Would you ever eat a horse?

[annageckos]

I'd try it. Wish I could find it to feed my dogs, cats and ferrets. I feed them raw, have been raw feeding for almost ten years. To those talking about feeding weight bearing bones to dogs. The reason you should not feed these bones is because they can crack/chip/break a dog's teeth. It is one thing to give a dog a leg bone from a large animal that is still covered in meat, but bones that have most of the meat removed can be dangerous. Also the age of the animal comes into play here too. A younger animals bones are not as dense as a full grown cow or horse.

 

[MDres]

There is a big problem with eating horses that most people outside the horse industry do not consider. There are TONS of supplements and medications (both prescription and OTC) that are fed to horses, and there are ZERO studies about how those substances might affect humans that consume meat from horses that have received those products. Supplement and med usage in horses is not limited to racehorses or show horses, though there is a higher incidence of it occurring in those industries. But even backyard pleasure horse owners use them - me included. I have a horse that is on a massive dose of Prascend (Pergolide). How would that affect a human if they ate him? Nobody knows...

Cattle, goat, sheep and swine meds generally have established "withdrawal periods" before slaughter. That means that an animal cannot be slaughtered until X number of days after receiving the final dose of the product. There are holes in the system, though, as administration of the products cannot be perfectly tracked. It is an honor system, at best. The public is banking on the fact that the producer is honest and abides by the withdrawal period. Does it always happen? I seriously doubt it... Yet another reason why it is safer to eat animals you have raised...

I don't think anyone wants to invest a ton of money into testing/studies to establish withdrawal periods for equine medications... I'm sure it would not go over well, as it would most likely increase the cost of said supplements, and possibly limit the availability of them.

At this point, I think the ONLY safe way to consume horse meat is to REQUIRE horses spend 90 days or so at a feedlot-type pre-slaughter holding facility to accomplish a withdrawal period. This option would also increase the chances of stolen horses being found before being slaughtered.

Another option is to set up clean systems to raise horses for human consumption. These "farms" would raise horses for the sole purpose of eating them. The horses would not be fed unknown supplements. They could be tracked from birth, much like commercial cattle today should be able to be tracked. These finished horses would not need to be held for a withdrawal, they could go straight to slaughter. There are actually ranches in South America that do exactly this - they raise horses solely for slaughter. But the withdrawal feedlot would still need to exist in the US for any slaughter-bound horse that was not raised on a slaughter farm.

I do not know how people in foreign countries can knowingly consume current horse meat without these reg's. How do we know that diseases and cancers in those countries cannot be attributed to the chemicals in the horsemeat????

Some other neat info about horses.... They are actually more efficient at converting feedstuff to muscle than cattle are. You will get a higher rate of gain on a horse vs. a bovine if both are fed the same amount of feed/concentrate. So it is actually CHEAPER to feed out and raise a horse to "market weight" than it is a bovine. (I hate saying "cow" because grocery store steaks and roasts are not generally "cows", though the ground beef may be...)

One of my college professors used to joke that the only reason we are riding horses and eating cattle is because we'd never be able to rope a horse off a bovine. Cattle are not fast or nimble enough.

 

[Back to Nature]

There is a big problem with eating horses that most people outside the horse industry do not consider. There are TONS of supplements and medications (both prescription and OTC) that are fed to horses, and there are ZERO studies about how those substances might affect humans that consume meat from horses that have received those products. Supplement and med usage in horses is not limited to racehorses or show horses, though there is a higher incidence of it occurring in those industries. But even backyard pleasure horse owners use them - me included. I have a horse that is on a massive dose of Prascend (Pergolide). How would that affect a human if they ate him? Nobody knows...

Cattle, goat, sheep and swine meds generally have established "withdrawal periods" before slaughter. That means that an animal cannot be slaughtered until X number of days after receiving the final dose of the product. There are holes in the system, though, as administration of the products cannot be perfectly tracked. It is an honor system, at best. The public is banking on the fact that the producer is honest and abides by the withdrawal period. Does it always happen? I seriously doubt it... Yet another reason why it is safer to eat animals you have raised...

I don't think anyone wants to invest a ton of money into testing/studies to establish withdrawal periods for equine medications... I'm sure it would not go over well, as it would most likely increase the cost of said supplements, and possibly limit the availability of them.

At this point, I think the ONLY safe way to consume horse meat is to REQUIRE horses spend 90 days or so at a feedlot-type pre-slaughter holding facility to accomplish a withdrawal period. This option would also increase the chances of stolen horses being found before being slaughtered.

Another option is to set up clean systems to raise horses for human consumption. These "farms" would raise horses for the sole purpose of eating them. The horses would not be fed unknown supplements. They could be tracked from birth, much like commercial cattle today should be able to be tracked. These finished horses would not need to be held for a withdrawal, they could go straight to slaughter. There are actually ranches in South America that do exactly this - they raise horses solely for slaughter. But the withdrawal feedlot would still need to exist in the US for any slaughter-bound horse that was not raised on a slaughter farm.

I do not know how people in foreign countries can knowingly consume current horse meat without these reg's. How do we know that diseases and cancers in those countries cannot be attributed to the chemicals in the horsemeat????

Some other neat info about horses.... They are actually more efficient at converting feedstuff to muscle than cattle are. You will get a higher rate of gain on a horse vs. a bovine if both are fed the same amount of feed/concentrate. So it is actually CHEAPER to feed out and raise a horse to "market weight" than it is a bovine. (I hate saying "cow" because grocery store steaks and roasts are not generally "cows", though the ground beef may be...)

One of my college professors used to joke that the only reason we are riding horses and eating cattle is because we'd never be able to rope a horse off a bovine. Cattle are not fast or nimble enough.

Those are good points I hadn't thought about. Maybe then if one of my own horses dies of old age, it'd be okay to give to the animals. I don't want any of my animals eating anything artificial; there are plenty of herbal remedies to try, and good management will prevent a lot of diseases.