Issues of water and slaughter go hand in hand
Michael Swickard
There are some casualties of the extended drought and government decisions involving ownership of water. New Mexico watches lots of water travel through our state without being able to use it. This protracted drought and lack of water for farmers directly caused something the newspapers recently covered: the appearance of horse maltreatment and a plan for a horse slaughterhouse in Roswell. The two-fer of horses not being fed well and the desire to slaughter horses has people not understanding.
Do not get me wrong, any day I get horse boogers on me is a good day. I like horses better than people and only slightly less than dogs, but it is close. I have spent quite a bit of time around horses and have a good understanding of equine issues. In fact, I understand the physics of when a horse is standing on your boot; it will take all of the weight off the other three hooves.
Cattle to market
So why are horses looking bad these days? Start with this question: Why did many New Mexico ranchers take most of their cattle to market last summer? It was the price of feed. The normal price of alfalfa was about six dollars a bale. Suddenly it went up and up until, today, that price now is around $22 a bale. Why sell herds of animals? Because it is too hard to feed the livestock and remain profitable when feed goes up 400 percent. And feed them the producers must, because New Mexico is in an extended, hard drought.
That does not excuse mistreatment of any animal, but we need to soften our hearts a bit and understand the dynamics at work. First, why is feed up 400 percent? It is entirely connected to lack of water for New Mexico farmers. Growing alfalfa requires lots of water. Rain alone will not do it in New Mexico. When the snowpack is much less than abundant and the allocation of water to farmers is cut, the farmers must concentrate their slender water resources on growing fewer fields to have enough water for their crops.
Consequently, the price of feed started going up. There was a scarcity of New Mexico alfalfa that was satisfied by alfalfa growers in Colorado and Arizona. The law of supply and demand for feed made the price rise. Competing for the feed are three broad groups: people with horses, dairies, and other livestock producers.
There is one other factor: Horses require feed with very little or no weeds concurrently grown in it. Cattle can eat alfalfa that has some weeds that grew intermingled in the alfalfa. Some livestock such as goats can eat weeds with no ill effects. The fragile horse palate means they can only eat the best feed, which costs the most.
So last summer amid the drought and rising feed prices, many cattle operations culled their herds down, taking most of the cattle to market rather than feeding at skyrocketing prices. But what about horse operations?
What about horses?
What do horse operations do with a glut of horses that no one wants because feed prices make the horses too expensive? What to do with those horses? Years ago those extra horses would have gone to slaughterhouses so horse ranchers could recover some of their investment and stay in business. It was not what anyone who had horses wanted to do, but it was what they had to do.
Then the federal government, with no understanding of the economics of horse ranchers, closed the last slaughterhouse in 2007 by not certifying it. It is not illegal to slaughter horses; the government just decided for political reason to not certify each slaughterhouse. So horses have to go somewhere. They are shipped to Mexico to be slaughtered there under less-humane conditions.
New Mexico must get a handle on water such that farmers have a full allotment of water for their growing season, or cost-of-feed problems will only get worse. If New Mexico farmers can grow lots of alfalfa, the price will fall and pressures will ease on the livestock producers.
It will not entirely do away with the market need to slaughter horses, but it will reduce it.
Swickard is co-host of the radio talk show News New Mexico, which airs from 6 to 9 a.m. Monday through Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. His e-mail address is michael@swickard.com.
What a pity that the ‘ol law of supply and demand is pinching tight-fisted horse owners to the point they’d rather let horses starve than pay to feed them, but that’s free enterprise, isn’t it Dr S ? Nobody said it was pretty….
“ New Mexico must get a handle on water such that farmers have a full allotment of water for their growing season”
And what, pray tell, does New Mexico do to come up with extra water for that alfalfa? Break treaties and agreements with other states and other countries so we can keep the water that flows thru New Mexico? Build expensive de-sal plants all over the place? You might as well advocate putting Navajo rain-making shamans on the state payroll….it’s just as realistic and just as likely to succeed. In rainy years my EBID allocation has been over 24 inches, this year it looks like 6 to 8…so I adapt or it’s tough horseburgers for me.
We’re in an arid climate with a long history of life-changing droughts, and we’re probably in one of those now. Beef and dairy men better get used to the idea of buying feed if they want to stay in the Southwest, and so should horse owners. Cattlemen have already adapted by selling off herds last year and letting them shrink to fit the land and feed available as free enterprise dictates.
And you’re a teensy bit behind the times about the Feds effectively prohibiting horse slaughter…the ban on funding horse slaughterhouse inspections was dumped last November, so butchers can get to work if they choose to. A permit has been applied for in Roswell, though our allegedly pro-business Republican Gov. Martinez has asked the USDA to deny it. So much for free enterprise and the “evil” of picking winners n losers in business.
The other option is move the animals to places where lack of rain isn’t an issue. If you can’t do business in one place you can pick up and move to someplace where you can. Folks fled the dust bowl of the 30s for the green fields of California, and something similar might drive cattle and horse people to the Midwest where rain and grass are plentiful.
Call them Droughties instead of Okies?
By the way…great post, MHS!
Here is another article warning of drastic changes to come, about agriculture in Texas:
http://www.waterwelldrillingtexas.com/limited-water-resources-in-texas-will-change-texas-agriculture/.
The article doesn’t specifically mention global warming, but it paints a pessimistic picture.
New Mexico must get a handle on water such that farmers have a full allotment of water for their growing season, or cost-of-feed problems will only get worse.
And we must have cheaper horse feed, or else:
School kids will not be able to ride their horses to school and will grow up illiterate and unemployable
Doctors will not be able to ride around on their horses making house calls, and people will die
The New Mexico mounted militia will not be able to repel the alien invaders who will come to enslave us
And all kidns of other terrible things, unless the government intervenes in the market to take our precious water and make sure it is put to it’s highest and best use: growing horse food!!
Look: it’s going to get worse. Global climate change is continuing, we’re not doing anything to stop it, and it’s going to drastically change our climate. There won’t be any more water. Agriculture in the southwest is going to be a thing of the past. Get used to it. See. e.g.: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/04/070405-us-drought.html
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2010/12/14/207198/southwest-drought-global-warmin/?mobile=nc
I would eat horse if it was available and tasted good. It is probably pretty healthy and lean being grassfed. But, don’t animals for slaughter need to be taken fairly young to be tasty?
Turn the old horses into pet food for local purposes. I know all our pet food comes from China but, can’t we just fire up and old extrusion factory to produce our own kibble during drought like this?
One thing we do want to avoid is ending up with horse CAFOs. Now that, is animal cruelty and unhealthy for people and the environment. Somebody always wants to get greedy and go into some mass unsustainable production. That is the greatest danger that I can see.
Given that our resources and especially water are strained, horses are a luxury for the 1%. Like hunting, horsemanship is a cultural phenomena that will have to fundamentally go extinct.
Are you sure it isn’t the fault of young men?
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