Where do the horses that are slaughtered come from?
Most are bought at auctions. Some are bought from newspaper ads, others from horse thieves. Rustlers didn’t disappear with the Wild West. Stolen Horse International estimates 40-50 thousand horses are rustled in the United States each year. Many are believed to be quickly hauled to slaughter, making rustling impossible to prove. After California outlawed transportation of horses to killhouses in 1998, reports of thefts dropped by almost 40 percent. BACK TO TOP Aren’t the horses that are sent to slaughter old and at the end of their useful life? No. The killer-buyers want only one thing: horse meat to be sliced into steaks or air-dried like ham, and eaten. They want young, healthy horses. A U.S. Department of Agriculture report says up to 95 percent of horses slaughtered for meat are in good to excellent condition. Don’t believe the propaganda of the friends of slaughterhouses. Assuming a horse is at the end of its “useful life,” it’s difficult to imagine an owner shoving an old and sic
