Sweet Cheezus, I Can’t Make This Stuff Up!!!

I’ve been attempting to work on a few posts that address some actual concerns I have seen raised by both sides of the slaughter issue.  Those things are in the works, but Slaughterhouse Sue has returned with a vengeance and continues to rabble-rouse her followers like chicken no-so-little.  We already have a wealth of material for Point and Laugh Friday, but she just keeps bringing the crazy, so I will take a pause from compiling some actual facts for y’all and address today’s propaganda.  This is starting to feel like a bad sitcom.

Today, somebody posted on UH’s Facebook page about a dilemma he was having. Apparently, since the closing of slaughter plants he has found himself with too many horses and, now that they are in a drought, can’t feed them all.  He doesn’t feel it is ok to subject them to shipping out of country because he `likes’ some of them so he is going to have to cull his herd.  For him this means he will shoot them at home.  Ok, I have some mixed feelings about this and since he did float the `what would you do?’ question out there, I felt it was valid to post here.  Part of me is pissed that any breeder feels the need for slaughter to manage their herd.  That raises the question about quality of stock to me.  As I have said many times before, I know a lot of breeders and they don’t set their prices according to meat prices nor have they found themselves unable to sell their stock at good prices since slaughter houses closed.  It’s simple supply and demand rather than throw a bunch of crap at the wall and see what sticks method of breeding.  However, this person is showing some responsibility as far as making plans BEFORE the animals starve and suffer.  He is planning on putting them down at home in a humane fashion.  Those horses likely won’t feel fear or pain if his aim is true.  It is simply not a black and white issue for me.  However, I hope he does learn from this and maybe be a bit more selective on what stock he breeds in the future.  Any time you take a mare to a stallion, you should be thinking about who will want that foal and what the demand for this type of horse is.

Never one to miss an opportunity to take advantage of somebody else’s misfortune and twist it to suit her murderous agenda, Slaughterhouse Sue pounced all over this post…..

“I just talked to XXXXXX up at Ashland, Montana. The fire up there burned over 200,000 acres. Between him and his neighbors they have over 200 head of horses–mostly mares and colts, a few saddle horses that they only use a couple of times a year–that they generally winter out without feeding. This year, of course, there is zero feed. The cattle industry has an outlet. They can sell their livestock under these circumstances, and in some cases pay $300-$400 a ton for hay and survive. But no one can afford to put that kind of money into horses that you can’t sell for $30 a head on a good day. They are looking right down the pipe at doing the same thing that XXXXXX is contemplating and having to shoot them all and let them rot at a total loss and waste to everybody and everything except the coyotes…who are going to be fat this winter. Or letting the horse buyer steal them for a pittance (far less than the cost of gathering them) and take them to Canada. As a result, Mother Nature being the hard and cruel entity that she is, will probably respond by producing a bunch of coyote pups and we will be infested with varmints to the point that they are a severe threat to baby livestock and pets and invading towns and costing everyone a bunch to get them under control next Spring. That’s what happens folks, when you take away the management tools to keep things in balance. Everything gets out of whack!

OK, WTF is any two people doing with over 200 head of horses, most of which are not useable for anything other than creating more?  This economic crisis and closure of slaughter houses is not a brand new issue, so a person would have to be profoundly stupid or delusional to keep breeding mass quantities of horses that have no market.  According to Suzy, most of the signs of the oncoming Apocalypse can be directly attributed to the closure of slaughter houses.  In fact, I bet the Mayans didn’t write the calendar beyond this year because they somehow knew that slaughter houses would close and it would be the end of times. It makes about as much sense……

Because Ole Suey can’t manage to sit down without removing Holy Mother Theresa Manzella’s head from her rectum, you guessed it, we get to hear from her too!

“ It’s a sad reality that too many simply don’t have any understanding of. It’s heart breaking to think of how the AR’s have dishonored the horse by devaluing it.”

Yes, Theresa, because it is so much more honorable to torture and execute them in a slaughter-house where they can feel both fear and pain.  The horse will feel so much better and  honored to know that at least he sold for more money as he is hanging upside down by one leg while some  ex-con slits his throat and disembowel him while he’s still alive.  Glad you cleared that up for us.

Not to be outdone, Slaughterhouse Sue ups the ante and announces that the proverbial sky is falling…

“The entire country needs to hammer on USDA hard, right now! They are the only thing standing in the way. By law they have to provide inspection, but they are dragging their feet saying it is going to take “significant time” for them to put together the systems which are exactly the same as every other species of livestock, and for which they had all of them in place just five years ago! If there was ever a time for emergency action, that time is now!!!”

I find this to be an interesting choice of words from a person that holds a public office that wants to be taken seriously.  Don’t you?  I guess the fact that 80% of the country do not want slaughter escapes her.  Maybe the rest of us are just supposed to phone up the USDA for a chat.

Right on cue, Holy Mother Theresa chimes in again in hopes of getting a pat on the head and a goosing from Ole Suey.

“I tried to locate accurate contact info and phone #’s for the USDA a few weeks back and was led on an amazing wild goose chase…and then dropped after getting no where. I found myself wondering if this was complete incompetence on the part of the USDA, or done by design. I’ll see if I can find anything different this morning.”

This sure makes all the people sitting on the fence about slaughter feel MUCH better, I’m sure.  If the USDA can’t manage to answer the phone or have a clear listing, then how the crap are they going to monitor each and every horse that you propose to slaughter at the rate of hundreds a day?  At any rate, even if she does manage to figure out how to call them, I’m sure they’re going to snap to attention and open up these slaughter plants next week because some faux christian from Montana rang them up.  You go girl!!!