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I'm not sure what happened to Monte, I was wondering that myself.Originally Posted by BabyWukong
What happened to Monte? There was a comment that you miss riding him.
Hmm how old do horses get? And....... what happens to those horses that have trouble (sick, can't be ridden), do they get put down somewhere and turned into pet food or something horrible like that?
I've known 2 horses that made it to 42 and 45. With a good life they can live to 30 fairly easy.
Most horses that get sick/can't be rode stay on the farm and live a retired life. We have a retired rodeo horse, Holly, that is a brood mare now. She's 8-9 years old and lame because of an injury. She can walk fine, but doesn't run a whole lot. We've had to do some vet work on her leg, but other than that she makes a great mom to great babies!
Most people wouldn't put down a horse because of old age. However, at the auctions there is a thing called "the kill pen". Those horses are the ones that end up in slaughter houses or shipped out of the country (to be slaughtered). For awhile the kill pens were stopped and horses weren't allowed to go to slaughter in the US. It was a terrible mess and long story short, we need the kill pens. (people kill horses they don't want, and how they kill them is disgusting)
Not just any horse ends up in slaughter. If you look in a kill pen you won't see horses that would make good pets or EVER live a good life. Some were born deformed and suffer every day. Some were injured and had owners that never fixed the injury and can't walk, some are on their last day of life becuase of horrible owners that didn't feed them all winter, and the rest have diseases that they don't have the strength to fight off. I honestly think the problem lies with the owners and the lack of laws, not slaughter houses. If we had laws that protected horses we wouldn't have a need for kill pens or slaughter houses.
The "kill buyers" don't just take any horse. In fact they have a heart to! I've spoke to several that will buy horses out of the kill pen because they see potential. Some horses end up in the kill pen because owners don't care and just want to make a hundred bucks. The kill buyers buy these horses and resell them to people looking for a family horse, not meat.