Richard Heinberg?

[cowman]

Well coppertop: I might suggest the end price is also the problem? The price is just too low?
I posted some numbers from 2000 and I've posted numbers from 1992? And I've posted numbers from 2006? How does anyone take a pay cut like that...and smile and say things aren't that bad?
Yes utilities are up, yes fuel is up, and yes machinery costs are up. If beef prices had stayed in relativity it wouldn't matter?
I remember in 1994(I think)there was a rising grain market? Actually higher than now? I was talking to this old boy at the auction mart who told me he thought $1 calves wasn't all that bad! I was flabberghasted that anyone would see it that way and asked him why he thought that, and where was the breakeven point on running cows? He told me he thought around 25 cents for fall calves! Said he owned all his machinery land and cattle etc. and just needed enough to pay for the bacon and beans!
It was about that time I realized I'd better pursue another line of work, because you can't compete with people who are idiots and have no clue about business!

[Horse]

I disagree on the horse thing I think it was will Rogers that said the best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse ,yes they are just pets but no finer animal ever grased the earth than the horse, I took my small team out on the sleigh today and I would rather smell the backend of a horse anyday next to a diesel smoking tractor or truck.
Just My Opinion But after all thats the one that counts for me.

[cowman]

Horse: Have you been following the "horse slaughter" controversy in the USA? Where they are proposing to end the slaughter of horses?
Apparently one version of that talk will stop the trade in horses to Canada for slaughter as well?
Do you think we need a law like that here?

[coppertop]

That would effect the horse feedlots in the Fort MacLeod area ! I think they ship fats to the US for slaughter.

[Horse]

No I dont think a law like that is any good as in the US now there are ways around it. Horses are like all other livestock some are just born to be killed.some are a numbers game like when 400 show up for the sale the only home is a feedlot[ by the way horses flow into FtMacleod from the US not south]. They are still killing in Chicago and texas and I think Indiana pretty well all the meat goes to belgium france italy japan and it is not cheap Bouvery has most of the northamerican trade in slaughter . People dont like killing horses so not to many willing to start a plant and with McLeod being the largest horse killing plant in the world atsomewhere around 60,000/yr can you imagine how many horses would be standing around if they didnt have a meat market.
I have fed and sold several hundred over the yrs and never feel good when I load a liner but like I said some are just born to be ate.

[coppertop]

Bouvry also has a cold feedlot, it was approved by the NRCB a few years ago, the colts that were born in the large horse feedlot were just left to die, so one of the employees and his family decided to turn an old facility into a colt feedlot. They are fed there from newborn until they reach 850 pounds, then go into the main feedlot. You are right, Horse, not many people want to think of a horse as the main dish at some Frenchman's evening dinner, but its better than being starved out in a snowy pasture somewhere.