Personal Opinion -

- here’s what I think……..
We have all heard the horror stories of the disastrous horse market. The anti-slaughter groups would have us blame this free fall on the economy, overproduction, irresponsible owners, and management, anything other than their efforts. Here is my personal take on the subject, based on many years of buying and selling mid-priced horses and participation in other forms of livestock production. “Mid-priced” is defined as horses the average person can afford to buy to show, ranch on, trail ride on, or resell to another more finished market or demographic.
According to the anti-slaughter/anti-culling side of this complex market problem, the economy and irresponsible breeders/owners are responsible for the unwanted horse problem. Near as I can tell, “irresponsible” is anyone who disagrees with them. The economy is a big part of the problem, horse market being only one component.
The production of all livestock is cyclical in nature. There are times of good prices. Breeding stock is retained to increase production, theoretically producing more profit. More breeding stock being retained means more animals produced in the next generation. Unless demand increases at a faster pace than production, prices will fall. When prices fall below the price of production and remain there for any length of time, liquidation begins. The liquidation adjusts the supply to the demand, prices come up, and the cycle resumes.
Horses have more variables in the market place than other species, but they are still subject to the same cycles. Their upper-end value and demand are controlled by economic status, popular trend, their talent, training, disposition, and even color. One might say the sky’s the limit on the up side. One trader was fond of saying, “good steer’s only worth so much a pound, a good colt’s worth whatever you make him.” He’s been dead for years, but that saying is still true. The low-end or “salvage” value always has been, and still is, the butcher horse price.
A common argument to refute the effect of scale price, or lack of it, on the horse market is how slaughter numbers have been dropping for many years, with horse prices being unaffected until recently. Therefore, the economy is to blame, not the lack of slaughter base price. Yes and no. Despite the lower slaughter numbers, the price per pound still remained rather steady, due in part to those lower numbers. The lower numbers killed in the 90’s were mostly due to horses being bid above the scale by a demand other than “lunch.” Demand has lessened, the expense of shipping horses has increased, and breeders are scaling back, as they would have either way.
Side note to the anti-slaughter side here: I’m going to strike you a deal. I will refer to the slaughter horses as loose horses, weigh horses, or killers from here on out. My side is animal agriculture, livestock production, professional horsemen, traders, and pro-horse business. You are the rescue league, the new humane horse/companion culture. The horses you are defending are low-end horses. I hate the term anti-slaughter and pro-slaughter. They are both over simplifications of the two opposing sides of a complex issue.
The new “humane” horse culture has actually sent more horses to kill than they realize. The horse industry, for several reasons, was entering its reduction cycle. We examined how that cycle works in a previous column about the 80’s, compared to now (41 Mustangs). No Wayne Pacelle’s, Fugly’s, John Holland, or Steve Hindi’s had to tell people to “stop pumping out foals.” Uhm….the horse industry figured it out on their own. The pending legislation, internet “facts,” heartstring manipulation, bad press, a little Disney, and a whole lot of Guilt 101 set out to change horse marketing. I read a recent commentary, stating the U.S. has killed more horses in 2008 than any time since 1995. The cycle is running its course--in spite of all the hand wringing and wailing. The cold hard, marketing facts and statistics lead me to believe all the hysteria have only made the inevitable harder on the animals involved. The cycle will continue to run its course.
Compromising the culling system, necessary to deal with the inevitable liquidation, has had some other unintended consequences. Could that be called collateral damage? The horses who were “saved” (“saved” in very loose fashion) have remained in a market place which had no other use for them prior to their “rescue.” One of them has stolen the place of another horse, who on the open market may or may not have been more saleable or be useable. There are only so many horsemen of ANY type available to care for any horse.
The lower floor on the market, shaming of people to give away horses rather than “subject them to the auction,” the unsupervised adoption process from the federal government for backyard “rescues” and other factors, has made it possible for many, who shouldn’t be allowed to own anything other a pet rock, to enter the horse breeding business. They have given the humane horse culture a splashy, new fun term, BYB (back yard breeder).
Joe BYB reads about the high selling yearling at XYXZ production sale bringing $12,0000, or sees the top horse at XXXX Saturday Sale bring $3,500. Joe’s prospect is the same color, has some of the same breeding and he is FREE! This explains how we enter end of the production cycle. Some people maintain Joe will be weeded out if the financial “reward” of slaughter is removed. Joe will remain, much as puppy mills have flourished. People who continue to dump cats in my driveway remain, despite the absence of a financial floor on the companion animal market. As an “added bonus,” the head case animal hoarders have another “pet” to torture, while doing them a “favor” by keeping them alive. Horse hoarding abuse cases are becoming common.
I don’t see the market place, or anything else, weeding these people out. In the future, euthanasia stations will serve the same purpose as animal shelters do now. This is another consequence, yet unaddressed, in preparing for the passage of any pending legislation. These stations will be absolutely necessary the week following any passage of export and criminalization laws. We must be prepared for them to become as controversial and funding needy as the companion animal shelters now. The line between “valuable” and “worthless” will become as blurry and as quickly interchangeable for horses as it presently is for purebred dogs and cats.
Unchanging factors include the enormous investments in time, skill, equipment, and facilities involved in producing a safe, useful horse. These are not cheap. As the lack of competent trainers becomes more pronounced, the concept of value-added agriculture, as it has applied to horses for generations, will become more apparent. Someone still needs to ride the horses. The horse as a pet or pasture buddy still requires fencing, facilities, and basic ground handling training for safe health maintenance care. Think it’s a bitch to treat a pissed off Labrador? Try it with a 1,400 pound mature draft-cross rescue with no manners and a bad attitude. Whether it’s a rescue or training facility, horses are still horses. No matter how much the companion animal culture humanizes them, horses will still think, perceive their world, and react as horses. Environment will not alter DNA. This will eliminate many a “rescuer.”
If the pending legislation is passed in its intended form, the future of the horse industry cannot be predicted. The industry will not see the full effects for another six to ten years. We are only now dealing with the over-production stage of the cycle, which began during the high tide of the 90’s, caused in part by the liquidation of the 80’s. No one is reinventing the wheel- though many would like to think so.
There was a horse industry before the slaughter for human consumption debate and it will be here after the dust settles. Disciplines and training will remain. A good horse will always be worth something. More than ever before, those with the skill and the right horses will be in the driver’s seat. Without doubt there will be reductions and changes. They were coming anyway. There’s an old trader saying for that, too, “He’s worth whatever you have guts enough to ask and what somebody will pay for him.”
written by R.H.1