Most of America's horses are shipped overseas to countries such as Canada and Mexico for slaughter, However, the slaughter process starts way before the horses arrive to the slaughterhouse. These slaughterhouses will slaughter any horse, from foals to old horses to ponies and donkeys and even pregnant mares, if they are shipped to slaughter they are slaughtered. Some horse owners will outright sell their horses to killer buyers, but most people will take their horse to a local auction where killer buyers bid against other buyers and try to get horses for the lowest price. A killer buyer is a person who travels from auction to auction buying horses at the lowest price specifically for slaughter, then when the unsafe oversized overcrowded trailers …show more content…
These pens are very small but yet the horses are once again crammed together without food or water to await their death. Horses are a highly sensitive prey animal and must stand in fear as they can hear the terrified screams and smell the blood of the horses being slaughtered before them. After waiting in fear in the holding pens, the horses are one by one ran down an alley into the kill chute. In the kill chute many methods can be used to kill the animal. The most common method is a captive bolt gun, this gun is used to insert a metal rod into the brain of the horse to paralyze the animal rather than to kill it. However because of the horses scared nature and the untrained slaughter workers, most aims do not go as directed. This leaves the horse with many painful blows and injuries to the head and body. Another method that is mostly used in Mexico uses a small knife which is repeatedly stabbed in the horse's spine which causes paralysis and eventually suffocation. After attempting to kill or sometimes successfully killing the horse, the animal is hung by one leg, the throat is slit open for the horse to bleed out, and then the horse is