meat horses and donkeys

[ragnar]

I was interested to know exactly how many horses Italy imports in a year for slaughter. Last year they imported 150,000 live from other countries. That is what they know about!!
What I would like to say also that a great majority of breeders in France are only breeding for meat. Because of the French laws (the enormous taxes people have to pay) people will breed horses in the factory farm way. That not only includes horses but cats and dogs (in fact anything). They prefer to breed HEAVY (more meat money) so many of the ancient breeds have dissappeared because they have been crossed with Bretons or Comtoise, especially in the Pyrenees. I don't think when you live in the UK you can appreciate the complete lack of care given to horses, ponies and donkeys as the norm. It's their way of life and these people have been doing it all their life. They have less respect than cows. Normally the animals have a horrible life (sometimes for years) before they eventually get taken on horrible lorries to Italy (they pay more money). It doesn't matter if mothers and babies get seperated at four months old, it doesn't matter if they have to suffer very severe laminitus - they are going for meat anyway so who cares!!! Certainly not the breeder, the holding yards or the meat man. Some are hobbled on one leg all their lives so that they don't move (a huge piece of wood going up one leg, over their knees). They have babies like this!!! One foot grows a lot longer than the other foot because of this. They will normally chop some of their ears of as another brand, normally with a pair of sharp scissors or a knife. I have one of those ponies here and she has just learnt how to canter. When she first had her feet doen she fell over. Now she can almost gallop and has at last found freedom to be a pony. How is anyone supposed to learn how to treat a horse when the 'so called' repected Haras sends obsolete horses to meat men after producing babies every single year. If they don't go for meat they go to experimental places!!! Just within a very small area here 200 go abroad in huge lorries every week. It's several days driving to north Italy and we know for a fact the lorries (not French - to get around the French laws that are being ignored) NEVER have partitions or water.

[Casper]

Supporting the ILPH Hook Not Hoof Campaign will at least help to stop these poor horses travelling for hours on end in poor conditions. And also ERF are doing a lot of good work, supported by EMW.

Dreadful to hear just how appalling some of these horses are kept. Sadly it goes on in so very many places, and in some cases not too far from home either.

[melissa]

Thought this might be of interest...

Emma Leckie recently completed a report commissioned by the ILPH focusing on the economics of the trade, concentrating on the route between Spain and Italy. A worrying new trend is that whilst the number of live horses leaving Poland (the largest exporter) is steadily decreasing, we are seeing Spain exporting more year-on-year; the latest figure is 10,500 horses per annum. Emma’s research concluded that for journeys of more than 24 hours, transporters adhering to Regulation (EC) No1/2005 should actually make a loss and for journeys of less than 24 hours, the profit is significantly reduced. This further supports the ILPH’s evidence that the Regulation is not being enforced since the journeys that are currently being undertaken would be uneconomic.

Furthermore, journey times are excessively long, with horses travelling for days in extreme weather conditions; temperatures rise above thirty-five degrees centigrade and can drop to minus thirty. Regulation (EC) No1/2005 states that horses must be rested off the lorry for 24 hours at 24 hour intervals. The horses are unloaded in a stressed, dehydrated and exhausted state. In some cases they are put into pens barely larger than the lorry itself; the only difference being they are given food and water. Even in bigger pens, mixed groups are only separated by bars so become easily excited and agitated. In all cases the horses are so stressed that fights break out every few minutes, preventing the horses from benefiting from any respite at all during the so called “rest” period. Reducing journey times is a primary objective for the ILPH in this campaign.

It is a little known fact that proportionately more horses are transported live for slaughter or further fattening than any other meat species, by a very large margin. Research indicates that 46% of the equine trade were transported live for slaughter or further fattening compared to 19.8% of the bovine (cattle) trade, 15.9% of ovine (sheep) trade, 13.3% of poultry trade and 10.3% of pig trade.

Demand for horse meat is highest in Italy, with 84% of live horses destined for slaughter entering into and moving across EU Member States travelling to Italy (by comparison 7% go to France and 5% to Belgium). The countries supplying the most horse meat are Poland, Romania and Spain, with Lithuania, Belarus and Serbia also being involved in the trade.

[sarahfox]

Thanks ( I think) for giving us this info,ragnar and melissa.
ragnar,I have 4 of the french meat horses here and some of what you say I already knew,some I surmised from working with them,but your post graphically explains the whole sorry situation,and I can certainly corroborate it from my own experience with them.I wondered why ellys ear tips were missing.
Why,oh why do these things still go on?
What a sad world we live in.