Just like many students my age, animated movies were one of my favorite things to watch as a kid. But, one in particular stands out well beyond the rest, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron. Horses are my favorite animal to this day. As we would drive down highway 11 when I was younger I remember gazing out of the truck window at the rolling hills of Osage County spotted with wild horses on the neighboring ranches. Having an imagination like mine didn’t help my parents’ case that much either. They tried endlessly to convince me that Spirit in fact did not live right across the highway from our ranch and he did not want to come play with Sugar and Kade, my pony and quarter horse at the time. Soon enough they began to realize my obsession with horses was not going to go away. It’s one of the things that my dad and I still share to this day, our love for horses.
Race horses, cattle horses, even the regular horses you see driving down the highway, we feel a connection to them all. My dad grew up in the rodeo industry. From riding bulls and horses to working on a large ranch as a ranch hand in his early twenties, he was always involved in the ranching and farming community. But, throughout his whole time as a ranch hand, he was always concerned about the resources that provided food for the cattle he cared for, and other aspects that supported the ranch he provided work for. You see, the ranch he worked for was a private ranch involved with the Bureau of Land Management that housed herds of wild mustangs. His growing concern, to his surprise, matched a large quantity of America’s population as well. They were all asking the same question; how does the United States deal with these wild horses?
82,000 , that is just a rough estimate of how many horses are in the care of the BLM. 32,000 horses are held on private owned ranches throughout the country, ranging from 1,000 acres to 3,500 acres. 27,000 of those horses are under their care in Oklahoma today. 2,200 of those horses are housed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma on Drummond Ranch. Oklahoma tax dollars spend an average about 475 dollars per horse per year. That’s roughly 12 million dollars spent on these horses just in Oklahoma alone. By using as little as 1.25 dollars out of that 12 million used for these horses we could feed about 10,260,000 starving people around the world. 233,350 of those individuals are Oklahoma children, walking the halls with our fellow classmates, they could maybe even be our fellow chapter members sitting next to us in class.
Horses being in retirement is more important than feeding our children in Oklahoma schools, or so the records give evidence of it being that way. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. The horses on these retirement ranches aren’t just any horses, they’re aged horses that are ruled non fit for adoption to the public anymore. Non fit horses washing away our economy and gaining more attention than our children, that is something I will not stand for me. The effort to help feed our starving community can be resolved with a simple proposition, reopening horse slaughter nationwide.
The US in 2017 recorded that 12.3 percent of our nation lived in poverty. By reopening the idea of horse slaughter we could take that number down significantly. 1 in 8 americans struggle to know when their next meal will be. By providing horse meat as a main option of consumers such as beef, chicken, or pork we could also be helping our nation’s health rates. Eating horse meat has many benefits to our health.
Over 35 million US citizens have high cholesterol, horse meat helps lower the risk of high cholesterol and could put many americans out of the risk of heart disease. With that, over 26 million americans struggle with asthma, that means that 1 in 13 american citizens could experience the benefit from eating horse meat due to the presents of potassium and other nutrients in the meat. They help to prevent muscle constrictions, the reason many people struggle to breath with asthma. Given that horse meat has higher protein and calories than other meats, it can also benefit us by increasing our stamina. You see, horses can increase our nation’s health rates and help strengthen our nation to match the strength of our fellow countries.
3,840 fluid ounces, that is an equivalence to 30 gallons of water. That’s one cycle of your washing machine, washing your show clothes for the jackpot the next day. It’s the 15 minute shower that you need to wake yourself up in the morning after a long night in the barn. It’s about 3 cycles of the dishwasher, being used to clean the plates and dishes that served the previous night’s meal for your chapter officer team. 30 gallons is the daily water intake of just one cow. Take 30 gallons and multiply it by the hundreds to thousands of cattle held in feedlots every year in the US. In my commercial cattle operation we hold about 50 to 75 head of cattle every week in the feed pens.
During that time, my grandpa and dad rush to fill up multiple troughs of water for the calves panting with thirst. A bathtub holds about 36 gallons of water, which is almost the same amount that our water troughs hold for the calves. Given that one mature cow can take on up to 30 gallons of water a day, a calf half of her size could consume about 15 gallons at the least from one trough. Compare that to 1,280 fluid ounces, 10 gallons if you will. That is the daily water intake of just one horse. There is a significant difference between the two animals water consumption, a difference that could mean everything for our nation’s future in water conservation. California was faced with a major drought in the 1970s. At the time less than 20 million people lived in the state, which is an estimated half of the now almost 40 million people living there today. Think of how the multiple 20 gallons being saved by raising more horses than cattle could do for the growing population of not only California, but all 50 states. I say, let’s stop wondering about what it could do, and quench this thirst of our fellow americans.
When I come in after a long day at a show or an FFA event, what I look forward to the most is my miniature schnauzer Annie Oakley curling up next to me. I walk through the door and she is right on my heels greeting me, I usually reach down to pick up the tiny 15 pound dog. What I never imagined though, is that almost double Annie’s weight is what is necessary to feed out just one calf for slaughter. It costs farmers in Oklahoma about 50 cents per head of cattle to feed them daily. Not to mention the added cost for hay and mineral consumption by the herd. Grass hay is predominately always provided for our cattle on my ranch from our own land and pastures. But, for a large amount of cattle operations, they simply don’t gain the same benefit that my family does.
Many farmers rely on their community members to provide them with hay to buy to feed their cattle. The average weight of a 4 by 6 foot round bale of hay is about 1,100 pounds. Just two of those bales weighs a little over one ton of hay for a herd of cattle. At the cost of about 50 dollars per bale, the amount needed to feed cattle is putting many of my neighbors into a tight budget for the rest of their farms needs. Seeing my neighbors, my family friends, struggle to pay the bills to keep their homes, count change to pay for a meal at the local diner, even putting their farms up for sale because it simply has become too much for them, has me even more convinced that horses could be the answer to our nation’s problems. Horses consume up to 15 pounds of feed and hay daily, just 15 pounds. That is 40 percent less feed than what cattle demand daily. 40 percent that could take family farms off of a real estate website, 40 percent that could show the benefits of raising horses for commercial meat production along with, maybe even preferred over, production of cattle.
Next time you’re in the store wondering what major meat produced in the US could be your next meal, think of the horse. Think of a child not having to worry about experiencing the teasing from fellow classmates over an asthma attack that he or she was a victim of on the playground at recess, while simply just trying to be a normal kid. Think of a family not having to look for another way of life, just because the cattle they were raising became too much for their finances to support. Think of what you, an american, could be doing for your country by being just one hand that raises, showing that you want a change in your country. That change, being the support of horse meat production and slaughter in the United States.
