Are lice not an RSPCA issue?

SNORKEY

SNORKEY

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Three times now ive reported these poor horses in the field near mine as they have had bad lice for the past couple of years. The owner was told by WHW to treat them but the owner argued that they didnt have lice and they were left untreated. What really bugs me is that the owner has another horse on an expensive yard and i expect no one knows she has these poor horses sat on half acre of mud in the condition they are in. They get a section of hay once a day and have water but are under weight.
So are lice not a big issue to the RSPCA or WHW? Im going to treat them myself in the spring once their rugs are off as i cant stand seeing them like it any more, ive just had a baby hence why i havn't done it before now myself :(
 
What have the RSPCA said?

I would contact WHW again and see if they will come out again. To be honest, lice are a nuisance for the poor horses but I wouldn't say they are an issue so bad that a charity can do anything other than advise an owner accordingly. The weight loss is worth mentioning, I'd keep dated photos if possible, (provided you can take photos without trespassing) just in case it gets very bad.

Be careful if you decide to treat them yourself. I'm pretty sure you would have to break the law to do it, and what if one of them had an allergic reaction to the treatment?
 
I find it very hard to believe that they only get half a section of hay a day. If the field is only half an acre as you say it is then there would be no grass at all left and as such half a section a day would lead to these animals being dead already having gone through the whole winter.

In response to lice. I suppose it depends on the severity. If they only have a few baldy bits then I guess there are no grounds to prosecute. I expect they will need to have actual viable sores.
 
Lice on their own, unless severe, probably aren't. Combine the lice with ponies that don't get fed or watered and then the welfare agencies will probably intervene, I can only imagine that they are inundated at the moment.
 
They bring up some loose hay in an empty chaff bag once a day, split between 3 ponys thats no more than about a section each if they really stuff it full! they keep breaking onto another small piece of land by mine which is has kept them going a bit, and i do see the odd bucket left in the field so they are feeding them something.
Each time ive called the RSPCA they have said no ones been out yet and take a new report, the last one was a few weeks ago.
I cant imagine them having an allergic reaction to treatment, they know the horses are going mad scratching them selves as well, as they have now fenced off a tree that they have destroyed scratching themselves!
 
I actually called the SPCA to my own yard once. A mare arrived from a long distance away (an 8 hour one-way trip). The new owner of the mare was not here to accept the mare onto my property so I had to. The mare was not what I was expecting to turn up and very promptly I knew there was something wrong with her. I contacted the owner and told them to get their butts up here, to which they said they couldn't get there until the following day. I quarantined the mare on arrival. The mare colicked and the owner still would not come so I told them to call the vet, they wouldn't. Therefore I had to treat the mare. The following day the owners arrived and I told them to get a vet out immediately to this mare as she was riddled in lice, had colicked the previous night and was generally in bad shape. The owner told me she didn't have the money to call the vet until the following week so I told her, either call the vet or I call the SPCA. The only thing the owner called was my bluff! SPCA came out within a couple of hours, put an order on the horse, went all around the town searching for the owner and eventually by some miracle found her! SPCA officer told owner she had to get a vet out to horse within 48 hours or the horse would be seized. Vet did come and told owner to get the horse deloused. Owner did not delouse. SPCA came back and ordered her to delouse horse or horse would be seized within 48 hours. Owner came with a nit comb ... and I gave her notice to leave. Horse eventually left untreated and went to another place and I heard a short while later the horse was seized by SPCA. So in my area the SPCA are pretty tough! And even though the horse was being fed appropriately and looked after by me they still did something about it. But I do foster and rehome horses for them once in a while so I guess that may make a bit of a difference.
 
Is it possible for you to put a note on the gate about the lice? If you were really sneaky you could word it to it sounded official. Might just give the owners a boot up the bum.

I think the welfare groups won't be interested while there is food and water being provided, even if it is not enough. There are so many horses and other animals being abandoned and abused at the moment that a lice infection is probably not at their biggest worry at the moment, even though it is causing obvious discomfort to the horses.
 
touchstone said:
Lice on their own, unless severe, probably aren't. Combine the lice with ponies that don't get fed or watered and then the welfare agencies will probably intervene, I can only imagine that they are inundated at the moment.
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I was involved in a case where a life ban was given the horse was infested with lice it was not thin it's condition was fine but its care was chaotic , owner on benefits had three horses taken one at a time as conditions allowed he was the last , we chanced our arm on the lice and finally got a life ban.
But I sense all the welfare organisations are under severe pressure now far more than when I was involved I suspect they are firefighting ATM.
 
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DO NOT medicate these horses yourself, without consulting the owners. They may be in poor condition, but I have to agree with the poster who says they must be getting more hay than you have seen, as otherwise they would not have survived this winter. My neighbours have not seen my horses for a week (due to snow) if they worked out how often I have been to the stables this week, based on how many times they had seen me, it would be twice. I am going over between four and six times a day!
 
YorksG said:
DO NOT medicate these horses yourself, without consulting the owners. They may be in poor condition, but I have to agree with the poster who says they must be getting more hay than you have seen, as otherwise they would not have survived this winter. My neighbours have not seen my horses for a week (due to snow) if they worked out how often I have been to the stables this week, based on how many times they had seen me, it would be twice. I am going over between four and six times a day!
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Well said. ;) Assumptions can cause nothing but trouble.

Last year I had to wait over 2 weeks for permethrin from my vet to treat my elderly mare who was absolutely crawling with them (first time she's ever had them in over 10 yrs of ownership!) My youngster had to be treated numerous times that year too.

If someone stuck their beak in and treated my horses for lice as they had ASSUMED that I wasn't doing it myself I would have hit the roof.

Unless you are sitting watching the field 24/7 you can't know what is happening for sure.

You have no right to treat these horses yourself. Keep on at the WHW and RSPCA, and maybe TALK to the owner? maybe they are doing more than you realise, OR might even be in need of a hand and grateful for some support?
 
Thanks, as it happens i live by the field and i can see whats going on all the time. The horses have rugs on so god knows what they look like underneath, I kept them fed last winter but i havn't had the money to give them my hay this year and WHW told me to stop feeding them.
Ive called WHW and they said they'd try to be out within a week.
 
SNORKEY said:
Thanks, as it happens i live by the field and i can see whats going on all the time. The horses have rugs on so god knows what they look like underneath, I kept them fed last winter but i havn't had the money to give them my hay this year and WHW told me to stop feeding them.
Ive called WHW and they said they'd try to be out within a week.
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Then wait for WHW to deal with it. I can see my neighbours field from my living room window, but I do not have time to watch what she is doing 24/7 (nor the inclination tbh) likewise she can see my yard, but I doubt she sees me going out at midnight :eek: As I said earlier, I estimate that she has seen me go out twice this week, although I am out many times each day!
 
YorksG said:
DO NOT medicate these horses yourself, without consulting the owners. They may be in poor condition, but I have to agree with the poster who says they must be getting more hay than you have seen, as otherwise they would not have survived this winter. My neighbours have not seen my horses for a week (due to snow) if they worked out how often I have been to the stables this week, based on how many times they had seen me, it would be twice. I am going over between four and six times a day!
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this, I have a pony with a friends pony in a field who are checked on at least 3 times a day with a good arm full of hay twice a day, the round bale is stored in the spare stable to stop them gorging. They are both fat still And they eat the hay up by the stables but from the road you can see an empty round bale holder from when less fatty horses were in there.
some random phoned me at the weekend and tried telling me that these ponies hadn't had any food or water for days, I assured her she was mistaken as they had been fed and watered that morning and whilst it was possible they had eaten up by now they would survive until tea time.
The point is whilst neglect shouldn't be ignored, make sure you know the full picture. If this woman had tried to treat my horse for anything I'd of been furious
 
I always believed that a really bad lice infestation could cause severe anemia, especially if they are the sucking type, so surely that would warrant them going up there sooner?
 
Putting the feeding aside though, there is still no excuse for not treating these horses in the past two years. Especially when she has been told to treat them by WHW!
 
My TB was a louse magnet. I have several hairy ponies who seemed to be totally unaffected by them but with the old man it was a running battle. You can not kill lice that are not there so there is no point in pretreating and most of the sprays that kill the eggs are not licensed for animals. I use to spray his rugs withlong acting flea carpet treatment. You only need one egg to hatch and you are back to square one.
Whilist no one wants their horse to have lice sometimes its not for the want of treatment.
 
Agree with you there honetpot! Had a right battle with them on my youngster- eventually won but a third party may have decided I was not treating for lice... Unless. You speak to or work with the owner OP you cannot just say they have not been treated in two years...
 
I called the RSPCA about a neighbour's goat a couple of years ago, over a very cold Christmas. Poor thing was permanently tethered, couldn't reach its water bucket or its "shelter" (so small it couldn't even stand up in it, and made of pallets so not even out of the wind) and was being fed a few vegetable scraps a day.

Their advice was to give it some hay (private property, and right in front of their house). I rang again, and then I rang DEFRA. All the RSPCA did was eventually call DEFRA themselves. My dad is one of their vets and got the call. Not exactly useful!

I agree with the others- would be wary of treating them myself for a variety of reasons, least of all being confronted by a very angry owner who may or may not like to express their bad temper with their fists.
 
Its extremely unlikely these horses have been treated and I havnt seen it. One of the horses rugs has ripped and has been hanging down under his bum for ages catching poo, it gets so heavy like a huge nappy and I've had to empty it some times. And they clearly have never been groomed. Il leave it in the hands of WHW now I won't treat them myself but I expect they will be in this state this time next year to. :(
 
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