Maddy Butcher, author of “Beasts of Being: Partnerships Unburdened” and director of The Best Horse Practice Summit, wrote an opinion column that equine enthusiasts will appreciate. She also shares the realities of owning all kinds of animals. She wishes people with strong feelings about horse slaughter understood farm animals’ lives better, from birth to death.
With no horse slaughter in the U.S. since 2007, Butcher points out the absoluteness that some horse owners sell to “kill buyers” who export horses to both sides of our borders resulting in grueling rides and often inhumane slaughter practices. More than 23,000 horses met this fate in 2021. Unwanted horses not sold can face abandonment, neglect and starvation, cruel substitutes for a domestic slaughterhouse death.
Source: The Washington Post, April 11, 2023. Link. The death-is-just-plain-bad perspective fails animals everywhere. It not only ignores biological realities (and dismisses a possible protein source) but also shrugs at the richness of life when people and animals exist together, work together.”
I have lost horses, ducks, dogs and chickens. I grieve less when their bodies can feed other animals, such as eagles and coyotes. But even when they simply nurture the soil, out of death comes more life.” – Maddy Butcher