Horse market in Texas has really fell off the last few years! <font color="blue"> </font color> Don't know all the reasons but was told that state shut down slaugther houses on horses & TOTAL horse market fell! Think it's a good issue to debate & help keep board lively! Anyway horses are being abandened & left to starve & horse sales are very low( I guess 10 cents on the dollar)! Anybody got any good stories OR does anybody want to buy a few paint horses & give them a good home? <font color="blue"> </font color> <font color="blue"> </font color>
Same thing here in Maine, I wish PETA would post some pictures of a few emaciated old horses that are suffering in old age because their teeth are so bad they can't eat properly. They never show those pictures when they are closing the slaughter houses. I saw horses at auction selling for $15 because people can't afford to feed them. Our vet was by recently and she told us of 2 horses she had to put down because their owners had abandoned them in the woods. By the time they got found it was too late to save them, and for what really? I have been thinking about selling my beef critters and eating horse this winter LOL.
Thats bad & Same thing happening down here so I guess it's happening all over the USA! I told the hired hand where I keep my horses that I was gonna put a for sale sign up for horse meat to be sold by the pound.... 50 cents to 75 cents a pound.. only thing they'd have to take the whole horse. Really don't know where the bottom is??? One man told me he'd give me two horses but kicker was they had to stay together & one is 28 yrs old.
Up here in Michigan, I've seen a lot of ads on Craigslist, etc for horses for sale and the prices have come down considerably. But I'm not sure that the slaughterhorse issue is to blame (Michigan has the worst unemployment in the country). Most people up here who are emotionally invested in a horse wouldn't take the meat market route. I just think it's a supply and demand thing, with people losing their jobs who can't afford their hobby. Unfortunately, if your hobby is motorcycles or boats, you can let them sit if you can't sell them, but horses gotta eat. And as I tell people, even a FREE horse will cost you big time if you take care of them right, i.e. Vet care, feeding, supplements, shoeing, cookies, carrots, etc. Barn where we board our horse still selling trained hunter/jumpers in the thousands of $$$ and getting inquiries from around the country. Don't know about run-of-the-mill trail horses. I'd like to get a couple of those, but that won't happen until we build on our property and don't have to pay Board for them.
Let me try to explain Killer market & horse prices as I see/saw it! Back when there was a killer market, horse meat went for lets say .50/.75 to $1.00 a lb which brought the price of a killer horse from 500 to $1000 according to the weight & that drove the pleasure horse prices up just because there was a killer market.... I'm sure a lot of good horses went to market but as you say, people that had emotions invested in a horse would not take a horse to slaughter but after you sell one, you have no control & I'd rather my horse go to slaughter than go to some riders! Anyway the killer market kept the prices of horses up & pleasure horse riders paid but now there is no competition & prices have dropped... Don't know the answer & hope I explained it RIGHT but that's the way I see it & BTW In all fields there is a market for a good horse but just so many!
I agree with roho, but some people bought old and burned out pleasure horses to "put out to pasture" only to send them. The emotional owners though they sent their pet to a happy retirement home and the horse was in fact taken good care of until its death (much sooner than expected). It was a little crude but quite humane as I see it. Much better than starving to death and or getting shuffled around through auctions and or craigs list until it dies.
Yep, the market is downright poor right now, but the blame isn't solely on animal rights organizations (I know, I love blaming them too). Let's not forget that our own american quarterhorse association was a huge contributor on the push to close the u.s. slaughter market. Horse owners quite literally shot themselves in their own foot. Now there is a push to try to ban the transport of slaughter horses across u.s. border into mexico. People think they are saving the pretty horses when in fact they are causing even more long term suffering through neglect, abandonment, and starvation. Especially in drought stricken areas like texas.
Let's not forget that all is not lost. Every horse person out there is affected in one way or another by the result of the slaughter ban. If banned together, we would be a powerful voice to our congress. I have seen first hand what a grass roots effort can accomplish in my own state of texas when we defeated the efforts of highly funded animal rights groups at this year's legislative session. There is nothing out there that says we can't do it again to try to reinstate the slaughter industry and help preserve the market for horses.
I happen to have a heavily ncha bred gelding who breaks at the poll, goes through his gaits, stops with no rein pressure, and has seen hundreds of miles of texas back country with me on his back. You can literally clip his ears while your husband is revving up a chainsaw next to his butt (found this out by accident, but went with it anyway). He is great minded and is ready to be handed off to a reined cowhorse trainer, and I can't get $1000 for him. Makes me sick.
I HEAR YOU & YOU make a lot of sense! Sure wish I could see a pic of that horse of U'rs! I don't know if it's anyone to blame other than the times we live in!
I agree with roho that the slaughterhouses provided a "floor" for the price of a horse. I.e. If I was trying to sell an old, lame horse and someone offered me $750 and I knew I could get $1000 from a meat house, I could hold firm on my price. That is IF I wanted to get rid of it under any conditions. That is where the economy comes in. Under normal circumstances, I might just hold off and continue to advertise it, meanwhile feeding it, etc.
One boarder at our barn just paid $37,000 for a hunter/jumper and another paid around $7000 for a hunter/jumper pony for their kid. In other words, the money is still there for well-trained horses in some disciplines (although there are probably fewer people paying those kinds of prices due to the economy and it may take you longer to sell it). And I would bet that the seller of that $37,000 horse wasn't concerned about lack of a slaughterhorse market.
IMO, if the slaughterhouse ban is repealed, a floor price would be restored but it would still fluctuate due to the supply and demand. Times are good, people keep their horses, supply is low, meat price goes up. Times are tough, people need to dump their horses, supply is high, meat prices drop. I guess I just think that, like a lot of things in life, everyone jumps on the bandwagon to blame ONE single thing as the cause when something changes. I believe the SH ban may be part of it but don't think that repealing it would cause prices to skyrocket.
Anyway, sounds like you've got a great bullet-proof horse. Don't know what you paid for it, how long you've had it, or what you've paid in maintenance over the years, but if you're like the rest of us horse owners, it's probably a lot. [img]/forums/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img]
I used to own a sailboat and it was a money pit, but if we ALL viewed our pleasure interests strictly from a financial aspect, we'd all be coin or stamp collectors or gold hoarders. But what fun is there in going to the attic to look at boxes of gold or coins or sit around looking at your broker statement? I'd rather be on the back of my horse riding through the fields.
I agree the slaughter market has little effect on the higher end horses but it is a means of disposing of a horse that is no longer there. Here in Maine we have experienced 3 marginal hay years back to back and you can't give a horse away right now. I think the slaughter market has kept old and less than perfect horse numbers under control, now there numbers are rising, and feed prices are rising, there is no outlet for these animals. I am not pointing to price so much as I am concerned with the question where can I get rid of a horse if I can't feed it?
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