Britsh Horse - suggestion of £100 licence

BHS_Lee said:
Hello Everyone

As Goldenstar has already pointed out, this comes from an opinion piece in British Horse which was written by Professor Knottenbelt. I need to make clear that the views are those of Prof K and are certainly not BHS policy. Our job is to represent our members and I think, as this thread makes clear, campaigning for licensing would probably not be very popular! However, I do think we need to respect the incredible knowledge, experience and expertise that Prof K has even if we don't agree with what he is saying.

Even though ownership licensing is not what the BHS is looking for, we obviously did take the decision to publish this piece. The reason for that was simply to get people talking, which seems to have worked. As you will know, we (as in Britain as a whole, not to mention Ireland) are in the middle of a massive equine welfare crisis. I know we keep banging on about it and people are probably bored of hearing about it but the sanctuaries are full, poor quality horses are changing hands for less than the price of a ham and cheese panini and we are about to go into the winter which, if it is harsh, could be by far the worst we have ever faced. We have to do something and that something needs to be major. I am personally finding what we are facing exhausting, everywhere I am turn I am hearing about the next group of horses suffering. And there are lots of other people, and organisations, feeling the same. Licensing probably isn't the answer but we do need some sort of revolution and quick! You all know what I am talking about, I see the threads in here about dodgy Facebook groups giving away free horses and so on so I know this is a savvy forum. If you have any ideas on what we should be doing please share them!

For those who are BHS members, I hoped you enjoyed the article on the castration clinic that preceded the Prof K article. I know that clinic was only a drop in the ocean but it was also just a pilot project. There will be more next year. So to all our members, thank you for your support. Your membership fees made that happen and I am very grateful.

Keep talking about the article and share your ideas. PLEASE!
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seems very simply that Prof K would like some more money to fund his research.

As for the rest of the BHS comments above there is a very simple answer to the horse problem. STOP BREEDING ANY MORE. Discourage breeding, actively. We have far too many horses that no one wants. I don't remember seeing many articles in magazines or anywhere else suggesting that people think really really hard before breeding. This is the message we need to ram home. Perhaps ALL stallions should be licensed with higher stud charges. Not all stallion owners would comply though so that would be pointless. What about the regular throw outs from what are standard practices such as the racing industry and semi feral moorland ponies. I cannot see the logic of , year upon year, shooting 5 month old foals. Maybe the BHS could enlighten me?

I suppose licensing will be a good idea as it will give a few people pointless employment. Appart from that it will achieve nothing. I suggest that someone puts the license idea on the equivalent forum of "gypsy and traveller news" see what their views are. If they are happy to pay a license I am sure the rest of us will be.
At £100 a horse I would be paying £1000 a year. Five of my horses/ponies are the sort the mentioned above ie suffering horses no one wanted. I was fortunate enough financially to be able to take them in long term. However if someone was to slap another £500 a year on top of their keep costs then it would be a bullet for them. I am not the only one who has taken in these "passengers" there are many other small horse owners who have taken some. Perhaps when considering a license the BHS and Prof K would consider the hardship it would cause us. Perhaps it's time Prof K lived in the real world.
 
paddy555 said:
seems very simply that Prof K would like some more money to fund his research.

As for the rest of the BHS comments above there is a very simple answer to the horse problem. STOP BREEDING ANY MORE. Discourage breeding, actively. We have far too many horses that no one wants. I don't remember seeing many articles in magazines or anywhere else suggesting that people think really really hard before breeding. This is the message we need to ram home. Perhaps ALL stallions should be licensed with higher stud charges. Not all stallion owners would comply though so that would be pointless. What about the regular throw outs from what are standard practices such as the racing industry and semi feral moorland ponies. I cannot see the logic of , year upon year, shooting 5 month old foals. Maybe the BHS could enlighten me?

I suppose licensing will be a good idea as it will give a few people pointless employment. Appart from that it will achieve nothing. I suggest that someone puts the license idea on the equivalent forum of "gypsy and traveller news" see what their views are. If they are happy to pay a license I am sure the rest of us will be.
At £100 a horse I would be paying £1000 a year. Five of my horses/ponies are the sort the mentioned above ie suffering horses no one wanted. I was fortunate enough financially to be able to take them in long term. However if someone was to slap another £500 a year on top of their keep costs then it would be a bullet for them. I am not the only one who has taken in these "passengers" there are many other small horse owners who have taken some. Perhaps when considering a license the BHS and Prof K would consider the hardship it would cause us. Perhaps it's time Prof K lived in the real world.
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Agreed.
 
No bridleways near me (definately not in hacking distance), I ride on the roads. I do not cause any welfare issues etc. My response to BH trying to charge £100 tax would be spin on it. No one thinks about bringing in a cat tax, or hamster tax (both of which can be welfare cases & suffer as much as any other animal). People just assume because you have a horse you are rich & can be scalped. What they don't see is everything I give up & others have in order to keep my animals.
 
Well,that hare ran and ran.

The good proffessor is looking for a way to stop so much breeding of poor quality animals.

I think it should start with strict stallion licencing and inspection, which used to be the case years ago.

BS brought in a much increased stallion licencing registration fee, that seems to have worked.
 
I think think £100 a year is ridiculous. especially for upkeep of bridleways when I already pay £130 a year for my trot band. Does that I'll have to pay £230 pa to hack when the cyclists, dog walkers,often that have out of control animals, and hikers get to use our track for free? Oh wait, they pay council tax, because horse owners don't... a licensing fee would get very confusing with equines out on full loan. Who would pay it? Surely an alternative solution would be microchip horses (like quite a few are with passports linked to them) and use the microchip number as a point of reference into a central database which vets can then input medication against instead of paper in a passport, im sure they could carry an iPad or similar? Then also freeze mark animals with the last 4 digits of their microchip. This is a visual clue about animals and their care. Make it law. Those that aren't can be taken and owners fined. Scrap the passports and stick with a microchip that has a permanent link on the horse so it can't be dug out. Were making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. Hand over bridleways if necessary to someone like trot so it's just for the people that hack and it's for the rider, so they won't need multiple bands for multiple horses.
 
In this country one of the most misunderstood and neglected animals we keep are pet rabbits...will anyone be thinking of bringing out what is effectively a tax to every bunny owner????
Licensing stallions is great but who will really police this?? The passport system is a complete farce and as usual its only the responsible people paying!!!!
Would I pay a license fee??? Of course I would if it meant keeping my horses (we all know we would) BUT how long would it take to financially bring the responsible owners to their knees while the rest carry on regardless???
As for funding veterinary research...b****cks...vets fees are expensive enough as it is. I appreciate that we all benefit from advanced veterinary practice etc but again there is money funding stupid things like prothetic legs for horses wtf??? Why not put it towards sensible research such as grass sickness etc that will be of genuine benefit??? (This is a whole different debate I know).
 
I would only be prepared to pay a licence fee if there was a massive development of bridleways in England and Wales incl as compulsory element to all multiple plot housing developments. AND proper enforcement of microchipping and passports with the passports as ownership documents and destruction after 7 days of any unpassported or unmicrochipped horse AND compulsory stallion licencing.

Not going to happen? Well I'm not paying another tax on the law abiding then. No way.
 
SatansLittleHelper said:
In this country one of the most misunderstood and neglected animals we keep are pet rabbits...will anyone be thinking of bringing out what is effectively a tax to every bunny owner????
Licensing stallions is great but who will really police this?? The passport system is a complete farce and as usual its only the responsible people paying!!!!
Would I pay a license fee??? Of course I would if it meant keeping my horses (we all know we would) BUT how long would it take to financially bring the responsible owners to their knees while the rest carry on regardless???
As for funding veterinary research...b****cks...vets fees are expensive enough as it is. I appreciate that we all benefit from advanced veterinary practice etc but again there is money funding stupid things like prothetic legs for horses wtf??? Why not put it towards sensible research such as grass sickness etc that will be of genuine benefit??? (This is a whole different debate I know).
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And goldfish. Owning fish needs to be seriously looked at. They STILL sell the tiny plastic bowls for pitys sake!
 
The suggestion that the tax would/could be used for maintenance of bridleways is laughable. There is no extra tax on hiking boots, nor on 'mountain' bike tyres, all of which cause errosion to paths. Sustrans has created many many miles of cycle tracks, without cyclists being expected to make a compulsory financial contribution, free for them to use. Bridleways are ancient rights of way, often having been described as highways in the past, when horse transport was the norm. Given that often the ownership of fly grazed animals is 'unknown' who would be paying to track down these owners. By the time all the registration etc had been completed and owners traced, my guess is that this would not pay for itself, therefore there would be no money left for the high flown ideals of the author of the piece.
 
Orangehorse said:
Well,that hare ran and ran.

The good proffessor is looking for a way to stop so much breeding of poor quality animals.

.
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very commendable of the good professor. To avoid this happening with mine I paid a vet, probably around £200 a time, to castrate them. So, I am a little puzzled to understand why the good professor seriously thinks I should contribute a further £1000 pounds (I have 10) to deal with other people's irresponsibility in over breeding?

I also have a cat and a dog both types of animals that are in surplus with welfare issues. Again I paid a vet to castrate/spay them to avoid breeding. Would he also like me to pay £100 each to cover other people's irresponsibility in over breeding?

I feel very fortunate that I don't have goldfish.
 
I would not be happy paying. It would be one of those things that would cost them more to 'police' than they would get back I would imagine.
 
£100 per horse what ridiculous suggestion, what research? surely that's paid for by the vets fees we pay and the pharmaceutical companies charging the money they do for the medicines!!!!

First and foremost the government need to sort out passporting and identification. If they can't get that right what hope is there!!!!............
 
competitiondiva said:
£100 per horse what ridiculous suggestion, what research? surely that's paid for by the vets fees we pay and the pharmaceutical companies charging the money they do for the medicines!!!!

First and foremost the government need to sort out passporting and identification. If they can't get that right what hope is there!!!!............
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There is no hope. There is cake, and that is VAT free :)
 
I'm so glad I have just the one.. no way would I consider these days having more than what I deem I could cope with. In my ideal world, my horse gets everything he needs, hay, water, a warm bed, attention everyday, a big field to play and graze in, and still have pennies in the bank for emergencies.. Remove the emergency money to pay someone elses problem is not one to go down well.
This over breeding issue should have been sorted out years ago. Any horse not deemed good for breeding should be de-sexed, just like cats and dogs. The age old argument that mares can't be spayed... why not just snip the tubes? That would just involve key hole surgery? There must be a way round it? If you work out how long your horse could be on this earth, it actually works out cheaper just having this procedure done whilst the horse is a yearling, then that would stop anyone from even considering using them as a breeding factory.
 
competitiondiva said:
£100 per horse what ridiculous suggestion, what research? surely that's paid for by the vets fees we pay and the pharmaceutical companies charging the money they do for the medicines!!!!
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*sigh* vets fees go towards the huge costs of equipping and running a practice, and wages of course and the ridiculously high amount pharma can charge for certain drugs in the UK due to licensing (cimetidine being an example of costing pennies in the US and £100s here for horses). As we have 'free' healthcare in the UK, people seemingly have no idea what things actually cost.
Also, quite often pharmaceutical companies get their products from primary research carried out by research centres that are funded elsewhere. Only when there looks to be a product thats financially viable to take it through to market does pharma want to know. Even if there is a possible existing treatment for a different species, they may not want to know-a vaccine for example, use to need a market of a million doses a year to make it viable for a company to develop it. So you can see that alot of horse diseases aren't of much financial interest. A case in point is the vaccine currently under trial for equine grass sickness, being funded by a charity.
I've now read the article and everything he says is spot on-apart from the yearly license fee. At least people are talking about it!. I feel his frustration, every time someone wails about a new vaccine/treatment I do wonder who people expect to pay for it.
 
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MotherOfChickens said:
*sigh* vets fees go towards the huge costs of equipping and running a practice, and wages of course and the ridiculously high amount pharma can charge for certain drugs in the UK due to licensing (cimetidine being an example of costing pennies in the US and £100s here for horses). As we have 'free' healthcare in the UK, people seemingly have no idea what things actually cost.
Also, quite often pharmaceutical companies get their products from primary research carried out by research centres that are funded elsewhere. Only when there looks to be a product thats financially viable to take it through to market does pharma want to know. Even if there is a possible existing treatment for a different species, they may not want to know-a vaccine for example, use to need a market of a million doses a year to make it viable for a company to develop it. So you can see that alot of horse diseases aren't of much financial interest. A case in point is the vaccine currently under trial for equine grass sickness, being funded by a charity.
I've now read the article and everything he says is spot on-apart from the yearly license fee. At least people are talking about it!. I feel his frustration, every time someone wails about a new vaccine/treatment I do wonder who people expect to pay for it.
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Of course vet practices have overheads but so too do the big bad pharma companies - it takes 10-15 years and in excess of $1.2 billion to bring a new drug to market (note these are figures for human pharmaceuticals, I'm not aware of figures for animal products) and they have a limited period of time in which to recoup development costs before they can even start to make a profit.

So yes, it's very unlikely any vet medicines company are going to be interested in developing a grass sickness vaccine - while there's no doubt it's a horrific disease, it affects a very small proportion of the equine population.

ps where are you getting your cimetidine pricing info from? Can't understand why there would be such a massive difference in price between the US and UK for a generic?
 
Buddy'sMum said:
ps where are you getting your cimetidine pricing info from? Can't understand why there would be such a massive difference in price between the US and UK for a generic?
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last year I got some on prescription for a horse with melanomas. because its licensed for dogs here, it cost me about £300 per month. would have been able to get it cheaper almost anywhere else-a big price to pay for a drug with limited clinical benefit (if any!). The GS vaccine is an existing cattle vaccine-so not a new product. I am not anti the drugs companies, just pointing out that the money has to come from somewhere and that it won't be from the government.
 
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