12/10/2023
This
IS KILL PEN RESCUE REALLY TRUE RESCUE?
THE TRUTH ABOUT KILL PEN RESCUE!!!
… from someone actually involved in it.
Just going to share some of my thoughts over the last twenty four hours. Feel free to skip over and not read…
Every single day I see or read another post advocating heavily against kill pen rescue. They list reason after reason — two more ship in the horses place, contracts!!, you’re enriching the kill buyer.
Auctions are the superior way to save horses!!!
Sound familiar?
What if I told you in my opinion it’s all just a load of baloney?
No, not baloney. Horse pooey.
The stinky kind.
Lies made up to enrich their own donations. Lies to siphon funds from organizations like ours to theirs as easily as a snap of a finger.
After all, who’s going to prove them wrong? The killbuyers aren’t exactly lining up to argue any of the points. The more murky the waters are around on how it really works, the better off they are…
I’ve been inside several slaughter holding facilities and I’ve spoken directly to the agent of a major horse slaughter plant.
I know what really happens… and it’s not the lies you’re being fed online.
Let’s start with the first fallacy.
If you save a kill pen horse, two more ship in its place.
This makes zero sense. First of all because slaughter is declining while kill pen rescue is growing. If buying a kill pen horses meant MORE horses go to slaughter, you’d see an increase in slaughter numbers…
Instead we’re seeing the opposite happen. In truth, broker pages and kill pen rescue is good for the stopping of slaughter. These guys are seeing a more profitable way to sell horses than Mexico — even “worthless” or “undesirable” ones, and that’s online or to rescues willing and ready to buy and take the same day.
Slaughter was and always will be Americas way of dealing with unwanted horses. If you create a market for those horses taking them from unwanted to wanted, then slaughter stops being necessary.
That market is being created with the internets endless exposure of animal abuse in the slaughter pipeline. More and more rescues are being born to help these defenseless animals.
More and more private parties are becoming interested in investing in these unwanted horses and offering them forever homes.
I agree it’s better to let a rescue take on the liability of rehabilitating these horses than a private party, but I won’t argue the semantics of where it’s best to rescue a horse from and what is the “best way to do it”…
A life saved is a life saved. That’s honestly what SHOULD be every single equine rescues bottom line… but it isn’t.
And we have to start asking them why. Was that horse truly injured? Did it need medical attention? Isn’t it good that they received it, regardless of where they came from?
Personally I know the horses have no idea who owns them. A horse who needs help— needs help. Irregardless of where they came from, what truly matters is where they are going and who’s going to help them.
If we start turning our backs on these innocent animals, we are no better than the abusers who put them there.
Slaughter is dying.
And it’s because of pages like this one and the work so many others are doing.
This is happening real time in front of our eyes. Don’t believe me? Google the exportation of horses for slaughter and the real time numbers. It’s not a steady decline— it’s a sharp one.
Also even if there was a contract requesting a certain number (there isn’t) two more COULDN’T ship in that horses place because it would be more than what is contracted.
But they don’t like that being pointed out to them…
Duh.
The second fallacy— slaughter houses and their buyers have contracts for a certain number of horses. Ours doesn’t, never had and never will.
Think of it like this. You’re a carrot farmer. You grow carrots. If you are paid by the number of carrots on the truck— it will behoove you to grow as many tiny carrots as you possibly can so that you can fit as many carrots on the truck as possible. Growing big fat carrots has no incentive.
This hurts their bottom line to resale the carrots. They don’t want a zillion tiny expensive carrots. This means they must charge their consumers more for tiny carrots.
Now change it to the WEIGHT of the carrots, and now it’s not about exactly how many— it’s about the quality of the carrot. The carrots themselves are sold to consumers by weight as well. This creates an even profit that makes sense logically.
Horse slaughter works the same. It’s the weight on the truck that they are paid by, NOT a per horse basis.
For Canada... $1.25/lb — the fatter the horse, the bigger the payday but remember the least amount of original investment plays a part too. It’s a fine balancing act as far as what ships and what doesn’t. You want a cheap horse (under $800 usually) with as much weight on it as possible (these are two things that are hard to get at auction— cheap and fat). It doesn’t matter if there are 30, 25 or 20 horses on there. 20 fat ones can bring in more money than 25 skinny ones.
It will never matter how many, it’ll matter how much they weigh and how cheap they are to buy. Those are the key. Cheap horses are in danger. Cheap fat ones (old horses given away from loving homes) are in line for murder.
“You’re enriching the kill buyer by rescuing horses from there.”
Yep. You are.
But he’s getting paid either way, by the plant or you.
You also enrich the killbuyer and the dealer when you buy the horses he needs to unload at a sale or auction. 80% of all low end auctions here on the east coast are just dealers, kill buyers and Amish swapping inventory. You’re enriching them when you buy at a sale because they would not be selling if it wasn’t for a profit.
And they are not just selling there, they’re buying too. One more horse gets bought for every one you buy.
The logic goes both ways from kill pen to auction.
Auctions have no special “cleanliness” over kill pens. You’re still paying the “enemy” MOST of the time. Did you know the auction houses collect a 7-20% premium on every horse sold?
Guess what? You just paid TWO guys for the cost of your horse. And it’s likely that horse already ran through other auctions so there’s a long line of people making profits off the back of this poor horse.
Back to the carrot farmer analogy— you are paying more than just the cost of his carrots to grow and an additional small profit.
There’s a middle man, the grocery store, who marks up your carrots to provide them conveniently alongside other produce — they make a profit for gathering up all the vegetables and offering you a smorgasbord of green leafy deliciousness. Heck they might offer you multiple brands of carrots…
But all in all, they are nothing more than a middle man. Just like an auction. Or a kill buyer.
In our America capitalist society, this is just how consumerism works. Horses are no different.
People who are angry at kill buyers better never find out about car dealerships.
Or relators. 😂
My point is that somebody always gets paid. Even in owner surrenders— sometimes rescues pay a flat fee, sometimes just getting the horse off the feed bill is relief. Unless it’s an animal control seizure, somebody is probably getting paid.
Being mad about that and attacking other rescues doesn’t make you a winner— just makes a bunch of losers (including you).
Who else loses?
The horses.
If rescues don’t stop arguing about what is the best and most ethical way to save horses— horse slaughter and horse abuse is going to rise again.
I’m watching organizations literally throw smear campaigns against each other. We’ve been the victim of quite a few too.
But we’ve never been the host, and of that, I’m proud.
I specifically look for organizations focused on horses only. I geniunely don’t care where their horses come from, but I do care how they treat them and how their quarantine, rehabilitation and training to adoption processes are.
That is what truly keeps a horse out of the pipeline forever.
Every horse in America is one bad home away from entering the pipeline.
It’s the stewards protecting them all along the way that will save them.
To me, that’s what matters.
It’s brutal out here. Rescues are losing it and going absolutely feral on one another.
Accusing each other of crimes, holding chickens hostage for videos to mock other organizations (aren’t we supposed to be FOR the fair and humane treatment of animals, should they really be props for your drama?), and attempting to destroy them to make way for their own organizations.
It stopped being about the horses a long time ago.
And it’s just started to become about ego now.
It’s a virtual hunger games for horse rescues.
And the horses lose every. single. time.
Aren’t you tired of reading and making internet drama? Doesn’t everyone want to go back to reading heartwarming stories and feeling the warm fuzzies as we help animal after animal leave this terrible industry behind and find forever homes?
Shouldn’t we be working together for horses in danger RIGHT now?
No?
Just me?
I’m not telling you how to feel or what to believe. I’m just giving you the facts.
Horses don’t know who owns them.
They don’t know if they are in the slaughter pipeline or just at a low end auction with no real threat of shipping…
But they do know their leg hurts. Their belly is empty and grumbling. They need medical care, a warm meal and a safe place to sleep.
And then eventually they need a compassionate ending — a forever home, a sanctuary or a loving hand as they are eased from this world.
Colby’s Crews focus will remain on providing that to horses all around the country, regardless of how they were acquired.
And to me, that’s real rescue.
It’s up to you, dear reader, to decide if you agree or not.
-O
