The 38-40 horses from the slaughter pipeline were scheduled to be delivered yesterday, but the horses are still at the border. We are promised that, barring mechanical failure, they will arrive by Monday. Let’s cross our fingers and hope for the best!
Jason and Tawnee are ready to make a prediction based on information that was given them yesterday: in 2-3 months, horses will no longer be crossing the border to slaughter in huge numbers. Not because Washington is going to do anything to protect America’s horses, but because the European Union is cracking down on Mexico’s mass slaughter of disease and drug filled horses. Mexico has begun turning away 33% of the horses that come to the border last week, which makes it no longer profitable to haul loads of horses down there. If they keep up turning horses away, horses crossing the border by the thousands will essentially stop.
Last week, Mexico stopped accepting lame (due to potential for Bute to still be in their system) grey horses (due to a likelyhood of cancer) and stallions (due to the inconvenience) and horses wearing shoes. Horses that show up at the border with shoes are told to pull the shoes or they are turned away. They’ve realized they don’t have to take everything, they can just accept the nice healthy chunky horses, the ones that bring the best profit and least likely to have drugs in their system. The horses born and raised in Mexico do not get any kinds of drugs (painkillers, wormers, etc) that we give our horses. It is our opinion that Mexico will start only slaughtering their horses, where they can prove to the European Union that they don’t have any drugs in their system.
The price prediction is that horses will get to 2-3 cents a lb next year. Time will tell… Rescues, Animal Control’s, SPCA’s and Humane Socities really need to band together to prepare for this onslaught of horses. When Mexico no longer accepts our horses, euthanasia clinics must sprout up throughout the United States, people must become responsible for their horses. Breeders must only breed with the understanding they may have to keep their foal for life if they cannot sell it to a good home. Slaughter was always said to be neccesary evil, now, that evil is going away. Now is time for horse owners and breeders to be responsible.
American horses standing in chutes waiting to be slaughtered should be ending soon. As one kb put it “The war is almost over.”
We got an update on Inky. ” I adopted Inky from you when you were NorCal Equine Rescue near Taylorsville. She is an awesome pony and great friend to the horses, Sky & Rocky.” It is so wonderful to see her doing so great in her forever family, she looks like a fuzzy little teddy bear.
We had a bunch of volunteers lined up and waiting to help haul the pipeline horses from the dropoff to our vet today. Instead they got to help around the shelter. A trainer was out and was working with the horses. It is always so nice when Mayleene is willing to donate her time and energy to work with the horses and get them more adoptable.
Someday soon we hope to have sand in the roundpen. For now, it is just dirt and we all have to be extra careful of the footing. Anyone have some sand they would like to donate and deliver?
Since the horses were not arriving today, it was a good day to get miscellaneous things done. One of those things was new tires on the truck. It puts on so many miles hauling trailers and moving rescued horses around.
Keep up the great voting! We are now in 39th overall. Click here to vote.
Today’s eBay Giving Works item is a Victorian Malachite Gold Filled/Plated Bar Pin. The seller writes: “This piece appears to date from the Victorian era. The malachite stone is beautiful with its bandings of different shades of green. The two bands that circle it test as gold filled or plated. The pin back is a simple “C” clasp. The stone measures one and three quarter’s inch long and about three eighths of an inch wide. It is a pretty, simple piece.” It is only $6.99 and 40% of the sale price goes to help the horses! Click here.
Thank you so much for your support! A huge thank you to Trina B. and Judy H. for their generous donations!
Now, the blog should be ending here, but long after dark a fire started in the house right across the street from the shelter. A bunch of the volunteers rushed to the shelter to make sure the animals would not need to be moved. The fire trucks came, but Larry was first on the scene. As a retired firefighter, he just had to get in there to see if anyone was in the house that he could help.
Everyone was scared to death, hoping that Larry would be OK. He was, and the house was thankfully unoccupied at the time of the fire. The firefighters got the fire put out quickly. All the critters at the shelter sure wondered what all the flashing lights across the street and what all the smoke was about.
