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HoofPAC
Equine Protection Network

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HoofPAC Political Action Committee

HoofPAC is the political action committee that has been formed to end the slaughter of America's horses. Cathleen Doyle, founder of HoofPAC, led the successful Save The Horses campaign in 1998 that made the slaughter of California's horses a felony.

Page last revised on:

10/16/2003
Equine Protection Network Horse Slaughter Awareness Campaign

Horse Slaughter is Not for Pet Food!

Slaughter is for human consumption.

Rendering is for pet or animal food or fertilizer

  • Slaughter horses must arrive alive at slaughterhouse.
  • Slaughter Plants for Horses- 2 in the United States in Texas and 4 or 5 in Canada.
  • Horses are collected through several auctions until a load is filled.
  • Horses transported hundreds or thousands of miles over a period of days with no food, water, or rest.
  • Injured horses are given no vet care.
  • Slaughterhouses pay for horses.
  • Rendering plants handle dead horses.
  • Rendering plants by law cannot haul anything alive.
  • Several located in each state in the United States.
  • Dead horses are transported only a few hours or less to a rendering plant.
  • Rendering Plants generally do not pay for a carcass.
  • Owner is usually charged a fee to have the body removed.

EUTHANASIA PROCEDURES

By law, horses cannot be used for human consumption if drugs are used to kill the horse. The body must be buried, rendered, composted, or cremated.

Don't be fooled.

Recently the American Veterinary Medical Association, AVMA, has defined the method used by slaughterhouses to slaughter large animals as humane euthanasia. In other words, the use of the captive bolt to knock a horse unconscious and then cut the horse's throat is defined by the AVMA as "humane euthanasia".

When was the last time you knew a vet to humanely euthanise an owner's horse by using a captive bolt to knock the horse unconscious and then proceed to bleed the horse out by cutting the horse's throat?

Would you want your vet to "humanely euthanise your horse this way??

There have been previous attempts in the PA Legislature to define slaughter as "humane euthanasia".

We need more vets like Dr. James Herriot, author of:

  • All Creatures Great and Small;

  • All Things Bright & Beautiful

  • All Things Wise & Wonderful

  • The Lord God Made Them All

RENDERING

Horses can be euthanised with drugs, die of disease, natural causes, or arrive dead. By law, renderers cannot haul anything alive. Renderers are in the business of dead animals
  • The body can have any medications, illness, or disease. The temperature in the vats is so hot, that any potential contaminants are supposed to break down, rendering disease causing organisms and/or chemicals and/or drugs harmless.
  • Standards for giving rendered products to animals are much lower than giving rendered products to humans.
  • The products which come from the rendered body are as follows:
    • Bone and blood meal- feed or fertilizer (it is high in nitrogen and calcium).

    • Stearic acid - goes to car tires.

    • Cartilage, tendons, hooves - produce a gelatine, and is used in products such as Jell-O, camera film, and canned ham gel.

    • Feathers and hide (known as "dry matter") - make up a protein mass at the rendering factory. It is turned into pellets to for animal feed.

SLAUGHTER PROCEDURES

United States Department of Agriculture
USDA Food Safety Inspection Service, FSIS
  • By law horses must arrive alive at slaughterhouses to be used for human consumption.

  • Horses must be free of disease, drugs and chemicals.

  • Horses proceed through a lineup where they can hear, smell and see horses dying & dead.

  • Horses are forced with electric cattle prods into the knock box.

  • Horses are stunned with either a stun gun, the captive bolt, or a rifle.

  • This does NOT kill the horse.

  • The purpose is to make the horse unconscious.

  • The horse is then shackled by a hind leg and hung.

  • The horse's throat is cut, and the horse bleeds to death.

Undercover Investigations Tell a Different Story

Recent 7 Month Investigation By the Washington Post & Dateline:
March 2001

Revealed animals in US slaughterhouses, "die piece by piece."

After viewing some of the video, Dr. Temple Grandin agreed that there was,

"live beef on that rail.".

Undercover investigations have uncovered downed horses' being dragged off trailers.

Horses searching for water in storm drains.

Horses urinating & defecating over themselves in the lineup.

Horses violently shaking all over.

Horses rearing & trying to jump out of the knock box.

Slipping & falling on the blood, urine & manure covered floors of the knock box.

Horses being hit with the captive bolt more than once, because the operator missed.

Horses being shackled & hung while still conscious.

The use of electric cattle prods to force the horses into the "knock box".

Horses with broken legs, eyes gouged out, full term pregnant mares, stolen horses.

Live full term foals falling onto the killing room floor when their mother's belly is cut open.

Foals with their hearts still beating, thrown in the trash.

Save America's Horses!

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