Heavy horse (general)

A heavy horse, or slaughter horse, is a horse bred for its ability to yield meat. Coming from draft horses formerly used for agricultural work, these horses are threatened with extinction by the motorization of agricultural activities. This state of affairs has prompted breeders to look for new economic outlets. Heavy horse breeding was very popular in France in the 1980s, helping to safeguard these breeds. It has developed in Italy and Spain, but is declining in France, since the reduction of work activities with draft horses.

Heavy horses are selected for their speed of growth and fattening, as well for the mares' fertility and maternal qualities. This selection process is very different from that prevailing in a draft horse, and results in vulnerability to specific health problems. Heavy horses are generally neither trained nor socialized by their breeders: they are slaughtered as foals, between six and thirty months old.

This type of farming makes it possible to enhance the value of grassland in difficult or declining areas, including cattle and sheep. It is also controversial, due to the obesity of the animals, the violent behavior of some breeders, and societal rejection of horse slaughter and hippophagy.

Definition
The notion of "heavy horse" is a French specificity: this term designates a livestock animal, the horse raised for the production of meat. Rural historian Marcel Mavré analyzes it as a degradation of the notion of "draught horse", the heavy horse being a direct descendant of the draught horse, which is a working animal. The development/evolution of the heavy horse is very similar to that of beef cattle, since draft cattle are used as beef cattle.

History
The history of the heavy horse is an example of "keeping breeds in business by changing their orientation".

Origin
Its origins date back to the 1960s in Europe, and particularly in France. Breeders of draught horses are no longer able to sell their livestock for farm work, and are left with animals with no commercial value, considered obsolete by the tractor. Looking for ways to continue breeding these breeds, those in charge of the Boulonnais and Ardennais horse breeding registers decided to direct them towards meat production. This new orientation became official in France on July 23, 1976, then published in the Journal officiel de la République française on August 24, 1976, when the "draught horse" officially became the "heavy horse".

Positioning
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Haras Nationaux (in english: National Stud farms) encouraged breeders to convert their draught horses into heavy horses, based on the beef cattle model. They introduced a number of measures. Horses suitable for draft are no longer distinguished in breeding competitions. Breeders are encouraged to present horses with "heavy musculature", which enables them to obtain a good price for the animal at slaughter. The result was a significant physical transformation of these breeds over a period of twenty years.

According to Marcel Mavré, their breeders are "criticized/ decried in more ways than one". In 1981, for example, a Belgian breeder of Ardennes horses declared that "you don't need to be a good breeder" to produce "heavy horses", and that "they're no longer draught horses, but meat animals". The opening of the Italian market in the 1980s, a major consumer of young draught horse meat, led to a wave of interest in outdoor heavy horse breeding, especially in Brittany, with the local draught breed. This breeding model was exported to the Massif Central and the Pyrenees. In 1984, as the gaits of butcher horses were no longer taken into account, the gait test for Postier Breton stallions was abolished. The distinction between draught and rural letter carrier is becoming less obvious in the Breton breed. In 1985, the Hennebont stud sent a huge butcher-type breeding stallion named Oscar to Bannalec in Finistère.

Around 1985, French "heavy horses" became much heavier and fatter than in the past. They are now unsuitable for traction, specially since this use has become rarer, if not disappeared. Their breeders, fans of big horses from a new generation, nicknamed the old draught horses "bicycles", in derision. The construction of the "horse industry", officialy named "relaunch" in the 1980s, made it possible to link breeding and marketing of heavy foals on a European scale, on the model of the bull calf. These measures are effective in stopping the fall in numbers of draft horse breeds and are bringing about a new culture among breeders. They also allow the revival of the equestrian agricultural economy in Brittany.

Since the 1990s
In the 1990s, a movement to bring back the draught horse began in France, putting the brakes on its transformation into a "specialized meat animal". This "leaves a feeling of failure for all the breeders who were actively involved", particularly those in the Massif Central and the Pyrenees, who were late to start breeding, and benefited from agro-environmental premiums for endangered horse breeds from 1992 onwards. The identity of the draught horse is changing in European perception, dissociating itself from the slaughter animal. Furthermore, since 2010, the Italian market has been less dynamic, with the price of fuel significantly increasing the cost of exporting live horses. In 2013, the meat of a heavy horse is traded between €1 and €1.50 per kilo by the merchant from the breeder, still mostly to Italy.

In some breeds, such as the Breton and Comtois, the heavy horse model predominates among breeders (2015), to the detriment of the draught horse model. Draft horse breeders find it difficult to promote their animals in breeding competitions, as they are considered too thin compared to heavy horses, which are objectively overweight or even obese.

Description
The characteristics required in a horse intended for carcass weight are not the same as those of a draught horse, these two orientations being mutually incompatible. According to Bernadette Lizet, fattening heavy horses leads to "abnormal deformation of the animal's body". A heavy horse is selected on the basis of its growth and fattening capacity, and the maternal qualities of the mares. Heavy foals are generally slaughtered between 6 and 30 months of age. For fattening, they can be fed natural hay (ryegrass) but also silage corn, grain corn, dehydrated beet pulp, concentrated feed and lupin. Some breeders try cross-breeding several breeds (e.g Breton and Comtois) to obtain better-adapted horse models.

Breeding method
There are two methods of heavy horse breeding: intensive and extensive, with the former favoring earlier slaughter (six months) than the latter. The extensive system makes it possible to make the most of pastures in difficult areas, in addition with cattle and sheep: the horse feeds on the cow’s dung, avoiding the need for a woodchipper. Horses are generally grazed, loose-housed or semi-free-range. As part of an extensive system, heavy horse breeding enables "the valorization of grass in difficult and declining areas". The relationship between a breeder and his heavy horse differs from that between a breeder and a draught horse, in that the animal stays much less time on the farm, and is not "trained". Heavy foals are generally neither socialized nor handled, as the breeder has little interest in forging an emotional bond with an animal destined for slaughter.

Slaughter age
The term "fat brass" refers to heavy foals slaughtered at weaning age, around 6-7 months. They must come from large mares, and are supplemented with concentrated food from 4 months. In the fall, they are taken with their mother to new pastures. At slaughter, their live weight is 380 to 420 kg, for a carcass weight of 220 to 240 kg.

The foal can also be slaughtered at around 10-12 months, at a live weight of 450 to 500 kg, for a carcass weight of 270 to 300 kg. The proportion of concentrated feed should be limited to 50% of the horse's consumption, to avoid excessive weight gain. There is also a choice of slaughter between 18 months and two years of age. The foal should be fed moderately in winter, then have unlimited access to pasture in summer. If slaughtered at 18 months, the foal is not castrated, but "finished off" with a cereal supplement for the last two months of its life. If the foal is too light or has failed to grow sufficiently, it is castrated at around 18 months and "pushed to the trough " during its second winter, to be slaughtered at around 22-24 months, at a live weight of 600 to 650 kg.

Slaughter at around 30 months is generally chosen for foals whose growth has been limited or delayed during the first two years of life, and who are put back out to grass after their second winter. Males are also castrated at around 18 months. Females unfit for reproduction may be slaughtered at 30 months. A 30-month-old foal weighs between 670 and 740 kg.

Health problems
Heavy horses are predisposed to certain health problems. Many are overweight or even morbidly obese. The skeleton of a heavy horse carries a quarter to a third more weight than that of a horse selected for traction. Over time, these animals can suffer from joint, leg and kidney problems, as well as lameness. There are also risks of significant complications during foaling, as heavy mares are highly predisposed to post-partum difficulties. They are more likely than others to suffer uterine torsion during foaling. Diaphragmatic hernias can also occur, due to abdominal pressure. If the foal is too big to emerge naturally, farmers resort to the calving machine. The risk of foaling problems is increased if the stallion's size is much larger than the mare's, or if the latter is too young (stallioned in her second year to foal at three, for example).

The existence of muscular problems in beef horses has long been known. Heavy horse breeds are particularly affected by polysaccharide storage myopathy. Studies reveal a large number of occurrences of the mutation responsible for type 1 of the disease in the Trait belge, Percheron, Comtois, Dutch Draft and Breton breeds, with cases of severe expression of the disease in the Trait belge and Percheron. Cases have also been identified in the Norman Cob.

The market
Contrary to popular belief, heavy horse breeding is clearly in the minority within the horsemeat industry. Most of the red horse meat consumed comes from animals culled from various activities, and not from heavy horses bred specifically for this market. The heavy horse market mainly concerns foal meat. It is particularly active in France, Spain and Italy. Traditionally, young French foals are sent to Italy for fattening. Given the dependence of French breeders on the Italian market, Interbev Equins aims to develop foal meat consumption in France, in order to halt the decline in the number of heavy horses.

Geographers Sylvie Brunel and Bénédicte Durand consider the "relaunch" of heavy horse breeding for meat in France to be a failure, since its aim was to supply the country with horsemeat, but the vast majority of horsemeat consumed in France is still imported. Heavy horse breeding is therefore heavily dependent on horse meat consumption.

Heavy horse breeds
Some breeds are bred almost exclusively for meat, others have a meat orientation and one or more different breeding objectives. The model is not necessarily that of the heavy horse.

In Italy, the Haflinger and Sanfratellano breeds provide a large share of the country's horse meat production. Haflingers are slaughtered between 10 and 18 months of age, unless they have health or age problems. In Switzerland, the Franches-Montagnes has never been weighed down for the meat market, but foals slaughtered at around nine months of age are highly prized.

Controversy and social acceptance
Raising horses for meat is controversial, with many people opposed to hippophagy, and to the very idea of breeding horses for this purpose. According to Bernadette Lizet, in France, the heavy horse breeders present at the Salon International de l'Agriculture have taken to hiding their motivations from Parisian visitors, citing "passion", without ever mentioning the competition criteria for heavy breeds, or fattening workshops, or "finishing-meat in Italy". City dwellers are indeed shocked by the existence of such breeding, which they readily associate with "barbarism". Jean-Pierre Digard cites the example of a "breeder of splendid heavy horses paralyzed by the fear of having to explain that he was raising horses for slaughter", during an interview on a presentation podium at the 2008 Salon International de l'Agriculture.

In the Spanish Basque Country, the marketing of locally-bred foal meat is based on an elaborate commercial strategy. The language is modernized to lessen the emotional impact created by the idea of consuming horse, speaking instead of "foal meat"(Carne de potro), the emotional impact of the word "foal" not being deemed as strong as that of the word "horse".

Other controversies concern the abuse that some breeders inflict on heavy foals, and the awarding of breeding premiums to animals in poor health (obese, even lame) to the detriment of working horses, particularly in the Breton and Comtoise breeds.