horses are going to be seen as military assets by MilGov and CivGov - especially one the Mexicans invade using cavalry units and once they are short on gas to get things like guns and ammo up to their forces
and no military will sit idly by and watch their assets get destroyed in the name of feeding civilians - so will there be a reduction because some willl be used for food by desperate people or die from radiation or from starvation themselves - for sure
but reduced so far that their arent enough to be used by the military for both mounts and for hauling guns and supplies - not gonna happen - maybe if you only had a couple million - but not with the sheer number of horses there are in the US - which doesnt mean that maybe by 2001 we are down from 6.5 million to one million or so horses - but the ones that are left are going to be very well guarded and not to be used as food by then
plus in this case we have canon to back up that statement - the availability of horses for the Texas module shows that they do exist and exist in good numbers - I doubt if there was a huge shortage that the characters would have been given horses so easily and told they could keep them when they were done - that alone shows that horses are still relatively plentiful by early 2001, at least in Texas
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