Can anyone help.....horses being shot???

[liveryblues]

Just recieved this from my daughter, I know nothing other than this. I really hope it isn't true but if it is and anyone can help....PLEASE contact her

Subject: Just incase you know anyone who can help xx
On Behalf Of Jo Jo
Sent: 26 April 2011 10:24
Horses needing homes

Have just been told by a friend in Cornwall that one of their local farmers is shooting up to 30 healthy horses a month as people can no longer afford to keep them. They are finding homes for the odd one or two they can save. If anyone knows people who can take in horses/ponies, please contact me Jo Jo <jobadger@vegemail.com.
.Apparently quite a lot of them are Shetlands. Please feel free to forward with my email address as contact.

Jo

 

[Lynette]

She is talking about the scrub dartmoor ponies that don't even fetch £10 in the ring anymore.
Countryfile did a piece on it last Sunday. Unfortunately there is too much excess for the state of the present market.

 

[liveryblues]

Are they being rounded up and culled? What a sad state of affairs

 

[ThePony]

It certainly is very sad, but it is better for them to have their lives ended in a humane manner than being dragged around the auctions. Until people stop breeding horses and ponies with no thought to a quality useful animal being produced then this truly horrible situation will continue. https://www.bhs.org.uk/Horse_Care/Campaigns/Responsible_Breeding.aspx

 

[jrp204]

Seriously? It reads as if the farmer is shooting horses that people can no longer afford to keep, so are they his or other peoples? There was an incident last month where 19 were removed to Redwings but there has been nothing reported in the Western Morning News since.
Maybe its time that a more controlled breeding programme was set up encouraging healthy stock with a better resale value, it is way too indescriminate at the moment.
If this is a farmer shooting other peoples horses, where are the carcasses being disposed of, all sounds dodgy to me.

 

[nona1]

Sounds like one of those urban myth emails to me.

sorry but one farmer shooting 30 horses a week? How? Why? where? And that isn't legal anyway - you can't just shoot a horse, it has to be an authorised person (OK, it might be possible that the farmer is, but a bit unlikely), and then what is happening to the bodies?

this email sounds as though desperate horse owners are taking their much loved but hungry beasties off to a farmer to blast away with a shotgun!

Probably a kernal of truth somewhere - the dartmoor hill ponies going for meat? but that always was their intended market, nothing new or shocking, it's what they are bred for. Sad, but true.

 

[AmyMay]

I think you need to get a little more information.

If the farmer is shooting the horses himself - then that is clearly illegal.

However, if they are going to a registered abottoire, then that is not.

If there's no market, there's no market. And considering that Section A's are going through the ring for less than £2 each - I would suggest that the bullet is the kindest option for them.

 

[wattamus]

Wish i could but living in yorkshire without transport it would just be impossible. Hope the email you got isn't real because otherwise this is so sad.

 

[Potato!]

I did not realise that it is illegal for someone to shoot a horse. And besides my other half has a company in who collects dead stock including horses no matter if they have been shot.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

For years there have been "wild" ponies allowed to run free on Dartmoor: these are poor, pitiful little creatures who frankly will only go into the meat market (and are doing so).

There was a Countryfile focus on this issue a few weeks ago, where it was stated that a local knackerman, Andrew Goatman, was culling ponies on-site which were surplus to requirements, and so I wonder if this is the original story which has got a bit mutated as its gone along?

These ponies from Dartmoor are not the pure-bred "Dartmoor" breed, they are in the main crossbreds and unfortunately there is very little else to do with them except (humanely) cull. The carcases are fed to the Lions at a local wildlife park. Awful, yes, but this is IMO preferable to having them hawked around the markets and then probably hauled off on a long journey to some abbatoir abroad.

A long time ago, someone in their wisdom decided it was OK to allow coloured/crossbred stallions on the Moor, and this is the end result, a poor little runty crossbred creature that no-one wants. What should have happened would have meant that only purebred "Dartmoor" stallioins would have been allowed to run, which would have meant a far higher quality to the breed and would have ensured the ponies maintained their value.

I don't know what's happening with the New Forest ponies, but hopefully someone somewhere has gone some common gumption and is keeping a control on what is allowed to run with mares.

 

[JanetGeorge]

I did not realise that it is illegal for someone to shoot a horse.

I don't believe it is - providing:

1. It is your horse
2. You hold a suitable firearms license.
3. You do a clean job and don't cause 'unnecessary suffering'!

 

[rema]

Where abouts in Cornwall is the shooting happening?.I have not heard anything?.

 

[liveryblues]

As I said i am not sure of any other details other than the email that was forwarded to me by my daughter. I must say that I did think that a farmer shooting 30+ per month a little extreme etc and I really do hope its not true! If however it is humane culling, rather that than the poor little mites suffering neglect etc.
I unfortunately am not in a position to take anymore on all though for these poor chaps/girlies I wish I could
I hope it is an exaggeration or urban myth as other posters have suggested.