I am happy a horse was taken from the hands of the kill buyer. I hope that horse goes to a responsible home and lives the rest of his or her life on a beautiful farm with loving owners.
Sadly, a big price was paid to save this horse’s life, several other horses died…
You see, all the kind and generous people who sent in small and large donations to save this horse had the best of intentions. But the money you sent in went to a kill buyer. And the donations you made probably equaled 3 times what he paid for that horse. And he smiled, laughed even, at the stupid people who had just lined his pockets with cash. And he turned around and bought several fat, healthy horses – the kind the slaughter plants want and will pay him the best money for – and those horses will get on a packed truck tomorrow, travel for hours without food or water, potentially be injured in route by the other terrified horses, and see their own demise coming as they walk up the chute to the kill box, reeking of blood, urine and fear.
I’m sure, that as you paypaled your donations and wrote your checks, you never intended to assist in the killing of horses. You wanted to be an angel to a horse in need. You never saw the faces of the horses that died because of your donations.
The “rescues” that facilitate this process have blood on their hands.
What then is the answer, the well intentioned angels ask? Stop supporting rescues that are in business with kill buyers. Intervene for the horses before they get bought by the men who make a living off of shipping horses to their grim and inhumane deaths. There are truckloads of horses for free on craigslist. Go to the auction and bid against the kill buyer. Take owner surrenders. There are many great rescues out that that never line a kill buyer’s pockets yet save so many deserving horses.
And truthfully, many if not all of the horses that these “rescues” are listing for the broker can’t ship for one reason or another – health issues, lameness, open wounds, paperwork indicating a drug history. But the kill buyers have now found an outlet for these horses – horses they would not have bought in the past – but they now know that some unscrupulous rescues will market these horses for them, and they both end up with cash in their pockets.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I hope you will think long and hard before you send another dime to a “rescue” who markets kill buyers horses. I hope you will see the faces of the horses you are going to help die if you send that money. Think about it…think about the faceless, voiceless, dying horses.
Sadly, a big price was paid to save this horse’s life, several other horses died…
You see, all the kind and generous people who sent in small and large donations to save this horse had the best of intentions. But the money you sent in went to a kill buyer. And the donations you made probably equaled 3 times what he paid for that horse. And he smiled, laughed even, at the stupid people who had just lined his pockets with cash. And he turned around and bought several fat, healthy horses – the kind the slaughter plants want and will pay him the best money for – and those horses will get on a packed truck tomorrow, travel for hours without food or water, potentially be injured in route by the other terrified horses, and see their own demise coming as they walk up the chute to the kill box, reeking of blood, urine and fear.
I’m sure, that as you paypaled your donations and wrote your checks, you never intended to assist in the killing of horses. You wanted to be an angel to a horse in need. You never saw the faces of the horses that died because of your donations.
The “rescues” that facilitate this process have blood on their hands.
What then is the answer, the well intentioned angels ask? Stop supporting rescues that are in business with kill buyers. Intervene for the horses before they get bought by the men who make a living off of shipping horses to their grim and inhumane deaths. There are truckloads of horses for free on craigslist. Go to the auction and bid against the kill buyer. Take owner surrenders. There are many great rescues out that that never line a kill buyer’s pockets yet save so many deserving horses.
And truthfully, many if not all of the horses that these “rescues” are listing for the broker can’t ship for one reason or another – health issues, lameness, open wounds, paperwork indicating a drug history. But the kill buyers have now found an outlet for these horses – horses they would not have bought in the past – but they now know that some unscrupulous rescues will market these horses for them, and they both end up with cash in their pockets.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. I hope you will think long and hard before you send another dime to a “rescue” who markets kill buyers horses. I hope you will see the faces of the horses you are going to help die if you send that money. Think about it…think about the faceless, voiceless, dying horses.
Thanks for posting..be sure to visit me also. Seems we have a lot in common. :)
ReplyDeleteWill do, Tornado! Thanks for stopping by.
Deleteit's sad but true
DeleteYou two do have a lot in common and I'm glad I found you. This is a topic so many anti-slaughter people don't know anything about. And they NEED to know so they can stop supporting these - words fail me - "people" who pretend to think "slaughter" and "euthanasia" are the same thing.
ReplyDeleteIt's SO hard to get the word out about this or the other facts about this so-called "business" of slaughtering our horses. I and my horses lived 30 miles from the infamous Kaufman, TX slaughter plant, Dallas Crown, for 15 nightmarish years. But, do they listen to me - no, they don't.
thank you. I feel the same way- and AG4H's is the worst offendr , setting BAIL and RANSOME and tugging at heart strings, selling horses for 100% to 700% over what they went for.
DeleteAC4H has been known to buy horses then later call the former owners and blackmail them into buying them back at a massive markup plus shipping or they will report them to a bunch of agencies for selling to a kill buyers (them) and get them blackslisted from organizations. That is unethical and extremely messed up.
DeleteAlso consider humanely euthanizing your horse if you take to auction, better than the trip to the slaughter house,
ReplyDeleteDo you have names for these broker programs so that people can avoid supporting them?
DeleteWe have a list started. Another Chance 4 Horses, Omega Rescue, End of the Line (all from PA), Sundew Saves (NJ) and Starlight Sanctuary in Nevada.
DeleteWhere can i get the complete (as of this date) list? Are there any in GA? Also, how can sue q. public tell if a rescue is broker owned (is there a specific thing)? I ask so people can avoid them.
DeleteTypically, if a rescue is marketing horses for a broker they will say so, and often say “the truck is coming” or that the horses don’t have much time, they are owned by a kill buyer. Here is the list to date:
DeleteAnother Chance 4 Horses (PA), Omega Horse Rescue (PA), End of The Line (PA), Sundew Saves (NJ), Starlight Sanctuary (NV), and Rebels Equine Feedlot Sales.
And there is Patron Farms, LLC, who covers it all. They not only sell to slaughter, but also market some of their own horses. Ron Andio and his wife run the operation, cutting out some of the middlemen, although End Of The Line also markets their horses.
Naturally these horses are marked well above market price, so both broker and rescue or placement group profits. Pretty sad, eh?
Auctions don't have to be a death trap for horses with responsible owners. Horses sent to auction have a much better chance of being rehomed if their owner furnishes a behavioral history and, most important, actually works the horse in the ring. Otherwise, some yahoo will climb aboard, start yanking the reins and your horse will freak out or totally balk. And so it's off to the kill buyers for Old Paint. Another thing owners can do is to "No Sale" their horse if they see a killer has won the bidding or if the price does not go up above what killers usually pay. You might have to return home with your horse, but your conscience will be clear. And ALWAYS put a halter on your auction horse. Otherwise it will likely be run through loose, as "green," and that's a guarantee of a trip to Canada.
ReplyDeleteI agree with some of your points but not all of them. Auctions don’t have to be a death trap, but they are a disease trap and if you take your horse there and then return home with him you need to QT for 30 days. Far better to sell your horse privately and send it to a new owner with a contract that gives you first rights of refusal should that new owner not work out. But really, if they want to sell your horse he can be dead and gone before you ever even realize the contract has been violated.
Deleteexactly, that has happened to me twice that I am aware of. and I had no recourse, I am NOT rich, and yes I might win in court but for what? The horse is gone.
Deletea lot of these programs i know are not rescues and do not consider themselves rescues at all. they post pics of these horses that are in the hands of kill buyers (and they 100% are) so people can take 'em or leave 'em before they go to slaughter. maybe you are providing money to the kill buyer. maybe not. but i would much rather intervene than watch a skinny old horse take another trip to some unknown, scary place. this article only tells some truths. still something to keep in mind, of course. also, this article insinuates rescuing one horse is killing a handful of other horses. so technically you can say that about any legitimate rescue. ohhhh, i rescued from this wonderful established rescue group - but i could have rescued from an auction but i didn't, so those horses went to slaughter. basically, doing a good deed....rescuing any horse from anywhere is ok... the bottom line is.... slaughter needs to be banned. horse slaughter needs to be banned completely. top to bottom.
DeleteRight on Boochaces!
DeleteSIMILAR happened in the Bichon Frise Rescue world. Puppymillers found out rescuers (albeit with good intentions) were buying up auction bichons, so the puppymillers started breeding MORE & MORE litters just to SELL to these same rescuers at prices MUCH MUCH higher than the puppymillers normally got. The puppymillers were THRILLED at the ignorance of those rescuers. Talk about counter-productive to lowering the breeding stress on caged dogs!!
ReplyDeleteexcellent!
ReplyDeleteDon't forget the one in Washington State. They do the same thingvtge others listed. As bad as AC$H
ReplyDeleteThe PMU horse breeders in Canada did the same thing. Vast tracks of land to turn horses out on, so they were selling/producing for three markets: PMU urine, PMU foals to the USA and PMU foal to Japan. Nice foals get shipped to the USA -for people against the industry (who pay enough to make breeding profitable) and crap foals get put on cargo ships to Japan to meat. Both markets make the PMU horse industry MORE profitable. Not until studies shut down the use of the hormone, did the practice stop. Suckers in the USA were causing the PMU lines to be MORE profitable, not less -with more mares in the field being bred because people in the USA pay for foals out of a sense of charity.
ReplyDeleteThe PMU industry is very much alive and well, although they appear to be raising most of their horses in India and China, and other countries where people are less likely to all the out.
DeleteStarlight Sanctuary is personally friends with the KB. Check out their lastest policy on charging daily board at the feedlot once rescued. It's a joke.
ReplyDeleteWatch out for Rebels Equine Sales also know as (formerly) CBER, now know as Thunder Mountain out of Yakima Valley, Washington. On facebook they also operate as Zillah Network & Another Sunrise Equine Fundraising. It is all the same group of women. The head Is Samantha Milbrent who works with Chuck Walker (kill buyer) who operates the livestock yard there under the name Gary Seals livestock. Gary is deceased. When you go threw Samantha directly or threw Zillah & Another Sunrise, even though you are buying from Chuck Walker directly (who owns the horses) you will be told that Thunder Mountain has ownership and you have to sign a contract. You are buying from Chuck NOT Sam, Zillah, Thunder, or anyone else. Took us to the cleaners last year on a horse. Please beware.. We lost a total of amost $1500.00 and ended up giving the horse away to a good new home....
ReplyDeleteNo Sheri, My Name is Helen Love and I own the Rebels. I started it and I pay for all the running costs. We are a free listing service, based on the Craigs list system. Samantha lists the feedlot horses with us and serves as liaison because Chuck Walker will not deal with the public.She has never had any Admin position with the Rebels and doesn't want any :) We are not a Rescue and this is the first thing you will see on all of our headers.We never see the money and, unless we are buying one of the horses for ourselves as individuals, we never see the horses. As advertisers we Network with a lot of other groups...Thunder Mountain is a Registered 501, so if you adopted a horse through them you were dealing with thier policies, not ours.We just advertise for straight sales. If you buy a horse through one of our ads, you are supposed to go to the lot, look at the horse and if you like it you pay for it and take it home. If Thunder Mountain fund raises for the horse or you adopt one of thier horses through them, you are expected to sign an adoption contract ,completely different groups, different 'ownership', totally different systems. And the Zillah group posts horses from a lot of different sources including the Rebels ads...And FYI, in case anyone is interested, with the exception of an occasional 'bird dog' situation, Chuck Walker does not buy horses from the auctions. He pays more per horse than people could expect to get from the auction so they sell directly to him. I completely agree with the concept of buying from Craigs List or the Auctions. But there are other groups who are equally set against buying from the auctions because they are the biggest suppliers of horses to the usual KB's -and they feel that putting money in the pockets of the suppliers is just as bad as putting it in the pockets of the KB's- And still others are trying to bully Craigs List into stopping all advertisement of Live Animals, including horses because they could end up in bad situations.We all have our own opinions on how we can best help these horses. But, in the end the only way to stop the horror is to stop it, get our Bills passed and make the whole thing illegal..IMO.
DeleteI am so new to this and I am soooo confused--I'm sure that I'm not the only one.
ReplyDeleteOkay. . . So I started watching some of these rescues in the hope that one day I will be able to give an unwanted horse a good home. Now I am lost. How do I know if the rescue I'm looking at is legit? Omega Horse Rescue was listed in a comment above as a "marketer for kill buyers," but if you "adopt" a horse from them, you don't own it. They retain ownership so they can take it back if you can't (or don't) care for it properly anymore. Is that just part of their "scheme" to control the "sale" of these horses?
ReplyDeleteImportant to stress- the ALTERNATIVE way to help at-risk equines is to help as many of the tens of thousands of at-risk equines as you want to by adopting horses waiting for you in rescues INSTEAD of helping the kill buyer-brokers make big profits on the horses they've picked up. Or, help someone out who's trying to find their horses a new home before giving up and selling them to the kill buyers. The sad reality is that horses will die every day until the borders close, and horses will continue to be neglected and suffer until breeding is decreased until there is again a balance between supply and demand. Rescue owners won't try to manipulate your emotions by threatening that the horses in their care are about to be hauled off and slaughtered, but it's much more noble to help a real rescue help horses. Besides- that helps two horses- the one you're taking home, and the one that gets to replace it at the rescue. If more horses were moved through rescues- rather than rescues having to care for the same horses year after year, many many more horses' lives would be saved from the hands of kill buyers. Please- help the LEGITIMATE saviors of horses, not the people who see the equine crisis as an opportunity to profit from the big hearts of caring, yet naive horse lovers.
ReplyDeleteGreat comment!
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