Legislature Wants to Slaughter Horses In Oklahoma

Please join me in calling your Oklahoma Senator and Representative and Governor Mary Fallin and asking them to vote NO on Horse Slaughter Houses in Oklahoma. That is the most disgusting thing I've heard of in a long time. House bill 1999 and Senate bill 375 would make horse slaughter legal.

Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow is the author of this horrific bill. It sounds utterly barbaric. Besides her families business could gain $240,000 in commission in one year from the slaughter of horses.

Such a majestic animal that has been the servant of man for time eternal and now our state wants to slaughter them? Makes me sick. Not only slaughter them for money, to make money, they will sell the meat to Mexico, Canada, Europe and who else? They say there is a provision in the bill that prohibits it being sold as meat for Oklahoman's consumption. I believe the government so much.

Rep. Skye McNiel, R-Bristow, grandparents opened Mid America Stockyards 40 years ago and she worked there. She still works there, according to the Daily Oklahoman. This is a family business and they will make thousands of dollars. If 5,000 horses are auctioned in a year, weighing an average of 1,000 pounds, Mid America could expect to collect about $75,000 in annual commissions on horse sales. f prices increase under McNiel's legislation to pre-2007 days, the company could make as much as $240,000 commission on horse sales in a year's time.

Sloan Varner, McNiel's brother and an auctioneer at Mid America, the largest horse auction in the state, estimated as many as two-thirds of the 5,000 horses sold there in a typical year are sent to slaughter houses.

Gail Vacca, who trains thoroughbred racehorses in DeKalb, Ill., and has been active in the anti-slaughter movement since 2002, called reports of an increase in abandoned horses “pure propaganda. … We’ve got a 54-page document debunking almost every single claim of abandoned horses. It’s ridiculous. “

Horses have been a passion for Jena Raymer for more than 30 years now. She hates to think Oklahoma could be a horse slaughter state.

"They are part of American history, and it's just not something that I want to be proud of as an American,” says Raymer.

Jena is one of many horse owners’ statewide urging legislators to reconsider bills that have already been approved in the House and Senate that would end Oklahoma’s 50-year ban on horse slaughtering.

Pam Smith says the fate of her spunky Arabian horse could have been much different. "He wasn't perfect and he wasn't a mare so they were going to sell him, but actually an organization came in and took him or he would have gone to slaughter,” says Smith.

One year I took my grandsons to see the world-renown Express Clydesdales. The change that came over my grandsons was nothing short of miraculous. They calmed down and were different boys. There are horses that help handicap children and people with emotional problems. I think I may need to go see the Clydesdales after hearing that my state is seriously thinking of slaughtering horses. Sick. I won't vote for my representative again if he votes for this bill.