'Food for thought', but it wouldnt work because horses dont eat meat.

Personally I loath the fact that horses are raced from such a young age because their unknowledgable owners have no patience and simply wont wait until they mature. Races make money so the racing industry will hold races specifically for youngsters and have little concern about the damage done to their immature bodies.

I have seen so many failed racehorses passed from unsuitable home to unsuitable home becoming more and more difficult to handle. They are dirt cheap to buy and look good but few riders can cope their their temperament. They cost a fortune to keep because they are high maintenance.

I would rather see them euthinized than suffer for years from neglect and poor treatment at the hands a string of owners without the experience to deal with them.

There are so many supply exceeds demand.....there isnt a simple answer

Oh and just to balance the argument...horses are flight animals thus broken legs are virtually impossible to mend...you try to immobilise a horses leg. Those with broken legs are destroyed immediately...its those with damanaged tendons and ligments which are the problem. They end up with a weakness so are prone to further problems.

There is a simple answer: people should stop exploiting animals for profit. Of course they won't if the demand is there so what I can do is withdraw my support and urge others to do the same.

Sadly I think that is a simplistic answer rather than a simple one. I think I have made it clear that I dont support racing horses until they mature....I am also not a fan of the racing industry which is operated on the whole by those with very little knowledge of the animals they are dealing with.

Having seen recently a well known race horse trainer sitting on a tiny 13 month old Zebra apparently to demonstrate they are trainable and to presumably promote his business. The Zebra was so tiny that the huge blokes feet were touching the floor. It received condemnation from the majority of horse owners yet the press ran the story as though he had managed something incredible.

How would you stop the practice....what type of legislation would you use? Restrict breeding, ban horse racing, stop people owning horses to race?.....I dont see how it is possible.

Got no problem with eating horse, but I do disagree with the transportation of live animals abroad for slaughter - which is why I think so many people are adverse to horse as they typically suffer some of the worst journeys. Coming from the New Forest, the horses that are sold for a few pounds for meat to be shipped over the channel do not lead the happy life some have alluded to!

Oh god absolutely....its disgraceful

I've been quite surprised at the reaction on this. I did think that I would get people calling me disgusting because I had eaten Horse. Don't know why but it was just the feeling I had.

I do agree that the transport of animals abroad for slaughter is cruel along with factory farming (although to be honest it doesn't make me buy organic free range meat).

I would stop the breeding of all domesticated animals. Horses, sheep, cows, cat, dogs....everything.

I don't think people should be using animals for anything at all. Human beings have the fundamental right not to be treated as the property of another (slave) I believe that every nonhuman has that right as well.

But i like to eat meat. I dont want to withdraw my support thanks. And i dont feel guilty, live with it.

Rights are a human construct. Eating animals is natural for many species, including human animals.

Tell a simple farmer in Easten Europe/Asia/Africa to pull their own ploughs. Or maybe you could volunteer if you think you can pull the same as cattle or horses or you have enough money to buy and maintain a tractor.

Natural say like swine flu?

Many human diseases have come from domesticated animals: measles and tuberculosis from cattle; smallpox from cattle or other livestock with related pox viruses; flu from pigs and ducks; and whooping cough from dogs. Is that natural?

We have evolved to be omnivores. We can eat animals or not. The fact that we can do something is not relevant to whether we should do it as moral beings.

Even regardless of any of this the environmental damage by killing and eating over 50 billion animals a year is immense.

That is a political issue in the same way that the West stock piles food while half the world does not have enough to eat.

Also I am not worried right now about the relatively small amount of rural farmers who use animals to plough crops (which are probably sold to the West for very little.). It's the billions and billions of animals that suffer and are killed each year for no other reason than we like the taste of their flesh.

Make your mind up

Perhaps you can explain yours?

I don't get the contridiction here. The final goal would be no domesticated animals at all. I am sure when we tackle the major exploiters (West) first we can give those poor farmers a shiney new tractor with all the money we save.

but we havent even ventured near conservation. A lot of animals and breeds survive because humans eat them.

I'm guessing you're taking a vegan stance as if there is no domestication then their is no dairy.

Take cows. We have dairy breeds and we have meat breeds. A lot of those meat breeds are what are known as heritage breeds. There are only on this planet because humans want to keep that breed of animal alive for consumption.

If we don't need them then they die out. You can't just leave them all in a field to fend for themselves.


Then take Deer (and game in general). We eat them for three main reasons. They are a good source of meat, they are tasty and without culling them they will over breed and die out becuase of lack of space & food, taking our crops with them.


I would recommend that you take a look at Kill It, Cook It, Eat It. The couple of series concentrate on farmed livestock & poultry and the third on wild game.
I think you will find at least some of it interesting regarding the reasons why the animals are actually better off as a result of being a consumable.



I am now going to apologise to the OP for encouraging this thread to go wildly off topic.
I'm sure there are other threads dedicated to these arguments or if not you could start one yourself.


Cheers,
Degs

Yes it is all natural. It IS ALL happening in nature! Humanity is NATURE! Morality is a human construct.

Your reasoning is deeply flawed. I am saying we have no business bringing these animals into existence in the first place in order to exploit them, any more then we should be raising "special" breed humans so that we can use them in biomedical research or to use as organ donors. Are you seriously saying that you think these animals should be grateful that we breed them to exploit them?


LOL...what would nature do with out humans! We killed all their natural predators or perhaps you forgot that and as a species who is destroying the planet I think it's a bit rich to say any other species over breeds. It's YOU that is over breeding and YOU that is taking all the crops not the deer.


You must be having a laugh!

We didn't bring them into existance (unless you are referring to cross breeds). I'm referring to heritage breeds. The fact is that they wouldn't exist if we as humans didn't need/want them. And yes, I am saying that if we left them to their own devices then alot of them would naturally die out and thats not just because we do eat them. There are far many other factors.

It's a shame that you dismiss watching documentaries that would explain certain situations about animal breeding and conservation. It seems that you are a broken record with no intention of educating yourself, even if after you still hold the same point of view.

I still don't get your logic here? are you saying it is morally justified that a species or breed can be exploited, tortured and killed by humans if that species would of otherwise died out anyway. If so than I do not agree with that at all it just sounds like another form of justification for morally indefensible actions and a very weak one at that.


Mmm it seems to me that you are the broken record as I am repeating the same argument back to you as you have not come up with any reasoning on why it is morally acceptable to exploit animals for pleasure. As for the documentaries that you speak of I have seen some of them (in fact my blog entry about one episode of Kill It, Cook It, Eat It received nearly 100 comments and TV is not the only way to educate yourself!) and I did not find anything in them that would alter my view point. If these documentaries educated you then please share that wisdom.

We ARE their natural predators in nature. We are also animals. Stop bringing this human construct into things, it blurs your perception of reality.

Oh...which animals shall we keep then?

Surprisingly I have never thought of my horse as a slave.....having carted wheelbarrows of muck, buckets of water and haynets the size of a small car around the yard this morning I suspect my girl meandering about her field knows full well which one of us is the slave

Your view is just a tad extreme and you know your utopia is unlikely to happen....I would rather focus my energies on acheiveable goals such as supporting products which are not intensively reared and causes which fight against such things as the export of live animals for food.

I perfer to think if the relationship with my horse as symbiotic

Just got around to watching last weeks Mitchell & Webb. The first sketch fits is nicely with this thread

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKTsWjbjQ8E

ERM..... small point. Cattle don't get smallpox, they get something that is related but not harmful to humans, which is why it was noted that milk maids didn't get smallpox and a vaccine was developed !
Other more deadly diseases have originated in wild animals, e.g. ebola, probably AIDS.

So I think your argument here is flawed on a number of levels.

Please don't hate me but I love horse meat! I don't see the big deal behind it though... It's just an animal like cow or a chicken etc but people seem to make a bigger deal about eating it.