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Apparently, Beutler and Son Rodeo Company puts profits above the lives of the sentient horses and cows it forces into traumatizing, often fatal encounters with humans. That’s why right after several dozen horses were reported to have died on the company’s watch from contaminated feed, it said it will be back to business as usual by this weekend.
Read PETA’s Statement
Good afternoon. Up to 70 horses, including mothers of days-old foals, have reportedly died at Beutler and Son Rodeo Company as a result of eating contaminated feed. The company has long been providing animals—including horses, bulls, cows, and calves—to rodeos across the country, and co-owner Bennie Beutler told media yesterday that the company will be “back to rodeoing” as soon as this weekend.
Trucking horses, cows, and calves as young as 4 months old around the country to be terrorized by grown men playing cowboy is inarguably inhumane, and no one who cares about animals would ever do it or promote it. These horses’ deaths should lead the Beutler and Son Rodeo Company to change course, leaving this animal-exploiting business in the dust—and meanwhile, PETA urges everyone to steer clear of rodeos as if lives depend on it, because they do.
PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman
Rodeo participants have been documented choking calves and twisting their necks while slamming them onto the ground, injecting bulls with steroids to induce an aggressive response to harassment, using sharp spurs to make horses buck, and zapping horses and cows with electric “hotshots” so that the animals will charge out of a chute in a state of panic. The federal Animal Welfare Act offers no protection to animals used in rodeos—which have been denounced by every national animal protection group—and some states even exclude them from anti-cruelty statutes.
Beutler and Son Rodeo Company Should Be Ashamed
Beutler and Son Rodeo Company has trucked horses and cows across the U.S. for over 90 years so that they could be tormented in rodeo arenas. Every national animal protection organization opposes rodeos because of their inherent cruelty, and it’s despicable that this company continues to profit from them.
It’s time for those in charge at Beutler and Son Rodeo Company to hang up their cowboy hats and let the animals it exploits—including the over 100 horses who survived this incident—live in peace at a sanctuary.
Rodeos Torture Animals
Promoters pitch rodeos as rough-and-tough exercises of human skill and courage. But these events are nothing more than manipulative displays of human domination over other animals.
PETA has decades’ worth of documentation showing how rodeo performers beat, kick, and electroshock normally docile cows and horses in chutes and holding pens in an attempt to put them in a state of panic before forcing them into rodeo arenas.
Animals used in rodeos have sustained severe and sometimes fatal injuries, including broken backs and necks, heart attacks, punctured lungs, deep internal organ bruising, ripped tendons, and aneurysms. At the Overland Stage Stampede Rodeo in June, a horse died from a broken neck and staff later euthanized another horse due to a severely broken leg.
Never Support Rodeos
Attending rodeos supports animal abuse. There are no “good” rodeos that involve animals, so please never attend a rodeo, and tell your friends why they shouldn’t support them either.
You Can Take Action Against Rodeos!
If a rodeo comes to your town, contact local authorities, write letters to sponsors, leaflet at the gate, or hold a demonstration. You can always contact PETA for help!
Another way to take action against rodeos is to work to institute a state or local ban on calf-roping events, in which cruelty is most easily documented. Since many rodeo circuits require calf roping, eliminating it could result in the elimination of all rodeo shows.
