Reply #5: That's EXACTLY what I was about to post, [View All]

[LWolf]

until I read your response.

The horses out in my barn aren't "livestock." They aren't "pets."

They are partners, and family members.

From the moment, hour, and day a foal is born, people go about "socializing" them in an organized way. Teaching them to trust humans, and teaching them to work with us.

As a matter of fact, I have a filly born last spring out in the barn, along with her mother and her sister; a line that has been in the family, as family members, since 1945.

I showed her a horse trailer for the first time last month. She looked at the trailer, and her eyes got big. She started "blowing." I stood in the trailer calmly. She looked at me for a moment, and then just hopped in.

Just like that. Why? Because she trusts me. I was there when she was born, I handled her before she ever stood, I was there handling her every day from that point on. She learned to trust me.

I'm not alone. At whatever point a human starts handling a horse, it's about establishing trust. It's not like you are going to be forcing a 1000+ lb creature to do anything he or she doesn't want to do when they are fully grown. They do it because they have a relationship with people. Because they've been taught to partner with them.

"Processing" is a gross violation of that trust.

Ranchers who raise livestock for meat don't have that relationship with their cows, their sheep, their goats, their pigs, their fowl. They use squeeze chutes to manage them when they have to be managed, and they don't make partners or friends out of them.

I'd process Stenholm to feed the rare and endangered cats in breeding programs before I'd process horses to feed anyone.