESTION: Why should we allow other states and countries to greatly profit from the death and disposal of California Horses?

The bottom line is that the slaughter of horses for human consumption is doing us no favor, it has, and is depleting us of our inexpensive riding horses as well as many good horses. It has driven up prices, and made it increasingly harder to find good usable horses, and it is depriving us of the revenue that these horses would have generated for the state, either by their use or humane death.