Pat Dickey
Tonkawood Farm
2019 CR 403
Marble Falls
,
Texas
78654
830-693-8253
fax 830-693-6177
email Pat@tonkawood.com
Web site
www.tonkawood.com
March 17, 2003
To the members of the livestock and agricultural
committee. We wish to register our opposition to Betty Brown bill HB 1324
My daughter, Pam Holyfield, and I, Pat Dickey are in the business of selling and
brokering horses here in the state of
Texas
. We have an operation in
Marble
Falls
that sells quiet, gentle horses for recreational purposes along with hunter
jumper horses.
In the process of purchasing and developing an inventory of
good horses we frequent auctions and sales across the state.
We were horrified to meet up with the “killer buyers” who purchased
in direct competition with us when we first started our business 9 years
ago. The horses that the “killer
buyers” bid on and purchase are most of the time good sound nice horses.
We learned as we studied and did our homework that
Texas
was the home of two major slaughter plants, Dallas Crown and Beltex. We
discovered that that is where these horses were going.
Pam and I have personally been in line to pay for horses and heard the
killer-buyers discuss if they had made their “quota” for the week. It
has been a boon to auction houses as it guarantees a ready sale and does not
force unscrupulous owners to take the horses back home if they do not sell! It
has been a boon to those who neglect animals as they can immediately escape
detection and prosecution by dumping these animals at a sale and leaving! It
relieves these few owners of the burden of responsible animal care and
management. Without the slaughter houses, people would be forced to deal in a
fair and humane way with the horses. They
would have to destroy them or sell them at a lower price to families and
brokers.
We discovered that there are buyers who purchase theses
horses, fatten them up in pens with bread to add bulk, and ship them to the
slaughter plants on a regular basis. We have spoken to them directly, and they
brag about how bread fattens horses up quickly for slaughter. We further
discovered a network of buyers who travel across the state of Texas, Calif.
Arizona and a general 5 state area, purchasing horses for slaughter only. This
is a big business here in
Texas
.
The deplorable conditions of the transportation is heart
wrenching. We have personally seen
the frightened horses prodded into open trucks, left standing for hours with no
food or water, jammed in while the “buyers” pay and drink their beer before
leaving with their load. We have seen good beautiful horses leave under these
conditions. We have tried on occasion to purchase theses horses form the killers
after auction, but in most cases they will not sell, as they need the horses for
their weekly quota.
The slaughter process is unconscionable as these animal are
stunned like cattle. However, they
do not act like cattle, nor are they built like cattle.
Horses are generally head shy and their long necks along with the
peripheral vision allows them to evade the gun in many instances.
There are documented videos that show this procedure with the stun gun
operators stunning the horse many times. The
horses are not dead as they are dragged out to hang and have their throats cut,
but must “bleed out” to prepare the meat for human consumption!
Who is to say the animals are stunned! Who is to say they do not feel
anything! These are NOT cattle. These
are pets, recreational animals, and working stock. They are trained to follow
and trust their handlers and obey humans.
The American Horse Council’s statistics state the horse
industry as a $112.1 billion annual
business, and the number of Americans involved is 7.1 million persons.
The number of full time jobs is 1.4 million.
The number of horses in the
United States
is 6.9 million with a total tax impact on the
US
economy of $1.9 billion. The horse industry is greater that the motion picture
services, railroad transportation, furniture and fixtures manufacturing and
tobacco products manufacturing industry.
Texas
is the number one state with over one million horses. A recent survey by the
American Quarter Horse Association estimates that one half of the people in the
United States of America
would like to have some involvement with horses.
Susan Combs, Commissioner of Agriculture, State of Texas,
in an article titled “Think
Texas
”, states, “Any Texan will tell you that horses contribute to the overall
quality of life. It is about
spending quiet times outdoors with a friend.
But beyond the emotional and recreational value, horses have a
multi-million dollar impact in the
Lone
Star
State
”. She further states that the
horse business in
Texas
exceeds $11 billion annually.
We find questionable the discovery that the State of
Texas Agriculture Department
collects a $5.00 fee from these illegal slaughter plants in order to provide
USDA meat inspectors at the plants. Question,
why is the Agriculture Department collecting fees from an illegal, criminal
operation? If I as a citizen break a law, I am told, “Ignorance of the law is
NO excuse. It is my duty to know the
law and obey.” Not true for a
state agency?
Live horses contribute billions of dollars to our economy
from the sale of feed, farrier services, veterinarian services, land sales and
real estate taxes, sales of tack, clothing, equipment, fencing, hardware
purchases, lumber purchases for fencing, building stables, mowers, tractors,
trucks, cars, tires, trailers, magazine publications, state fair exhibits,
rodeos, horse shows advertising, 4H competition, sheriffs’ posses, etc. These
activities that require a live horse for the activities FAR outweigh the
mere $800.00 on average the “killers” collect for these animals.
A dead horse is gone from the economy. A dead horse is an economic
boon to the Belgian owned company that sells them to the French, Belgians and
Japanese for up to $20.00 a pound for human consumption.
That money is NOT going into the
United States
economy. It is not the initial money paid for a horse that stimulates the
economy, it is the ongoing care and upkeep that contributes on a daily basis. WE
DO NOT EAT HORSES HERE IN THE UNITED STATES!
To add further to the horror, we were alerted by the Texas
Animal Department of Health two years ago, that a new rule concerning the
administration of a test for Equine Infectious Anemia, called a coggins rule was
going into effect in our state. A
veterinarian must administer this test and the general cost is from $25.00 to
$40.00. The rule stated that
unless a horse has this document and it was presented at the time the horse
enters the auction, the horse AUTOMATICALLY goes to slaughter. My
daughter, Pam Holyfield, and I were witnesses two years ago at an auction at
Round Mountain
Texas
where we saw 18 horses in a pen behind the buildings.
They were beautiful horses… paints, colts, some Arabians and grade
horses. We did not see a tag on them
so inquired at the office who they were. We
were told that they were already purchased! We asked why, and were told that
they went to the killer buyer, as they had no coggins. This was the first we had
heard about this, and we inquired further to find that these horses were
delivered by a “disgruntled” husband. His
wife and he were in an argument and he loaded her horses up, shipped them to
Round
Mountain
and dumped them. A state inspector
from the Texas Department of Health was on the premise checking coggins.
I went to him and inquired as I wished to purchase some.
I was told they were going to KILL. I
asked why, and he stated that they had no coggins and had been logged into his
book. Apparently this book is the
tracking record to the slaughterhouse. I asked if I could get a vet to do a
1-hour turn around coggins at my expense? Answer
NO, the horses were in the book and that was that. The horses were loaded after
the sale to a tight truck. The
mothers of the foals were whinnying, the colts were crying, some fell down and
all were whisked away by the killer buyer. We
were not allowed to even look or purchase! I
called the Texas Dept. of Health to complain and was told they were only doing
their job! Thus we found another
Texas Agency involved with the illegal killer plants by enacting a law that
forces these animals, through no fault of their own, to be slaughtered if their
owners are unaware, or do not care to have the test.
Many question this test, as it is required to be administrated on a
yearly basis. A horse could come
home, be bitten and be infected and not checked again for one year! Once again
we find a State of
Texas
agency supporting the slaughter plants by relegating these horses to
slaughter. Has anyone in the
Dept. of Animal Health checked the laws of the State of
Texas
, or is ignorance their plea also? We were also told that each NON-Coggins
horse was thoroughly checked by the slaughter plants after the kill and the meat
tested to make sure no horse having EIA would be shipped.
Where are these records? How
is this done, and to what extent are they monitored!
To make matters even worse, there is a huge problem here in
Texas
with stolen horses.
I have personally been involved with a situation where a horse was stolen
from a ranch in
Lometa
,
Texas
where it was on consignment for sale. The Texas Department of Health issues
many alerts to horse owners across the state on a number of matters.
We got one last year where we were invited to attend a seminar put on by
the department on “how to keep your horses from being stolen.” If
there were not a quick ready market to haul to the killer, or deliver a horse to
a registered killer-buyer, what incentive would there be to steal a horse, as
the sheriff and law enforcement agencies could go to work and find the animal?
This becomes a daunting task however if it is delivered, slaughtered and gone!!
We have been told that all horses that go to slaughter are
registered, tagged, and ownership defined. Brands
are checked, however it has been our experience that only a tiny percentage of
horses are branded now days. We also discovered that the required registration
with one county, Kaufman, home of Dallas Crown, of all horses slaughtered, their
ids, proof of ownership etc. has never been undertaken.
There are NO records ever turned in by Dallas Crown to
Kaufman
County
! Now what is this?
Another governmental agency not doing their job!
There is an argument that has been made by some that
slaughter is necessary or horses will be starved, neglected etc.
That is a misconception. Anyone who can afford horses can afford to have
them humanly euthanized or shot and buried.
There are registered DEAD ANIMAL haulers here in our state, along with
rendering plants, that take dead animals of all kinds to either rendering
plants, or to licensed land fills that bury the carcass.
To make the ludicrous argument that horses will be mistreated if not
slaughtered is ridiculous as
Texas
has strong enforceable laws relating to animal neglect and cruelty.
I have personally been involved with a case in
Georgetown
,
Texas
where horses were neglected, taken away and the owner jailed!
If you can afford a horse, you can afford to dispose of it for a mere
pittance of the cost to feed it for one month.
When we discovered that indeed it was illegal to slaughter
horses in
Texas
and that the AG’s determination was that it was illegal to slaughter horses
in
Texas
for human consumption, we were elated. We were sure the plants now deemed
illegal were to be shut down. Not to
be the case however as it is now in court, and making the slaughter plants
adhere to the law has been a daunting task.
Now we find that Ms. Betty Brown has introduced HB 1324 to
make it legal to slaughter horses here in our state as long as the meat that is
shipped for human consumption is not consumed in the
United States
. What in the world is this?
To even consider a bill that protects a foreign company’s
right to produce a product here in
Texas
yet outlaws Texans’ right to the same industry is not only absurd, but dangerous.
A precedent setting bill like this could have extreme negative ramifications
for other foreign nationals to set up shop in
Texas
doing anything they please as long as we Texans and US citizens cannot!
How Ms. Brown came up with this one is a mystery and obviously has not
been thought through. What could
possibly motivate a representative of the people of this state to introduce such
a bill? We want answers as to
why such a bill would even enter this committee for hearing!
Sincerely,
Pat Dickey
Pam Holyfield
Tonkawood Farm