The Need for Horse Rescue

Horses need help.  According to the Humane Society of the United States, nearly 100,000 horses are slaughtered for food yearly in the United States.  Thousands more are transported to Canada for slaughter.  Show horses, racehorses, ex-rodeo stock, foals born as a byproduct of the Premarin industry (a female hormone replacement drug), wild mustang herds, carriage horses, and family horses are victims of the horse slaughter industry.  Horses have never been raised for human consumption in America, but they are being killed for food and shipped to France, Belgium, and Japan.

At auctions, horses are purchased by “killer-buyers”.  Many of these horses are sound and in good health.  Horses bound for slaughter plants are shipped, frequently over long distances, in inhumane conditions.  They are often crammed into trucks designed for shorter animals and typically given no food, water or rest.  Some arrive at the slaughterhouse seriously injured or dead.  Under federal law, horses are required to be rendered insensible to pain prior to slaughter, usually with a captive bolt pistol, which shoots a metal rod into the horse’s brain.  However, some horses are improperly stunned and are conscious when their throats are cut. Animal rights’ groups continue to seek the end of slaughter of America’s horses.  Horse rescues buy horses at auctions, when they are financially able, to give those horses a chance for a new home.

While some horses are not threatened with slaughter, they can no longer be taken care of by their owners.  Many good people, through no fault of their own, face situations of business failures, foreclosures, bankruptcies, illness, or death in the family, and need an alternative for their horses.  These horses can find sanctuary at the Blue Rose Ranch until adopted by new families or until they meet their natural or merciful death.  Horses can suffer from neglect, abuse, starvation, and abandonment due to inappropriate human care.  Rescues take in and rehabilitate these horses.  Horse rescues that have enough acreage can also sustain natural horse herds as in the wild.  This is one of our primary objectives at the Blue Rose Ranch.