by Ian Purdy
More than 100,000 U.S. horses were murdered in 2008 to satisfy the slobbering masses of Belgium, France, Italy and Japan.
The Pro-Murder Lobby:
Because horses in North America are seen by most humans as “companion animals”, defending the practice of murdering them is something of a public relations nightmare.
With this in mind, the pro-murder lobby has enlisted some powerful – and self-interested – players to help spread the gospel of death:
- The American Farm Bureau and other animal exploitation industry organizations (for cows, sheep, pigs, etc.) promote horse murder using the “slippery slope” argument: if killing horses is banned, a precedent will be set for ending the murder of cows, sheep, pigs, etc. (If only…!)
- The American Quarter Horse Association promotes horse murder because their budget depends on registration fees for new foals. The murder industry provides a convenient outlet for profligate breeding.
- The American Veterinary Medical Association promotes horse murder because a huge part of its constituency is veterinarians who service the animal exploitation industries, such as vets who work in slaughter houses, auctions, feedlots, etc.
- The ugly Premarin industry also promotes horse murder. Premarin is a hormone “product” extracted from pregnant mares’ urine (Pre-mar-in. Get it?). It is manufactured by Wyeth-Ayerst Labs, Inc. To collect the urine, horses are confined in standing stalls and catheterized for months on end. The Premarin business uses the horse murder industry as a profit-enhancing solution for excess (usually male) foals.
Defending the Indefensible:
The most Orwellian argument for horse murder (advanced most authoritatively by the AVMA), is that it is a form of humane euthanasia. As a quick reminder, euthanasia – literally “good death” -refers to the practice of ending a life in a painless manner.
Let’s verify the murder-as-euthanasia claim by looking at the process by which a horse is typically killed.
In theory:
- The horse is shot with a captive bolt pistol – a contraption that is held against his/her head and from which a metal bolt releases and retracts, causing enough damage to the brain so that the horse is rendered unconscious.
- The horse is then killed by being exsanguinated, or “bled out”, in which the jugular vein or carotid artery is severed while the horse is suspended by a rear leg using a chain shackle.
- The horse is then butchered, that is, his/her body is cut into pieces.
(Wake me up when we get to the “humane euthanasia” part….)
In practice:
The last horse slaughter house in the U.S. was closed by state legislation September 2007. Since then U.S. horses have been exported for murder to Canada or Mexico.
In Canada horses may be legally murdered with a captive bolt pistol or a .22 bullet to the head. The “problem” is that the captive bolt pistol was never designed to be used on horses. It’s difficult to place the pistol precisely because, unlike other animals that are sent to slaughter houses, horses have long, mobile necks and are “head shy”, that is, they will balk at something coming towards/touching their heads. As a result they may be “bolted” numerous times on other parts of their bodies, causing excruciating pain, or not bolted at all, meaning they go through the process fully conscious. In Canada, skulls of murdered horses lacking bolt holes have been well documented….
Moreover, even if the pistol is placed accurately against the horse’s head, the horse may still not be rendered unconscious because a horse’s brain is located further back in the skull than a cow’s brain.
A .22 (in use at Bouvry Exports in Alberta) is problematic too: because of the horse’s relative mobility in the kill box, it may take several shots before the animal is dead.
In Mexico, where 45,000 U.S. horses were murdered in 2008, the chance of a horse experiencing a “good death” recedes still further. Here it is common practice to use a “puntilla knife” on horses prior to murder.
The horse is stabbed repeatedly in the neck/spine to paralyze him/her. The stabbing does *not* render the horse unconscious; he/she is still fully alive while being hung up by a hind leg, having his/ her throat slit and body butchered….
The transport of horses to slaughterhouses only compounds their suffering:
- The trips are long: Horses may be legally transported in the U.S. for more than 24 hours without food or water or rest. When the truck arrives at the Canadian border the clock returns to “zero”, and the horses may legally be transported for another 36 hours without food or water or rest. That’s potentially 60 hours -two and a half days! – without food or water or rest.
- The trips are uncomfortable: Double-deck trailers were designed for cows and pigs, but are used for horses because it’s cost effective. Loading and unloading onto the rigs is stressful and dangerous for horses because they must immediately go either up or down a steep ramp to enter/exit one of the two floors. The trailers are divided into two levels and thus have low ceilings, so many horses are unable to stand fully upright and are forced to travel in a bent position. It’s illegal in the U.S. to transport murder-bound horses in double deck trailers, but this is easily circumvented at the borders by crossing at night or claiming that the destination is simply a feedlot – a step away from the slaughterhouse.
- The trips are dangerous: Double-deck trailers are perilous due to their high center of gravity, and grisly crashes are not uncommon….
The Profiteer$:
The horse murder industry is driven by a lack of morality and the demand of the aforementioned slobbering masses in Europe and Japan. Ironically, horse meat, promoted as “sweet”, “tender”, “low in fat”, and “high in protein”, is a veritable toxic dump: most horses have received a variety of drugs, hormones, wormers and steroids through their lifetime. For example, phenbultazone or “bute”, widely administered to horses to mask pain, is a known carcinogen.
At any rate, a piece of horse sells for around $20/pound – and costs about .39 to .49 cents/pound when part of a living horse at auction. That’s a profit some humans will kill for.
First up are the “kill buyers” (obviously an upstanding profession with a name like that). Kill buyers (essentially grim reaper –type middlemen) buy horses at a patch work of auctions to ship to slaughter houses and feedlots. Kill buyers receive contracts from the slaughter houses and need to deliver certain numbers of horses to satisfy those contracts – any horses: old, young , healthy or sick.
Next up, the soulless companies. Prior to 2007, three major horse slaughter houses operated in the U.S.: Dallas Crown, Inc. in Kaufman, Texas (owned by Belgian-based Chevideco ); Beltex Corporation in Fort Worth, Texas ( owned by Belgium/France/Holland-based Multimeat NV ) ; and Cavel International, Inc. in DeKalb, Illinois (owned by Belgium-based Velda NV). Together they exported approximately 42 million dollars worth of “product”.
Since 2007, Canada has become a world leader in horse murder. (This, along with the seal massacre, makes Canada a place of distinction!) The six horse slaughter houses in Canada are:
- Viande Richelieu in Quebec
- Bouvry Exports Calgary Ltd , who also ships live horses to Japan via its feedlots. They were kind enough to post their contact information: PO Box 2024, Fort Macleod, Alberta T0L 0Z0, Phone: (403) 553-4431, Fax: (403) 553-3222
- Kour Holdings: 1861 58th Ave W, Vancouver V6P 1X1, BC, Phone: (604) 221-5976
- Canadian Premium Meats, Alberta
- Norval Meats, Proton Station, Ontario
- Les Cerfs De Boileau, Quebec
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Ian Purdy is a committed vegan and dedicated animal rights activist. Ian speaks for many of us when he laments: “let’s just say that waking up to the plight of animals at the hands of humans has ruined my life.”
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I found 
Encyclopedia Dramatica is an abominable site rife with parasitic elements who promote animal cruelty and bestiality, bully the mentally disabled, and find pedophilia entertaining. I would guess that their obscenities extend way beyond these things that I’ve had the misfortune of viewing, but I truly have no desire to cruise their site.
What a team! We have Barack sending children off to fight imperialist wars. And we have Michelle — in the name of patriotism — supporting military families with… what else?… the victims of the Obama holocaust. Yeaaa death and war and corpses. America Rocks.

Supposedly preoccupied with costs and how to reduce them, the various committees involved in producing health care legislation have all but ignored the, well, husky animal in the room: fat people.
If one can watch Earthlings, Meet Your Meat, nonhuman snuff videos, go to the supermarket, interact with human apathy on a daily basis and not garner some infinitesimal degree of hostility and anger, then I need to ask WTF is wrong with you? Evil permeates our culture.
Reality is an illusion. It’s what each of us chooses to create, by virtue of our thoughts and actions, that exists. But we’re born into this world with no point of reference and an evil reality is constructed for us… most never see beyond their indoctrination. Once we can see our culture for what it is, it’s pure madness.
I often wonder how people can advocate welfare reform which simply specifies the ways in which nonhuman individuals may be tortured by their human overlords. The concept is an abomination. But perhaps welfarism is a disease of convoluted logic, exacerbated by excessive drinking.