To think it's okay to shoot horses?

[Angels1111]

I've always been vegetarian but I'm not sanctimonious about it. The way I see it, as my family was vegetarian it wasn't a conscious choice I made. Who knows what I'd be doing if I had been born into a family eating meat and two veg every day. I also have huge space to improve my environmental footprint...the clothes I wear have probably been stitched by kids working long hours, I don't always remember to take a bag with me to the shops, quite a lot of my diet is imported...etc..
My point is, unless we're living off the land and making our own clothes we're all affecting the environment and we can all improve where we can reduce our impact on it.

All that to say....I was watching a show with some friends about how race horses, once past their point of use, are often shot. This was accompanied by protests of "that's so sad, so cruel" etc.

I wondered how it's any different to raising a pig for food and killing it once it's fat enough. Or a chicken for eggs and killing it once it doesn't lay eggs. To me, the horse may even have had a better life than animals raised for meat, since there is an onus on the owner to make sure it's well fed and kept healthy.

Of course, ideally I'd like the horse to live out it's natural life in retirement. I'd like all animals to live out their natural lives. But I can see why that might not be feasible for the owner.

I really don't understand why some animals are okay to eat, but others aren't. Why is okay to eat pig but not dog? Why chicken but not parrot? Why cow but not horse?

Please could you educate me?

No I don't think it's practical at all in today's society to be growing our own food. Which is what I said in my opening post.
If someone lives where nothing can grow I would say eat the animals. I am open with the fact I am only vegetarian because of the area my culture is from, where there is very fertile soil, and that we now import a lot of the food out ancestors would have eaten, whereas I think it would be better to eat what grows locally (or animals if that doesn't suffice).

Horses are not an endangered species so I'm not sure where the other stuff is coming from...

Horse racing is pretty horrible and cruel anyway.
Killing anything not to eat it isn't ok either IMO

Well plenty of people have already informed you above but your choosing to ignore and dismiss them all.

Mine works very hard to keep the local vermin down. I wish that he'd clear up afterwards though, I didn't appreciate the dead rat that he left on my bedroom floor...

Same can be said for racing greyhounds .
Some will get a nice retirement home , they are the lucky ones .
Others are killed and dumped with their identification tattoos "removed"

Also the adverts from breeders advertising their female animal stock , dog,cats, rabbits,guinea-pigs this little lady deserves a lovely retirement home to live out her days .............after having litter after litter for the breeder to sell , now doesn't want to provide care as she's past her useful life

I'm trying to understand.

The main reply has basically been that culturally we keep horses as pets and therefore killing them seems crueller. But my point is if we take a short step back, is it crueller?

Then the next reply has been that using animals for entertainment isn't okay, whereas using animals for meat is. I agree totally with this. Especially if the animal being used for entertainment is being treated cruelly. But, most of our meat consumption isn't for our survival but for our tastes, particularly with the friendship group I was talking to this about. So, again, it seems hypocritical to me.

I am listening, but the arguments seem quite surface level to the point I was talking about with the friendship group, like people aren't willing to look deeper/take a step back.

For me there is no difference between eating horses and cows or pigs. I don't want to eat any animal. I find it difficult to understand how people say they are animal lovers but then eat them (but I don't go around saying this to people as they then accuse me of being a sanctimonious vegan and of course I know that everyone has the right to choose what they eat).

No one said factory farming was OK. I'm not vegetarian but that doesn't mean that I feat factory-farmed meat.

Well you just need to have a long sit down and consider how ungrateful your cat will view you as . He brings you a lovely gift and you probably screamed as your bare feet sunk into the rat-gizzards .

Cute and fluffy pets!!

Not sure what sharks and dolphins have to do with the discussion, but I’ll answer regardless! The amount of folk that go on holiday and ‘swim with dolphins’ for their entertainment! They go to sea centres where whales are held captive and do ‘tricks’ for the entertainment of the paying excited audience, who are seeking their thrill from the splash of poor whales. Again - Hypocrisy at its finest.

I also find it difficult to understand how people say they are animal lovers but then they eat food that has directly and indirectly resulted in the killing, maiming, harming and destroyed habitats of billions of species for their plant based diets. 🤔

This one I understand totally. But the group I was talking to have no issues consuming factory farmed meat or killing animals to consume when it's not "necessary" for nutrition...eg tiny crabs for the novelty, oysters for the pearls etc, and I'm trying to understand the double think.

Cats are the ultimate mental and emotional support animal 😻

My cats do as they wish too. I think they've been useful to humans for a long time to keep rodent populations away from houses, ships used to have cats etc.

Even today, my catless neighbours have mouse problems but I don't.

You're mixing 2 issues up.

Race horses are working. They get killed once they can't work anyone. It's barbaric imo.

Raising animals for food is also cruel but its for a purpose - to feed people and our pets. IMO shooting race horses is not acceptable. Raising animals for food as long as they are managed, healthy etc is just about acceptable.

When we can commercially grow protein in labs who is going to eat that versus an animal?!

It's not crueler to kill a horse than it is cow, for meat. What gets in the way for us is sentimentality, culture and socialisation.

I love cats! The fluffffffff.
But yes, when growing up we never had mice in the house because "the pesky neighbour's cat who used our garden as a toilet" must have kept them at bay. 2 months after they moved out, there the mice were....

It's an interesting philosophical question but unfortunately there are so many factual inaccuracies I don't see the thread having a productive discussion. The main one being that it's simply untrue that racehorses are shot at the end of their racing careers / because they're too slow. This simply doesn't happen - majority of ex racehorses (discounting the ones that were good enough to be used for breeding purposes) are re-homed to either be sports horses (eventing, SJ etc) or to be pets/companions. This isn't simply because people in racing care about their animals and take responsibility for their future (although I'd say the majority do) but also simple economics, these are valuable animals, the days when an ex racehorse was barely worth it's carcass value are well behind us now, even a totally untrained and fairly average ex racer would be worth over £1000 and once they've had some retraining or if they have potential for some of the ex racer disciplines it would be much more, even if you only credit the owners/trainers with the barest cold hearted commercial considerations why would they shoot the horse for a fraction of its worth. There are of course a significant minority of racehorses that finish their careers with injuries, health problems or more rarely behavioural issues that mean they would never be suited or comfortable in a life outside racing, and those horses are nearly all humanely euthanised by injection, which means they can't enter any food chain in any event. Very few are shot these days and fewer still go to abattoirs. Now I'm very far from saying the industry is perfect or has it all right, there's much to do about ensuring owners and the wider industry contribute to the system that makes it possible for ex racers to have a useful life out of racing, traceability and ensuring there is a safety net for ex racers sold on outside the industry (to me you will be much more likely to see a racehorse in poor conditions and miserable after being 'rescued' by someone with no idea what they're doing, and literally anyone is allowed to do so, than in a licensed racing yard where things are much more controlled), and also, more difficult, how we encourage responsible breeding of racehorses and discourage overbreeding and the selection of traits (physical and mental) that make the horses unsuitable for a life outside racing. These are complex and difficult questions and despite being a fan of the sport I actually have more sympathy with the view that says animals should never be used for any form of human pleasure (and in that you'd incorporate owning pets as well as food chain and sports/working animals) as that has some logical consistency, than people who claim horse racing is cruel but happily eat factory farmed meat and dairy, keep pets in unsuitable environments etc which are arguably the same if not worse...

🤣

Horse is eaten in many places but not necessarily the kind used for racing, I’d have to look that up. I personally think it is ok to shoot an injured or beyond capable of racing horse as long as it is then used at a zoo for instance that requires meat for their animals, resources shouldn’t be wasted.

I guess from a philosophical point of view, you’re right OP.

I’m a meat eater. I have no ethical problem with that. Our biology has evolved from eating meat. However, I have significant ethical issues with how those animals are kept and slaughtered - so much so that I am thinking of becoming vegetarian as it becomes harder and harder to obtain meat that’s been certified as raised and killed as humanely as possible. I wish the food industry would be properly taken to task for causing unnecessary suffering. It’s perfectly possible to produce meat and still allow those animals a good life. Just more expensive.

I don't know your friends. I just know that I shop at local butchers and fishmongers who can tell me where my meat and fish come from.

Yes it's a dilemma I agree. I am not sure what the 'correct' thing to do is. I think I need to start making more of an effort to eat non ultra processed food which might have less of an impact.

I don’t eat meat, but if I did, I would eat horse, dog etc.
it chills me how we can ‘humanise’ some animals as pets (I have pets) and ‘dehumanise’ others to be part of the food chain. They are all animals.

and for those saying it is wrong to kill animals for entertainment but okay to kill them for meat - imo if you’re killing for meat, that IS for your entertainment. It is unnecessary, and to provide your enjoyment. No other reason in developed western culture.

I definitely indirectly abuse animals, wildlife and environment with my western lifestyle. We all do.

I don't think we tend to eat carnivores so much in the west. So dogs and cats are generally off the menu. I remember once something about an artic expedition where they ate the dogs because they were starving and poisoned themselves, maybe something about dog livers being very high in a particular chemical.

In places where food is shorter the diet is a lot more varied by necessity. So its not surprising that in some countries where 10s of millions of people have starved to death within living memory that they eat a very wide variety of different food types and a lot of stranger food (to us) is considered a delicacy.

I have eaten a lot of weird stuff and my general conclusion is most of it is not too bad. Because if it was, people wouldn't eat it (or at least wouldn't eat it today). And you can eat almost everything, plant and animal that is alive, apart from stuff that is obviously poisonous.

Edit : Some stuff might have very low nutritional value though. eg grass.