The Glut of Horses

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An explanation: I wrote this last Friday and redid it several times. It’s still not like I want. I tried a Clift Notes version and it didn’t look right. So this post is a bit wordy and unwieldy. So, I had my choice…the Clift Notes version or wordy/unwieldy. I went with wordy/unwieldy.

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I didn’t think of this till after I had finished the post about free/abandoned horses, so here goes.
First off, I think/know that AI is almost ruinous to most breeds that allow it that I can think of. Ok, so you can afford a stud fee to Mr. Latestgreateststud. Through the miraculous use of AI, bunches of his good get hit the ground. That’s great, you say?? Welp, you have a fab colt by a fab stud but, then again, so does the guy down the highway. Pretty soon, you have a bunch of great colts by a great stud and then the great becomes the ‘norm’.

Just say you’re into cutting. You go to a show and compete against the other get. Even though they are all great horses, you’re in the middle of the pack because they are all great horses. Okay, there’s the first problem.

Next, you have stud owners who know a good thing when they see it and need to make money from their studs. It does cost lots of money to stand a stud, advertise him, keep the place up to attract the quality mares, horse shows of some sort, pay the vet, etc. So they will collect the stud and then sell up to 25 ‘breedings’ from that one collection. I’m not up on AI anymore but that’s how I remember it. So, you might have $5,000 a whack (no pun intended) times 25 ‘breedings’ from one collection. I’ve known of studs being collected twice a day during breeding season! That’s a lot of money!

Then you have Joe Blow who has his backyard stud that hasn’t ever done a plugged thing but the neighbors think a newborn colt is ‘so cute’! Or better yet, he's a pretty color/pattern. So Joe breeds his stud to anything that is receptive, equine-wise. Add to this, Joe’s wife has her own stud. Then the neighbors get their studs and on it goes. An offshoot of this is the sub-standard fencing that won’t hold Mr. Stud. You know, the one who has a propensity to go midnite visiting other people’s mares?? Yep, that’s the one.

So, after years and decades of this building, you have lots of horses and horse prices falling. We Americans have a big time aversion to eating horse meat. I sure do although I think I ate some in Mexico once… Anyway, the kill plants were going big time and it was kind of ‘eating’ up the excess horses. Then some horse people started feeling antsy about the kill plants and had them shut down. So, then horses are sent over the border for slaughter.

That sure didn’t help the excess horse population, now did it? I have to say I’m for the slaughter of horses in the US. As long as it’s humane and quick, clean death, then I’m for it. I’ve been in the kill chambers of one kill plant (I accidentally walked through the wrong door after paying for some orphan foals whose dams were killed that morning) and after the initial shock, I realized that it was clean and there were/wasn’t any scared-ness of the horses waiting in line.

WARNING: Extremely graphic!! http://www.hsus.org/pets/pets_related_news_and_events/grisly_end_for_horses.html

Just contrast that with the Humane Society undercover vid taken in a Mexican kill plant where the horses were scared witless and then STABBED to death, I’ll take the American ones, thank you. I have never been able to get to the end of the vid. I had to watch with my hands over my eyes and peeking through my fingers, so bad it was.

The latest that I hear is that some plants may open on some Indian res’s, can’t think which ones. I’m thinking up in the Dakotas…??? I just read an article not too long ago but not sure of which res. The res’s are sovreign nations unto themselves and so they can open them. I’m all for it as long as the horses are dispatched quickly and aren’t left too long in the pens. I would want to make sure the horses are well fed before the final deed. Since it is a res, I’m not sure how the inspectors would handle this so will have to watch and keep my ears open. (I couldn't find a video or article to link to. I heard about it through one of my horse boards.)

It’s going to take a while for the glut to disappear. Overbreeding will have to stop on its own and the kill plants may take up quite a bit of the rest. Add in natural or accidental deaths/illnesses and hopefully in a few years, the horse business will start to come back. Already I’m kind of seeing prices come up in parts of the country.

As a quick note…it seems to me that the $30,000 horse is holding its value, as long as it’s trained for something big money…so, there’s a clue right there! Breed for the best always!