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Copyright 2008 Rocky Mountain Rider. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of any editorial material, artwork and photos is strictly forbidden without express written permission of the publisher. For information about reprint rights, please contact the editor; editor@rockymountainrider.com.
March 2008 Issue
[Editor’s Note: This is the second
article in our series about the current issue of how to deal with
Unwanted Horses, and the related topics of slaughter, euthanization, and
rendering.
In February, 2007, we published “What To Do With A Dead
Horse.” In February, 2008, we covered these issues: the causes of
unwanted horses; horse slaughter houses; transportation to slaughter;
and horse meat.
Please contact us with your feedback and thoughts about this very
important issue.] Ultimate Recycling: Rendering
Rendering plants do not kill animals; they process waste from
slaughter houses, butchers, restaurants, etc., as well as whole animals
that have already died. Rendering is a process that converts waste
animal tissue into stable, value-added materials. The rendering process
dries the material and separates fat from bone and protein.
After a horse dies, if it is not buried, burned or composted, the
carcass may be taken to a rendering facility or transfer station, if
there is one nearby. In the past, renderers paid a small amount for
animals, and often offered a pick up service; now there is normally a
charge for pick up.
Most medium- to large-sized communities had rendering plants up
until about 20 to 40 years ago. Now, like a lot of businesses,
consolidation has hit the rendering industry and most rendering plants
in the Rendering Industry is Tight-Lipped
When RMR called the few rendering plants in our
distribution area to ask about whether they accepted horse carcasses and
what useful products might be rendered from them, we were met by closed
doors. We were either referred to the Texas or California home company
which had bought up many plants about seven years ago, and/or we were
stopped by “gatekeepers” and did not have our calls returned.
Dennis Lucky, spokesperson for Baker Commodities’ Corporate
Offices in
When asked what products might be made from a horse carcass, he
responded, “We don’t just process one horse at a time—they go into
the raw product.”
He then referred us to the National Renderer’s Association
website for information. BSE Scare
Rendering companies have become very shy about talking to the
press, including RMR, in part due to the “mad cow” scare.
“Mad cow disease” or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)
became an epidemic in
According to Dr. Frederick A. Murphy, former Dean of the
“After cattle started to die, cattle carcasses and their offal
were included in the same protein supplements. This seems to a have
amplified the epidemic” of BSE. When humans ate the infected beef,
they became infected with BSE (known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in
humans).
Eventually, more than 160,000 infected cows in
BSE is caused by an extremely hardy pathogen called a prion,
which can remain viable through the normal rendering process that
sterilizes bacteria and viruses.
Until the BSE epidemic, feeding practices for cattle in the Meat & Bone Meal
By 2000, the USDA had banned any feeding of meat and bone meal to
bovines and other ruminants.
According to Darling International, Inc., an international
rendering corporation, the “FDA Feed Rule (21 CFR 589.2000) is a key
firewall to preventing BSE from spreading in the
“These regulations banned the feeding of Meat and Bone Meal,
made from certain ruminant animal by-products, to cattle and other
ruminant animals in the
“The ban did not affect Blood Meal or Feather Meal. The ban
only affects ruminant animal feeding. Any type of Meat and Bone Meal may
be fed to swine, poultry, fish, and companion animals. “In the world marketplace, protein
has become the most sought-after ingredient in the makeup of animal
feeds. … and has become an important part of the feed ingredient
mix.”
Renderers take “the raw product,” and make meat and bone
meal, tallow and hides. Meat and bone meal is then made into livestock
and poultry feed and pet food. Hides are made into leather. Tallow
becomes soap and glycerin, stearic acid and linoleic acid, which in turn
become lubricants, textiles, shampoo, emulsifiers, cleansing creams,
inks, glues, solvents, antifreeze, explosives, rubber tires, lubricants,
esters and paints.
Tallow is used as a high-energy feed additive for poultry, swine
and dairy cows.
Used vegetable oil from restaurants also goes to renderers and is
reclaimed.
One small rendering transfer station operator in
“BSE nearly shut us down, and now rendering is not as lucrative
as it used to be due to transportation costs.
“We still take horse carcasses, but we charge $150. Some people
just won’t pay that and figure out something cheaper to do with the
body. The raw product (animal carcasses) we take produces a tremendous
variety of finished product. We are even trying to figure out a way for
the oils (tallow) to be made into bio-deisel. It’ll happen.” Read your feed tag
Many brands of dog and cat food, as well as some chicken and pig
feeds, list some rendered animal products as ingredients named “fish
meal,” “beef meal,” “chicken meal,” “hydrolyzed poultry
feathers,” “chicken by-product meal,” or less specifically:
“animal protein product, animal fat” and “animal digest.”
And, although uncommon, some types of animal protein or fat are
occasionally used in horse supplements and feed. A little research into
ingredients of feeds and supplements manufactured across the
Meat and bone meal is manufactured from waste materials of the
slaughtering operation (carcass trimmings, condemned carcasses,
condemned livers, inedible offal such as lungs and bones), and also from
the rendering of dead animals.
A “by-product” is any product produced as a secondary or
incidental product, such as waste from a slaughterhouse. “Chicken
by-product meal” is made from the clean parts of a slaughtered
chicken, typically necks, bones, feet, undeveloped eggs and intestines. According to the Association of
American Feed Control Officials, a private commercial regulatory body
for fodder and pet food, animal digest is produced by chemically or
enzymatically treating animal tissue. Help for Unwanted Horses?
A broad alliance of equine organizations, including national
breed clubs and veterinary associations, have joined together under the
umbrella of the American Horse Council to form the Unwanted Horse
Coalition (UHC).
For more information, visit: www.unwantedhorsecoalition.org. Questions:
The following are questions that we have tossed around in the RMR
offices or 1.
Is it really more humane to keep a horse until it must be
euthanized, instead of sending it to a 2.
Are horses going to suffer more, by being starved or medically
neglected, before being euthanized? 3.
Are we simply exchanging “horse slaughter” for “horse
rendering”? 4.
What happens to horse corpses when it’s economically not
feasible, due to high fuel costs, for the rendering companies to pick
them up? 5.
Is it good for horses and the horse industry if unwanted or
undesirable horses have little or no value, and may actually cost money
to euthanize and dispose of? In parts of the country, disposing of a
horse may cost as much as $500. 6.
Are horses companion animals or livestock? We’ll discuss this
issue in our April 2008 issue. Copyright 2008 Rocky Mountain Rider. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Reproduction of any editorial material, artwork and photos is strictly forbidden without express written permission of the publisher. For information about reprint rights, please contact the editor; editor@rockymountainrider.com.
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