Poll Recap: How Much is a 'Rescue' Horse Worth?

Sep 30, 2014

Just how much is a ‘rescue’ horse worth? We posed this question to our readers in last week’s online poll at TheHorse.com. More than 1,200 people responded, and we’ve tallied the results.

Of the 1,253 respondents, 1,002 (80%) said referring to a horse as a ‘rescue’ does not make him more or less valuable than a nonrescue horse. Another 155 people (12%) said that referring to a horse as a ‘rescue’ makes him less valuable than nonrescue horses, while the remaining 96 individuals (8%) said ‘rescue’ horses should be considered more valuable.

Additionally, more than 200 people left comments about rescue horses:

Many people commented that a horse’s value should be based on factors such as health, personality, and physical traits rather than his history:

“A horse’s value (is based on) if it can give the owner what they are looking for in a horse.”

“It all depends on the personality, health, training, and known genetics of the individual horse.”

“It depends on condition of horse and what it can do.”

Source: TheHorse

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.