As a person that has and loves horses I understand the need for horse slaughter. Even though our horses are our love and pleasure when the time come to have to put them down not evey one can afford to have a Vet come to the house and do the job, that cost is between $2 and 300.00 dollars. Then we can not all compost or bury our horses due to space and regulations so we have to call valley proteins to pick them up. The last one my friend had picked up cost almost $200.00 to have it hualed away. So now we have just under $500.00 in getting rid of a horse. In this economy for a lot of people this just isn't posible. No one wants to see their horse go to slaughter but there needs to be a regulated place in the USA to do this. At least all pasts are used and nothing is wasted. Slaughter horses now are put on boats and slaughtered out to sea, or are crowded on trucks and taken to Canada and to Mexico, some spend days on truck to get where they are going, how humane is that. Horses are as cows they are a farm animal they fill a need.