From: Bronc [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: June 6, 2014 20:26
To: geoff carver
Subject: Colonial Horses Part 2

 

Questions: 

1.       If you lived in a rural early 18th century setting and your horse died, what would you do with the body?

 

Depends on why the horse died, where you lived, the season of the year, and how quickly you discovered the dead horse. 

 

Horses are remarkable robust and hardy animals, they rarely die expectantly. “A witch must have caused it” heart attack or being struck by lightning are about the only two things that kill them suddenly and outright. 

Equine Encephalitis [mosquito borne] is fatal, but the horse would be obviously ill for a week before, and it wasn’t present in NA prior to the early 1830’s. Severe plant poisoning also kills them, but that would be a rare event. (The owner would be considered quite negligent.) The vast majority of premature horse death was from being put down by their owner because they came up lame. Going lame used to be quite common, and it was caused by Equine Tetanus. (Note: a lame horse and a foundered horse are two different things. A lame horse is terminal, but a foundered horse just has laminitis of the hooves, and that can be treated by a patient owner.)

 

When a horse came up lame, it was obvious what happened and obvious what had to be done. The horse would quickly develop lock jaw and leg weakness, and death was only a matter of time. Therefore, the horse would be led to the hog/cattle killing place and slaughtered in a quickly pre-planned event. The horse would be gutted, the blood collected in buckets and saved. The tongue, heart, liver and kidneys saved. A cross-tree would be fixed between its hind legs and the horse hoisted, then skinned, then quartered, and then the back straps would come off. The leg bones would be saved for buttons and handles. The hooves would be saved for glue.

 

Again, excepting a heart attack or being struck by lightning having a horse die suddenly and expectantly was (and is) very, very rare. Sick horses were tended to and checked on around the clock. Because horses were so valuable even healthy horses were looked at every night by candle or lantern light at around 9:00 PM and they were seen again every morning by about 5:00 AM. 

 

2.       The smell would become putrid rather quickly and let's face it horses weigh a ton, so would you salvage what you could, hide, hooves???  

A horse that died suddenly in its stall would be a big pain in the ass. If the horse was on its side you would half skin it (skin the side that was up.) Then the exposed front shoulder would come off, then the exposed rear quarter, and then you would cut the lower legs off at the joints. Then you could gut the horse, and remove the blood and entrails with buckets. And then you would flip the horse over and skin that side, and so on. 

 

Big animals like bison and horses sour quickly, and when they die in the heat of the summer they can sour right before your eyes. The work would be done fast.

 

 

3.       Then what, would you quarter it much like you would do when elk hunting to haul it away from your homestead?  This should leave cleaver marks but not cut marks.  

You can take apart a horse with a pocket knife. The only cleaver marks would be at the base of the skull in the C1 – C3 region. For whatever reason, as far as I know, people didn’t (and don’t) split the pelvis or the sternum of a horse like they do cattle. The hind quarter is removed at the head of the femur/hip socket with a knife.
 
4.       During the first half of the 18th century what mechanisms were in place to dispose of old, dead or sickly horses?  Later there were glue factories, dog food companies and fertilizer companies.

99.9% of the time the death of a horse was a planned event. Wherever cattle were butchered, horses were. Horse bone makes good handles and buttons, those would be sold, the hide and hooves as well.
 
Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Bill Liebeknecht, RPA

Hunter Research, Inc.