If someone can skin their horse and tan his hide, that is fine with me. Donating them to zoos for food, Hunt Clubs for the hounds, all works for me. Just that I couldn't do it myself. I wouldn't call our horses "pets" exactly, but we have been working partners for many years. We spend a lot of time, days and years together doing things. So thinking of cutting them up, is kind of like doing that to one of my other good people friends, just unacceptable to me. Too personal, I just can't think of them as cows or sheep!
But the folks who don't deal with "real life" animals on a daily basis, have bottomless pocketbooks, can't understand killing and burying one at home could run you deep into debt! Vet coming, hole being dug properly so body doesn't reappear, adds up to several hundred to just kill a horse! Even shooting one at home, you still have all that body to deal with in regulated housing areas, suburbia, the 5-acre farms of the East. Some places you are not allowed to bury big animals.
Sending that horse to Auction, maybe a kill buyer, prevents poor people from getting into worse scenarios. There are lots of Free Horse ads on Craigslist, seemingly with no takers. Ads don't go away.
Here in MI, we only have one place that takes dead horses and cattle over towards Detroit. I don't know the price for pickup and disposal, but all the other rendering places have closed. MSU in Lansing does cremate them, not sure of cost.
State Gov't passed a law allowing you to compost large animals, but you need a HUGE pile of manure to do it in. Actually a pretty satisfactory method, no smell, goes fast, and almost nothing left if done correctly. With no smell, you don't get little varmints wanting pieces either. If the pile is big and hot enough, some are totally gone in 3 months. Then the compost is spread on the fields, returning everything to the land again.
If the laws in place were enforced, hauling humanely by the meat buyers, quick dispatching of the live animals with quick killing, many of the slaughter house problems would be removed. However with the ever shrinking enforcement, no manpower to check up on things, slaughter can be pretty ugly to view, as the end of those horses. Real easy to work up the city folks with those photos and videos of horse abuse.
But the folks who don't deal with "real life" animals on a daily basis, have bottomless pocketbooks, can't understand killing and burying one at home could run you deep into debt! Vet coming, hole being dug properly so body doesn't reappear, adds up to several hundred to just kill a horse! Even shooting one at home, you still have all that body to deal with in regulated housing areas, suburbia, the 5-acre farms of the East. Some places you are not allowed to bury big animals.
Sending that horse to Auction, maybe a kill buyer, prevents poor people from getting into worse scenarios. There are lots of Free Horse ads on Craigslist, seemingly with no takers. Ads don't go away.
Here in MI, we only have one place that takes dead horses and cattle over towards Detroit. I don't know the price for pickup and disposal, but all the other rendering places have closed. MSU in Lansing does cremate them, not sure of cost.
State Gov't passed a law allowing you to compost large animals, but you need a HUGE pile of manure to do it in. Actually a pretty satisfactory method, no smell, goes fast, and almost nothing left if done correctly. With no smell, you don't get little varmints wanting pieces either. If the pile is big and hot enough, some are totally gone in 3 months. Then the compost is spread on the fields, returning everything to the land again.
If the laws in place were enforced, hauling humanely by the meat buyers, quick dispatching of the live animals with quick killing, many of the slaughter house problems would be removed. However with the ever shrinking enforcement, no manpower to check up on things, slaughter can be pretty ugly to view, as the end of those horses. Real easy to work up the city folks with those photos and videos of horse abuse.
