Hay Prices Go Up, Many Horses Seek New Homes

As you may have heard recently, hay prices have been going up due to high temperatures this year, making it increasingly harder to feed and maintain horses. In a recent article by WTRF.com, it is estimated that it can cost as much as $1,000 to keep a horse fed: a price many Columbus, Ohio residents are finding they cannot afford.

Image courtesy of The Columbus Dispatch

UPDATE: Wallis Sets Her Sights on Rockville

You may remember previously that I had mentioned an ‘undisclosed’ location for the proposed Unified Equine slaughterhouse. Well, it has now been confirmed that Sue Wallis intends to end horses lives in Rockville, MO.

A horse like this one, could be chopped up and shipped to Europe sooner than you think. Image courtesy of the LA Times.

It has been alleged that Wallis has chosen this city, whose population is only 150, to reduce the chance of retaliation; the city may be too small to fight back. The building, which was once a beef slaughterhouse was formerly owned by Sharlene Mott. After being purchased by Hormel, then put out of business, it has been noted that this plant could offer up many new jobs to a town. When the original beef plant was closed down, a significant number of employees lost their jobs. Apparently, the citizens of Rockville are ‘excited’ for this business opportunity. In a public statement, Wallis stated that “We are excited to be bringing jobs and opportunity to rural Missouri” adding that they were also “even happier to provide a humane and viable option to the horse industry, decimated by misguided efforts to end humane horse slaughter.”

Talk of New Equine Slaughterhouse Confirmed!

You may remember reading a while back  about Sue Wallis trying to set up a horse slaughter plant in Mountain Grove, MO. She eventually abandoned that idea due to how outraged the locals were. Sadly, that isn’t where this story ends.

Wyoming state representative, Sue Wallis. Image courtesy of CBS5 as cited from Republic of the Horse

It turns out Sue Wallis has found an abandoned cattle slaughterhouse in western Missouri that can be ‘easily retrofitted’ for equine slaughter. Though Wallis refuses to disclose the exact location of this intended plant (probably to avoid the same reaction as Mountain Grove), it has become clear that the state representative will stop at nothing to see horse meat in American production. Although this undisclosed location apparently is certified through the U.S. Department of Agriculture for meat production, Unified Equine LLC has allegedly not yet applied for a federal grant inspection that would be required of the plant pre-production.