Kentucky Horse Council Offers Breeders Incentive to Limit Births
By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
This is jump-for-joy good news in the horse industry. This week, the Kentucky Horse Council launched a program that offers financial incentives for owners to geld horses capable of reproduction but that are not appropriate for breeding. The program pays the owners' veterinarians up to $100 per horse and $250 per household for gelding services.
The Kentucky Horse Council is a nonprofit organization that represents the horse industry in that state and provides public education to promote industry growth. This could be a case of first impression for an industry council to promote gelding rather than breeding. It is in any case a symbolic act of great import, as horse industry promotion groups most often offer breeding incentives, rather than gelding incentives.
I recently spoke with a thoroughbred breeder who said he was "stuck" with more than 10 foals he'd bred this spring because there was an incentive offered in his state of more than $1,000 per foal that was later rescinded. Many of the poor souls (yes, souls) he unnecessarily brought into this world will end up going for slaughter. The type of incentive this breeder responded to is much, much more common than the one offered by the Kentucky Horse Council.
Kentucky is, of course, also a state famous for thoroughbred and walking horse breeding. The Kentucky program should be lauded and expanded nationwide. The U.S. ships well over 100,000 horses for slaughter to Canada and Mexico each year. If fewer horses were bred here, fewer would end up unwanted and consigned to a horrible death.
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Reader Comments
Horses and Slaughter
There is no reason to slaughter a horse and for those who think it is humane, better research some more. I don't know how abortion has anything to do with the slaughter of horses so that it a moot point. Consumption of horse meat is not legal in this country. Horses should not be consumed if for no other reason than the medications that we give them that are not allowed in any other food animals. Carcinogens are included in the list of medications that are commonly given to horses to keep them pain free and healthy... want to eat that? Big AgriBusiness doesn't care what the public eats as long as they make their money so of course they will support horse slaughter.. there's big money in it. Responsible owners and breeders will limit their herd production if they want to keep prices up. Slaughter is not the answer but rather a part of the problem.
Horse Slaughter Banned In Us.
Horse slaughter was banned in the US acouple of years ago. That meant lost jobs AND more greenhouse gasses to ship live horses else where to be processed. Alot of these were used for meat that was shipped overseas for human consumption, as well as,dog food and other products. What else should be done with these animals? At least their not roaming the streets reproducing several times a year. The shipping and destruction is humane.
controlled breeding
The Kentucky incentive to control breeding is one of the more intelligent acts in the horse world and should be copied world wide.
Its inconceivable to me that people can treat animals like a head of cabbage - to be grown then thrown away if not useable. Those of us who know and love horses for the special beings they are, find it difficult to understand the brutality and insensitivity many breeders and trainers have with these selfless creatures. To treat them like commodities that can be discarded for economic gain, is to commit a crime against all life on this planet.
Responsible birth control should be legislated for horses and other domesticated animals. Breeding animals to see if they can get winners from which to make money or pad egos creates a surfeit of unwanted creatures that are doomed to lives of misery, brutality and too many times, gruesome deaths.
DO on to others should be the golden rule applied to all our four legged inhabitants on this planet. What right do we have to bring them in to this world without the proper respect and responsibility to care for them as we would our own. Are they not God's creatures?
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