Kill pen horses

[Egapal]

I don't see why it is ridiculous for the same reason that I don't see why the taboo against feeding your pet poodle Fido to your snake is ridiculous.

Feeding Fido to your snake is taboo because there is no precedent for doing so and other than that there is nothing wrong with it, presuming your snake is large enough to quickly dispatch Fido. There is a long standing precedent for turning horses into food, human or pet food. Horse meat is actually pretty good for you, better than beef.

I am fine with the death of anything. I am not fine with inhumane killing of anything. And I am not fine with animal abuse.

A slaughter house does not necessarily mean cruel. I don't think anyone would argue that regulations should be in place to keep the slaughter houses as humane as possible.

Sure, farm a horse for dog food then. Or farm a dog for snake food. But, it rankles the sensibilities to ask a dog or a horse to serve his human master for the length of his lifetime then feed that same dog/horse off when it dies.

It rankles your senses. Many cultures including ours not so long ago had no problem with an animal serving its human masters for a lifetime then being used for food. Milk cows, oxen, sheep, chickens and yes horses all can have long lives of service only to end up as food. The fact that dogs typically don't as you already stated is a cultural thing. Many societies don't have a problem with dogs being used for meat and they are not less civilized for that practice. To say they are is to be ethnocentric.

We, snake keepers all feel that sensibility when we get attached to our feeder rats. I didn't make the rules - American culture did.

Whose point are you making? My breeder rodents get cared for as if they were pets then fed to my snakes. I have no problem with that. I would likewise have no problem taking in someone else's pet rodent (assume it was healthy and well cared for) and feeding it to my snakes. The fact that I feel something for my animals is part of keeping them. It does not mean that I should cremate them when they die of natural causes.

And, in case you don't know, I was paraphrasing Mahatma Ghandi's quote. The actual quote is:
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man"

Great, we all agree, who am I to argue with Ghandi. Slaughter houses are not necessarily cruel. I would certainly agree that animals who serve as food should be treated with dignity and respect as all living things should be. I eat local organically raised animals, and the few horses that have gone to slaughter went to a facility that we had thoroughly vetted.

Yeah, it would be awesome if you can discuss these points after you get off your high horse - pun intended. Throwing insults serve nothing but to make you sound idiotic.

It would be awesome if more people could put pointless cultural taboo's aside and go back to a time when we didn't waste so much. There was a time not to long ago when it would have been taboo to let an animals body go to waste. Are there issues surrounding horse slaughter? Sure. As for sounding idiotic. The American Quarter Horse Association was against the closing of slaughter houses on the grounds that it would do more harm than good. Do you really think we should ignore the AQHA's well thought out position and accept yours.