So the price of horse meat is up.  This always leads to problems for horse owners.

Back in the mid 70’s trailers would back up to pasture gates in the middle of the night and clean out a pasture.  In the morning the owners would go out to feed and their beloved pets would be gone, never to be found again.

Now the brazen butchers just pull a horse out of a pasture and cut him up right there.  A couple of days ago they took a very expensive show horse, sawed off his legs, cut off the meat, and left body parts there.  They feel this horse was singled out because of his weight, and body mass.  This has been happening on the East Coast of Florida in Miami Dade County for a while, they would just pull them out and butcher them in the woods.  But now it’s happening on the West Coast too.  Getting way too close to home for me.  Whether it’s been going on in other states, I don’t know, but if it’s happening here, it must be happening in other places too.

So what is a horse owner to do?  Back in the 70’s I stopped leaving halters on my horses.  The horse that got cut up the other day was in a pasture with three board fencing.  They just broke the boards and removed him.  I have horse wire with a top board and electric wire.  Way too much trouble to get through.   We are on a one car width, dead end street.  It would not be a wise move to come up here and be blocked with no way out, but still, maybe locking the gates at night would be a good idea.  We live on the property, have an intercom in the barn that lets me know any noise that happens out there.  It’s just a baby monitor, but it works great.  It’s right next to my bed.  I put it in there to hear the smoke alarm if it goes off.  We have a motion sensor on the lights on the front of the barn.  We have dogs that are definitely going to take charge of any situation.  But still, how safe are we?

Now I’m not telling you to sit there at night with a shot gun, but don’t make it easy for some wacko either.  This is not a one time deal.  These were professional butchers.

I’m just putting this information out there for you.  What you do with it is up to you.