What Sound Does a Lemming Make?

Sometimes you encounter levels of stupidity so high you just don’t know where to start.  However, it seems so important to correct the misinformation being put out there by the mouthpieces of these broker owned programs so that intelligent human beings who seek the truth will find it.

Over the last few days we’ve watched some of these women (who apparently have nothing else to do with their days except endlessly post their uneducated assumptions) really step up to the misinformation cliff and lead their lemmings over the edge.

While the Broker Owned Programs are constantly vying for each other’s supporter’s dollars by coming up with a better sad story than the last, the jackpot just may have been achieved in emotional blackmail by portraying horses loading onto trucks and proclaiming them lost to slaughter.  We got to see the sad pictures of several who were “shipped” a few weeks ago, and last week the tale was told of four more being “loaded” despite promises of cash and it was even alleged that Brian Moore tried to get them off the truck after he’d sent them on their way.  Yes, and unicorns fly.

It’s been said before, but these brokers like Rotz and Moore have many outlets for their horses.  Gail Christman, of Venture Farms in Germansville is just one of the places Moore shuffles horses to:

http://www.horsetopia.com/for-sale/horsefarm.cfm/farm16891.html

Remember Steppins High Beauty?  She was being sold by both a BO program and Venture Farms at the same time.  And it’s not the first time we’ve heard that story, is it?

The also load them onto trucks and take them to other auctions.  The horses being purchased for these programs are largely unsuitable for slaughter.  As we’ve stated numerous times in the past, these purported rescues have simply created a whole new market for the brokers with horses they would not have bought to ship to slaughter.  The broker gets his cut, the “rescuer” gets hers and the money clips get a little thicker.  Many people are catching on to this ruse, so they’ve now developed this latest emotional blackmail of  showing horses getting on trucks and assuring everyone they’ve died a horrible death because they were unable to collect enough cash.

Where does this leave the legitimate rescues, with vetted and evaluated horses?  Sigh.  They simply cannot compete with this kind of heart wrenching drama.

Of course a number of enlightened human beings saw through the ruse and called these lovely ladies on it.  That caused a tantrum among the mouthpieces that has been going on for days.  We are going to show you a few of their comments and correct the fallacies they are spreading.   There is either a total lack of education or else a carefully orchestrated attempt at continuing to keep the blind donors, well, blind.

Fallacy #1: Fallacy #1: This statement was made in response to Brian’s alleged request to get horses off a truck he had already shipped:

                Horses are not released once they enter the slaughter house. Consider the basic fact that the horses are received in a sealed truck at the Canada border. Consider the fact that the horses do not need health certificates.  They are only shipped with coggins.

We can have a field day with this one.  Horses do NOT ship with Coggins.  They do ship with several pieces of paperwork.  The VS 10-13 is the manifest that shows all the horses on a load.  Each horse also has to have an EID form (http://www.kistlivestockauction.com/horse_eid/Canada_Horse_EID_Form.pdf).

Before being loaded on a truck, each and every horse is inspected by an independent veterinarian.  The, a second veterinarian inspects the load, one who is certified and compensated by the USDA.  NO COGGINS REQUIRED.  Both vets are required to sign off on the horses, assuring they "certify" the horses are physically able to be shipped to slaughter.

The truck is not "sealed."  The horses are off loaded and inspected at the border.  Some are rejected and end up on other farms and holding areas.

Fallacy #2: The next two equine experts stepped up and said:

                Not to long ago I heard a wild tale of two TB's that supposedly made it off the Canadian slaughter house floor. I knew it was BS as did most people. I think it was just another sham to scam money and make a name.

That would be cafe cactus and canuki?

Cactus Café and Canuki were very much rescued from Richelieu.  Here is just one of many articles on the pair:

http://www.drf.com/news/banned-trainer-pleads-his-case-anti-slaughter-policy

Their trainer, Mark Wedig, is who consigned them to slaughter:

In an Aug. 21 interview, Wedig said he never intended to sell the pair to slaughter and that he was unaware that Bauer, to whom he sold the horses, was a well-known agent for the Richelieu plant.
 

After horse welfare advocates raised the alarm about the horses’ whereabouts and the search began to generate publicity, Wedig started getting calls from horse advocates. He said he called Bauer, who told him Canuki and Cactus Cafe had shipped to Canada.

“I contacted the firm up there to purchase them back,” Wedig said. “It’s never been done, and it’s extremely hard.”

Wedig said he “can’t reveal” specifically what he did to retrieve the horses and said that when Bauer gave him Richelieu’s phone number, “at that time I didn’t know what it was.” Wedig said Richelieu was “very accommodating,” and he drove his trailer to Quebec to pick the horses up from a holding pen. 

The really sad part of the endless blathering of these mouthpieces is that some of the lemmings continue to follow them and their misinformation over the cliff.  None of them live in close proximity to the rescue they so ardently defend.  None of them have ever picked up a brush and helped care for the poor horses trapped on that barren dry lot.  The laugh disrespectfully about the FBI and joke about “calling Charlene.”  

Not one of them commented when Jennifer gave birth to a dead foal.  Any tears for her dead baby?  Any shock that Snuffy ran loose mounting mares for months before being gelded?

No tears, no remorse, no shock, just uneducated drama queens looking for the next person to blame their troubles on.  They’ve certainly secured their place on the Karma Bus.  It’s going to be delightful to see their reactions when it arrives.

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For the horses killed this week our hearts are heavy.  RIP dear souls. 

The Shipping Details of Brian Moore, Horse Kill Buyer

Here is the long promised analysis of the shipping paperwork of Brian Moore, kill buyer and horse dealer from Jonestown, Pennsylvania.  While the most recent information was requested, it is difficult to be sure of some of the shipping dates as Moore seems to submit paperwork that isn’t dated, by and large, and apparently the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is unbothered by that detail.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B1L4NjWCxTJ3RmRraG9QazlWbFk/edit

(you’ll need to download it and it’s a large file)

The sobering note is, that these 790 pages of paperwork document the slaughterhouse deaths of 7,140 equines.

Rest in peace.

Of those 7,100 plus horses, only 18 were documented as ponies.

38 were gray horses.  That translates into 1% of the horses Moore ships.

153 were documented as drafts, which is 2% of his shipping numbers.

The number of Thoroughbreds he’s shipping is significant.  He listed 800.  That amounts to 11% of what he ships.

Most folks know Moore and other local kill buyers have their direct to kill pens – the horses that come off that backside and never get run through auctions.  And Moore’s farm is in very close proximity to Penn National.  Of course not all of those TBs came directly off the track, but considering Penn Gaming’s zero tolerance policy, makes you wonder how many did, doesn’t it?

A few other things of note.  We’ve all heard dozens of times that once the horses are tagged and on the manifest, they cannot be pulled off.  In this particular case there are numerous cases where a horse is listed, then a line is put through the listing and it says “not on the load.”  Take a look at pages 476, 505, 546, 629, 638, 709, 713 – and there are others.

On page 534 they slipped in a page from Leroy Baker.  Note he shipped a mustang, and four horses listed on his load didn’t get shipped.

Now it’s possible these horses were rejected at the border, but it certainly belies the assertion that they are absolutely gone once tagged, or written up – you know the mantra.  We can’t be sure why those horses were removed from the load.

So repeat after me --- Brian Moore doesn’t ship ponies to slaughter, especially minis, week after week after week as the broker owned programs are telling you.  And he rarely ships gray horses – one in one hundred.  Very few drafts are shipped by him – two out of a hundred.

What he does like is the big, healthy, beefy quarter horses.  And lots of horses listed in the “other” category, which is likely a lot of Standardbreds and Paints, breeds of good flesh and less bone.  The horses you never see on the broker owned pages.  Consigned to their deaths without a chance because they are healthy and will yield lots of good meat.

Lots of thoughts swirl through your head after looking over the documentation.   But horse dealers are horse dealers, right?  Some folks call them unwanted horses, but for these dealers they are very much wanted, and will make good use of them, dead or alive.

Explaining Just How "The Truck is Coming!"

First we need to thank the individuals employed by the USDA who took the time to walk us through the process and answer our questions. We will talk with them again and they remain concerned, as do other federal agencies, about the potential for abuse of the shipping system by all individuals contributing to it.

This information was readily found on the USDA-APHIS website concerning shipping of horses to slaughter by Brian Moore in 2010:

http://www.aphis.usda.gov/foia/foia_requests//2011/Veterinary%20Services%20%28VS%29/11-020%20-%20Owner%20Shipper%20Papers%20for%20Horses%20Shipped%20to%20Slaughter%20by%20or%20for%20Brian%20Moore/11-020%20Records.pdf

Accessing the above link will show you the two forms we refer to below, the VS 17 140 and the VS 10 13.

Almost without change it is 30 head of horses being shipped.  Only on 4/22 were 21 horses shipped.

No grays or ponies shipped to slaughter according to these federal forms.  Few horses over the age of 18 are documented.

The data is from 1/11/2010 through 8/2/2010.  38 loads are documented.

Of the 1131 horses documented, 31 were stallions.  That equates to 3%.

On 3/8, of the 30 horses nearly all of them were listed as bays, and most were mares (22).  There were also 7 geldings and one stallion.  Race horses, perhaps?

According to the USDA, the way the process works is the kill buyer acquires horses for meat and creates a load.  Then a USDA Accredited Veterinarian examines the load and signs off on the VS 17 140 form.  The vet must go through an accreditation process which is renewed every three years and involves continuing education credits.  The USDA Accredited Vet is not compensated by the USDA.  One would logically assume however, that a veterinarian would not go through this process unless he/she was getting paid, so we’ll figure the kill buyer is charged for this inspection.

After the VS 17 140 is issued and signed by the accredited vet – in this case Dr. James Holt for all 38 loads – the original form must be inspected by a USDA compensated AVIC veterinarian.  Again, according to one of our contacts at the USDA there is an AVIC area office in nearly every state.  There is one located in the capital city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania which is approximately 45 minutes from New Holland or Jonestown, where Moore’s farm is located.  Note the original form must be stamped and signed, so it cannot be faxed or emailed.

There are field vets for the USDA, as was explained to us, that often sign off on and stamp the VS 17 140 form in order for the kill buyer to have their documentation in place to ship the load of horses to slaughter without visiting an AVIC office.  The kill buyers have 30 days from the endorsement date to ship the horses.

We were also told by the USDA that a “contract” between a slaughter house and kill buyer can be as simple as a handshake or may actually exist as a formal contract.  One individual told us he spent years at the Cavel plant in Illinois supervising the off loading of slaughter horses.  He inspected 800-1500 horses per week, and only ever saw one mini come through.  The mini was rejected and not slaughtered. 

In every example shown Dr. Holt issues the 17 140 one day and the USDA Vet stamps and signs the form the following day.  This belies the story that horses loaded Monday night at New Holland are shipped overnight to Canada, at least during the time period that these documents were issued.

Keep in mind the kill buyer fills out the form VS 10-13 which includes the USFA hip tag number.  You often see horses in the broker programs with these tags on them.  This is not a sure indication that the horse is going to ship to slaughter.  The horse may have been tagged but rejected by one of the veterinarians and the tag simply wasn’t removed.  Additionally, if horses are bought at auction in NY or another state, tagged and brought back to PA as meat horses, the buyer eludes having to get a negative coggins test on those horses, saving him a significant amount of money.  Lastly, those USDA hip tags might just be used as a marketing ploy.

We are fortunate to have the Freedom Of Information Act to request information like this.  If the same information is requested by more than one individual it is required to be placed on the federal agency’s website: “The FOIA also requires that agencies automatically disclose certain information, including frequently requested records.”  Clearly that is what occurred with this request, since it was found on the APHIS website. 

We are also thankful that the FBI, USDA and PSP (Pennsylvania State Police) are monitoring this ongoing situation with brokers and broker programs.  Government cannot legislate a moral compass, but they can regulate and enforce laws being broken by those dancing too close too the edge.

We will leave you with the faces of those that were lost; the ones that could not be saved.  Most of these pictures come from Washington State and Montana.  Heartwrenching, as you note how fat and healthy they are.  Rest in Peace, Dear Ones.  May you not have died in vain.

More Horses That Were Very Likely Not Going to Ship To Slaughter

Stallions are an issue.  According to APHIS they need to be treated differently:

• Separate stallions and other aggressive horses from the rest of the shipment.

(  http://www.aphis.usda.gov/animal_health/animal_dis_spec/horses/horse_transport.shtml )

Factor in the fact that he's only 15 hands and quite thin as well, and you've got a prime candidate for a broker program.  Grimly, if butchered this horse would not yield a lot of meat.  Sorry, but that's the painful, brutal reality.

Then there's this tiny, skinny mini.  Pulled from the kill pen, not.  But the dealer was smart enough to buy her knowing someone would buy the story.

We're happy these horses are out of the auction pipeline (at least for now) but come on, rescue horses that are really in danger of shipping, please!

Miniature Horses Rescued From Kill Buyers. Seriously?

In a recent interview with a USDA-APHIS office, we had the opportunity to speak with an employee who was on site at the DeKalb, Illinois horse slaughter house.  He assured us that in all his years of overseeing the horses delivered to the slaughter plant, he only witnessed one mini brought in for slaughter, and noted it was turned away as unfit for killing.

He went on to explain that it is an arduous task to butcher an animal, be it “horse or cow.”  That’s not difficult to understand.  He went on to say that it simply isn’t feasible to butcher minis; there would be no profit in it.

(Stay tuned for a full write-up on the interviews with the APHIS employees.  It will be quite educational!  We are following up with local USDA offices for additional information that pertains to New Holland area kill buyers and their activities.  As soon as we have all the research we will share.)

Minis are cute and the babies are so adorable.  But when these folks tell you they are rescuing them from the kill buyers, they are sadly twisting the truth.  If a kill buyer was truly bidding on these minis, it was so he and his partners could profit off of them through their own broker owned program.

Note the comment:

"Kill buyers are businessmen, ladies"

Yep, they sure are and they recognize there's a sucker born every second.