Eye opener bar none! Meat eating horses!

Clarissa · Eye opener bar none! Meat eating horses!

I wasn't sure what section to put this under....spiritual, nutritional or here..so here it is. I found this interesting article in the NZ Horse Talk edition that has a recent article about Shaun.

http://www.horsetalk.co.nz/features/meateatinghorses-190.shtml

This may well be true but how long do you have to starve a horse before it accepts blood/meat meals

How long do you have to torture a horse for before it begins to stand up & fight for it’s life

How many horses were tortured to death one way or another whilst being trained to eat meat or fight tigers for the pleasure & entertainment of a depraved human population

Does this writer give a hoot in hell about the pain & suffering both physical & mental, these horses went through to get to that warped state of mind

Also what about the brain damage caused by eating meat? Think about mad cow disease & how that affects the brain of the animal.

I have no doubt nature gave the horse those massive canines powered by huge jaw muscles plus lightening fast hooves for the purpose of defending itself well. Prehistoric horse would not have survived without such effective weaponry. However I find it hard to believe nature made it a meat eater/omnivore for any reason other that which is the same for chimps that kill to satisfy their nutritional needs when food is scarce or the gene pool quality is declining.

Since the advent of scientific investigation of the horse’s digestive system you’d think they would have found some hint of enzymes or certain digestive juices that digested meat or byproducts. Yes horses routinely munch on dried bones to get the calcium however I wouldn’t think that could be construed as displaying meat eating tendencies. However I do believe rudimentary man may have witnessed that behavior amongst nutritionally deprived horses & misconstrued it as representing the need for a meat diet.

THEN THERE IS THIS GEM TOWARDS THE BOTTOM OF THE ARTICLE!:-

"The worst danger is the increase of hocus-pocus horsemanship. These shamans and showmen who peddle various equestrian superstitions over the internet and in expensive clinics, urge a departure from rational thought and embrace emotionalism instead.”

I would like to join his forum for the purpose of defending the horse against such misunderstood or misinterpreted history but I doubt it would have any effect on the writer or his books. It would however, fiercely upset me.

It is just so sad that it has taken so many millennia for the nasty aspect & ego of humanity to be set aside in favour of a more mild & thoughtfull approach to raising & caring for our equine friends.

Thank goodness it finally HAS happened hello1

misstux

"This may well be true but how long do you have to starve a horse before it accepts blood/meat meals"

I personally have had a tuna sandwich stolen out of my hand by a horse.[/quote]

Clarissa

sebocat

My pony ate a porkchop when I was a kid. I doubt the Dusty realized or cared that it was meat .....

She ate anything!

Copious_Amour

CoolsLadyInRed

That was a creepy article. I can't imagine a horse killing people to just kill. I don't believe that is their true nature like you indicated with thoughts of torturing the horse or what have you.

I think since man has forced the horse to do things out of it's natural world it does what it has to to survive.

becdubie

Well the title of meat eaters is a bit misleading. Of course horses don't eat meat as a regular meal...that's just silly. To me this article was more about agressive horses...stallions in most cases...attacking people. That part I can buy....some horses are very agressive especially some stallions...did ya see the Buck movie? But even those horses don't kill to eat meat, seriously their agression is to protect themselves, or maybe they are just not right in the head.
Maybe those horse in Tibet did eat the Blood mixed with whatever that other stuff is..but like others said...they were probably pretty hungry. That can be some desolte country.
Horses do lick blood....my husband hunts and every year he brings a deer or elk out to the pasture in the back of the truck, we let the horse see/smell it...they lick the blood, I think because it has a salty flavor. They don't eat the meat and we just do this so that they are accustomed to dead animals in case we all go hunt on horseback one day.

PasoBaby_CarolU

Zar likes Chicken wings.

I think horses are herbivores and not omnivores...this is pretty well established as fact. The fact that some horses eat meat in some places doesn't address how well they digest it. I imagine in some places, like the Himalayas, meat is the only food available in the winter. Just like cats eating grain (primary ingredient in many commercial cat foods), they eat it, but the don't do particularly well on it.

I imagine the horse described in the article was not a 'meat eating horse' but like the Yellow Horse in Buck, a horse that had learned to hate/fear people.

merle

Cows eat meat, sheep eat meat - the prion diseases came from feeding cows other cows and sheep other sheep. I think many horse people realize that horses will eat meat, but there is huge difference between eating meat that a person feed the animal and killing an animal to consume it. None of the examples given where of horses killing to consume. The example of the stallion killing people did not give any evidence of consumption afterward, instead the bodies were mutilated and left. I think most horse people would admit that some horses kill people. Who knows what made the horse do it - it may have been genetics or environment. Take a look at the original mastiff breeds, they were insanely aggressive but now the mastiff (especially English Mastiff) are couch potatoes. What was breed for even a few hundred years ago is very different from what is breed for now. Imagine the qualities you would want in a war horse, compare that to what you want in a pleasure horse.

If the author wants to defend his point of view he needs examples of horses killing animals and consuming them in the wild. Or even killing them and consuming then in captivity - again his examples were of people feeding the horses meat or of horses killing people but not of both happening together.

Also wanted to add - The dentition and gastrointestional tract of the horse do not support them being omnivores.

becdubie

check this out....
http://crosswords.hubpages.com/hub/Icelandic-Horses-They-Eat-Fish
http://www.squidoo.com/what-do-icelandic-horses-eat-fish-

merle

Interesting about the Icelandic ponies. Thanks for sharing.

ErinR76

Yep, this guy is a total kook. Sure, people have fed their horses meat at times of necessity during the history of mankind. Sure, there have been horses that have had a meanstreak and I don't doubt that it had everything to do with how man treated and interacted with said horses. But to suggest that horsekind eating meat is preferable or 'more natural' than eating forage, and to suggest that horsekind is more prone to display characteristics of predator rather than prey? He obviously has an egotistical (fame driven) motivation.

Kook!

PasoBaby_CarolU

How about owner-eating dogs?

http://news.yahoo.com/abandoned-t...ing-dogs-eat-owner-152255231.html

PasoBaby_CarolU

How about owner-eating dogs?

http://news.yahoo.com/abandoned-t...ing-dogs-eat-owner-152255231.html

becdubie

Carol, now that I believe.

Gurgleflap

Rick Lamb, who does "The Horse Show" interviewed the author of this book, Deadly Equines . It is very interesting and doesn't sound like a lot of made up stuff. The Long Riders is an interesting organization and it sounds like the book has been very well researched. Rick didn't seem to think the information was bogus. Here's the interview:

http://thehorseshowblog.blogspot....sting-horse-as-ultimate-prey.html

When the blog page comes up, click on "Listen to the interview"

I had a horse many years ago who was crazy about pepperoni pizza! He was very well fed and never showed any ill effects. He snatched a slice out of my hand one day and that started his passion. I've heard of well fed horses happily eating hamburgers and hotdogs and other meat when they have an opportunity needing no encouragement or forcing whatsoever.

I have also heard of horses attacking people and other animals. I saw an National Geographic special on mustangs. A stallion grabbed a newborn foal from another band by the neck and shook it to death. Certainly if killing and eating other prey (like the Islandics eating fish) is a potential part of a horse's makeup, we should try to understand it rather than dismiss it as nonsense.

That doesn't take away from the fact that they are primarily prey animals, but for many animals, the lines between predator and prey can be blurred. Many animals are both. Man himself is predator, but also prey to larger predators. That doesn't have to take away from our basic understanding of the pure differences for the purpose of intelligent horsemanship.

merle

becdubie

And horses do not kill to eat...

merle

ErinR76

Nope. So, to each his own, but this guy stands to gain SOMETHING (relief from boredom, attention, etc) from his sensationalistic approach to the subject material. Maybe. Ah hell, let him have at it if it makes him happy!

Off to go watch the interview.