• If you are having problems logging in please use the Contact Us in the lower right hand corner of the forum page for assistance.

Ranchers.net

Kentucky swamped with unwanted horses
17.mar.07
Associated Press
Jeffrey McMurray
STAFFORDSVILLE, KY -- Kentucky, the horse capital of the world, famous for its sleek thoroughbreds, is, according to this story, being overrun with thousands of horses no one wants - some of them perfectly healthy, but many of them starving, broken-down nags.
Other parts of the country are overwhelmed, too.
The reason: growing opposition in the U.S. to the slaughter of horses for human consumption overseas.
The story says that with new laws making it difficult to send horses off to the slaughterhouse when they are no longer suitable for racing or work, auction houses are glutted with horses they can barely sell, and rescue organizations have run out of room.
Some owners who cannot get rid of their horses are letting them starve; others are turning them loose in the countryside.
Some people who live near the strip mines in the mountains of impoverished eastern Kentucky say that while horses have long been left to roam free there, the number now may be in the thousands, and they are seeing herds three times bigger than they did just five years ago.
Anti-slaughter groups were cited as insisting that eventually, the market will sort itself out, and owners will breed their horses less often, meaning fewer unwanted horses.
Top