STATION BRED HORSES SLAUGHTERED

STATION BRED HORSES  SLAUGHTERED

The dumping of young, unhandled horses at sales has been going on for a very long time, it doesn’t mean it should continue.

In this day and age, you would think that people would be more aware of the fate so many of them meet.

Maybe they are aware and just don’t care.

Why allow your horses to breed when you are only going to send their terrified offspring to horse sales and the high risk of slaughter?

PEN 32 – A BRUMBY?  SLAUGHTERED.

The Echuca horse sale was renowned for having young, unhandled horses go through, most of which ended up with one of the meat men.

On the 25^th October 2019, a group of unhandled, station bred horses, mainly yearlings, were sold, some for as little as $35.

This is the very brief story of one of them, Pen 32.

He was born on a station, wild and free.

No one cared about him enough to handle him though, to give him some chance of a future.

Instead they sent him, together with about a dozen others, to the Echuca sale.

Even in his terror Pen 32 was proud and defiant as he stood tall in his yard that day but it did him no good, no one wanted him other than the meat man, all his life was worth was $70.

No one wanted most of the horses he came in with either, no one other than the same meat man.

Their lives were to be over before they had even really begun.

The next day the meat man took his B-double and picked up his purchases, including Pen 32 and at least some of his station bred friends.

In the days that followed the defiance disappeared from the face of Pen 32, his only solace the comfort of the horses he knew, the horses he huddled together with in the meat man’s yards.

He deserved better, they all did.

The Echuca horse sale is now online, one of the few positives to come out of Covid-19.

This is at least better for the horses.

The monthly Laidley sales in Qld are however still operating. Laidley is a saleyard where horses stand in mud with no protection from the elements, many of them are injured, aged, sick and just unwanted, their future is at the mercy of whoever happens to turn up on the day.

The meat men will always be there though, always looking to make their blood money.

There was sale on Saturday 5^th February 2022 and, as with most horse sales, there was unhandled babies, yearlings bred with no thought of what their future would be, babies terrified as they were herded down laneways into yards, panicking in the unfamiliar and noisy surroundings.

Name and shame those people who just leave mares and stallions running together, who breed with anything just because they can make a quick buck .

 Please look at Pen 32, please let his story make a difference.