Dutch Factory Farmed Horses

[airedale]

Quote from H&H online article today

""It's a quick way of establishing a horse's year of birth. Some horses, like this one, are just given a letter relevant to the year of birth as foals are produced in great volume and naming them all may be impractical. "

HOW DISGUSTING that a horse is not even worthy of a name when foaled. !!!!!!!!
http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/horsecare/1370/121728.html

for those of you that have 'attacked' me for my sig - EAT YOUR WORDS

and for those that think buying on the continent is so wonderful - just read that paragraph above about 6 times and think if a BRITISH breeder would be so callous as to not name a foal.....................

and then vote to buy british

 

[burtie]

Hi Airedale,

Altough I agree with you 100% on the way most european horses are produced and would always buy British for this reason, I would not give one hoot about wether or not the foal was named!

 

[airedale]

I can see where you are coming from - except when the foals are not named because they are being factory farmed - and not 'cos "it's called foalie 'cos I just call it that"

bit like the difference between having named smallholding poultry and Bernard Matthews....!!!

 

[Maesfen]

Have to agree with you wholeheartedly AD!

I hate the 'come in No 10, your time's up' mentality that seems to happen over there; I bet they don't watch each foal and know it's mannerisms, what it likes/doesn't and so on; how unlike its' sibling it is and things like that which breeders (on the whole) could bore you rigid with over here! There's a pic of where Gina comes from on a website and it is a line of probably 20 or so youngsters tied up in a shed like cattle; not a nice way to bring up youngsters to my mind; they need their freedom, the same as children if they are to develop naturally into nice horses.

 

[SirenaXVI]

I agree with you Airedale, it really annoys me that british riders will not support British Breeders - same thing happens with my chosen breed, unfortunately, until we support our own breeders we will never have a proper breeding programme in this country - and by proper I do not mean factory farmed.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

This article confused me slightly as I have a dutch horse whose name starts with 'L' yet I was told he is only eight years old, according to the letter per year thing he'd be 16! Is this right? Do all the dutch warmbloods comply to this name starting with the letter of the year they were born in thing?

Also are they really factory farmed? Do you mean like how chickens are kept in small cages, are the horses kept in stables all the time? Sorry to sound naive but I don't know much about this subject. I have a friend from Holland who says the youngsters live out 24/7 or live in big indoor barns until ready to be backed.

 

[airedale]

they live in indoor barns

whilst the barns may be 'big' that means the size of the buildin - the space per horse isn't necessarily all that large..............

and they don't see the outside world and don't get to see grass - just the barn and bulk feeds - no individual feeds to suit the needs of the individual - barrow type feeds - if it suits OK if it doesn't - tough

not like chickens kept in cages - more like BernardMatthews where the birds are overcrowded in barns

 

[Paint it Lucky]

Thanks airedale now I know! Are there any sites that show pictures of this? Purely out of interest, my dutch horse was already over here when I bought him ina pretty sorry state, no one really knew much about his past though his reactions to some things suggest he's had a pretty hard time. So always interesting to find out more about the sort of place he might have come from.

 

[dieseldog]

Maybe British breeders should take some advice from continetal breeders as they then may actually stay in business and make buying a british bred horse a viable option.

But whilst people insist on breeding from lame old rubbish and stallion owners continue putting their stallions to such horses, british bred horses are going to remain either inferior or way too expensive if they are actually half decent.

 

[josephinebutter2]

Can I just say that not all horses bred on the continent are "factory farmed" and that not all horses in Britain are raised perfectly!

I know many a British breeder who doesn't name their foals - and many are just turned out in a field with no farriery attention or feed - even if they look emaciated - until they are ready to sell.

 

[airedale]

but a lot more british breeders take the trouble to grade their horses with breed societies or sports breeding societies where they get an independent assessment.

so yes - the british have taken on board some of the 'foreign' ideas that an independent assessment of both mares and stallions is beneficial to the progeny so long as the mare owner or stallion owner told their horse is not good doesn't carry on and breed, regardless

it's not just british breeders that can leave horses looking emaciated - there are a lot of british leisure horse owners that can do the same

personally I don't breed from any mare that hasn't been independently assessed by a professional and graded with a sports breeding society and nor do I use any stallion that hasn't himself been graded

the average 'pass rate' for stallion grading in the UK is about 50%

we CAN do the right thing over here and most competent breeders do. It is often but not always the amateur breeder that breeds from a mare 'cos she is unsound for whatever reason and cannot be ridden.

If the unsoundness is a result of a genuine accident and not from a predisposition due to poor conformation then that is OK and the mare can return to ridden work once the foal has been weaned.

Agreed that not all 'continental' horses are factory farmed, e.g. in respect of the iberian horses, but the northern european horses typically are

PSI International isn't rich for no reason....

 

[magic104]

They do not all live in barns without turnout. I think also you should visit some studs in this country. There are plenty of studs here that keep their youngsters in barns in the winter does not mean the youngsters are never turned out. Does a horse really care whether it has a name? Dont think so, all they care about is having enough food, & being comfortable, neither too hot or too cold. Stop being so sentimental, this is their business & it is nothing like chicken farms. You will always get people who treat their horses badly, whether it be a stud or happy hacker. I take it you have actually gone round the studs, because it does not sound like you have visited very many.

 

[AndyPandy]

I have to say that I agree with magic104 & DieselDog. We are far too much of the "pet" mentality when it comes to breeding horses. Also, far too many people breed for the sake of it - they'll flick through a magazine, looking for a nice looking stallion with a low stud fee. It often seems like the British just want a cute foal to cuddle, rather than wanting to breed quality youngstock.

Yes, the continental methods are different, but they are consistently producing quality youngstock. Just have a think about how breeding/reproduction works:

Take a hyopthetical dressage stallion with excellent conformation, great paces, proven in international competition. This stallion clearly has some genetic advantage over other stallions out there, and this, combined with it's nurture/training has made it one of the best in the world. When sperm cells are made in this stallion's testes, there is a degree of chopping and changing of its genes, so every sperm cell will carry different genes. Some of them may be potentially excellent, some OK, some poor, but you hope that because the stallion has a genetic advantage, that more of his sperm cells will carry these good genes.

The same is true of a world class mare - not all of her eggs will carry the "excellent" genes - some will be poor. And some of them might not complement the stallion's sperm cell's genes.

Anyway, the point is, that if you breed a single foal in a year from an excellent stallion, your chances of producing a top quality foal are still small. It gives you a better chance that if you were using a conformationally poor stallion, but at the end of the day, the process of reproduction is still fairly random. To have a good chance of breeding an excellent foal, the more foals you produce in a year, the better. The only way of doing this, is through a large scale farming operation.

I very much doubt, that any of the top producers will mistreat their youngstock. They will have spent thousands of euros on the mare and stallion/semen, and will not want to see their investment wasted. If anything, they will want to protect it.

The youngstock do not care if they are named. They are born into the stabling/barns and don't know any different. They don't, as soon as they pop out, think: "this is unfair, I wish I was outside like those British horses, and that I had a name".

There are, of course, many unscrupulous breeders, all around the world, and if you go to any country, I'm sure you will be able to find a breeder who mistreats their animals. It doesn't mean that everyone using that system does the same thing.

If you want to breed for fun, then enjoy using cheap stallions, and the standard "British" method. If you want to be taken seriously as a producer of sport horses, and quality youngstock, then take a leaf out of the continent's book. They must be doing something right!

Jamie

 

[StaceyTanglewood]

sorry have to agree the reason we buy foreign is because the horses are better !! I have been to many studs over there where they have acres of land and all the mums and foals are out in the fields for 3 years !!

my horse is a U on his passport i dont really care i got to name him too !!! some of those foreign names are so hard to pronounce !!

I have breed my 2 mares one belgium and one hannovarian and always chosen foreign stallions !! they are just better !!

 

[magic104]

Oh some common sense at last. I am fed up with reading about how these horses are kept when the reality is so much different. If you really want to have a go at how horses are kept look to the US & the way they treat their Saddle horses it has been well documented how they get that high stepping action & the tail carriage. This is often helped by mans intervention, & not always very pleasent.
"The American Saddlebred was started in Kentucky in 1832 and was
known as the Kentucky Saddler. It was used to carry plantation
owners around the fields and over long distances in comfort.
Saddlebreds are either three or five gaited. It is still shown
harness and can be used as a pleasure and trail horse. Despite
its versatility, the American Saddlebred Association still
describes it as "America’s most misunderstood breeds" because of
the artificial way in which it is produced and it’s image of a
cropped, high set tail, overlong hooves and the use of somewhat
dubious training aids. - American Saddlebred (gaitedhorse.com)"

 

[harrihjc]

My horse was bred in Holland, but had been over here for over a year when I bought him. I know nothing about where he was bred, but he is incredibly greedy has very little manners, which suggests to me that perhaps he was underfed and not disciplined as a youngster, however he is such a character and loves people I wouldn't change him for the world.

 

[StaceyTanglewood]

I must say my Dutch gelding is the best behaved horse ive ever had he is a true gentleman !!

 

[airedale]

so are all my british and Irish bred horses

the issue of production of USA show horses is also cruel in some respects but is nothing to do with breeding which is the topic of this thread so is a red herring

the issue is that the continentals breed LOTS of horses - 200 to one stallion in one year - and therefore in some cases the gene pool is not diverse enough (similarly to too much breeding to certain Irish SJ stallions and to the over dependence on Northern Dancer and then Saddlers Wells in TB flat race breeding)

In the UK we typically - even the one mare owners - try to breed a GOOD horse (esp. as it is bloody expensive over here to breed horses)

the philosopy on the continent is that - lets breed hundreds of horses and if we get 10 that are good, 50 that are OK and another 50 that can be sold to the idiot british - then we'll eat the rest

Personally I never have and never will support a horse breeding industry that sets out at the start to eat the 'spare' produce - and I don't support e.g. the New Forest breeders for the same reason !!!

In the UK we set out to breed quality - it might not alwasy happen but we TRY
On the continent they set out to breed horsemeat and just sell as riiding horses the ones that are too good to eat

sorry - not sentiment - but I will not knowingly eat HORSE and so - by the reaction to a recent 'F Word' program on Ch. 4 where Janet Street=Porter brought back to the UK horse meat to eat - many of the UK people feeel exactly the same

 

[magic104]

I am sorry airedale, but the majority of people in the UK do not "try to breed a GOOD horse" or "In the UK we set out to breed quality". Stallion owners continue to take sub standard mares & people continue to breed from sub standard. Hardly anyone except the racing industry are interested in blood lines or how either horse is bred. The only people who seem to care are some of the decent studs who are breeding from their own stock. The foal due in the next few weeks traces to Glidawn Diamond standing at the Kennedy Equine Centre. How many mares do you think they cover a year & how do you suppose they keep their youngsters? Don’t insinuate that other countries keep their offspring like battery chickens, because they don’t. As I said the youngsters have turn out in well fenced & well maintained fields and are kept in groups, which yes spend time in barns as they do on a lot of studs in this country. The difference is they run it as a business not a hobby (and I am not saying the UK studs are any different) just there are more 1 mare owner breeders here. I have tried to make sure that whenever I have bred I have checked out the breeding lines, I am also aware that the stallion is only going to contribute a small % to the foal. It is also important that he compliments the mare. As for the amount their stallions cover, again this is their business as already mentioned to get good horses you have to breed many, because it is like a lottery. Even after breeding a good animal there is the producing of that animal to consider. I have lost count how many times I have seen people backing & riding newly backed horses/ponies who have no right to be on their backs. They do not have an independent seat, they do not know how to give the correct aids so the horse/pony learns correctly. No most of us play at breeding we do not take it seriously, those that do take time to investigate & even put their mares forward for grading. They know what they want as an end result. I know someone who travels all over & is involved in gradings & they would dispute what you have put regarding how the continent breed & keep their horses. Like everywhere there will be the bad uns, but at the end of the day there is no profit in a mediocre animal, or one that has not been raised correctly. As for the surplus, what would you have done with them? Unless you are a vegan, you eat meat, there is nothing wrong in people eating horse meat, once again I repeat myself, it is how the animal is kept & then disposed of that is the issue. This is the same whether it is a horse, pig, cow or sheep. I witnessed in the 80's, that there are a lot of people here quiet happy to cross the waters & bring back the rejects just because it is a WB. Having said that their mediocre animals could still knock spots off ours! As I have said before a good horse is a good horse no matter what it's breeding or colour. People should have a choice as to what they want to ride & if that is something that has been bred abroad then so be it.

 

[magic104]

Statement taken for Kennedy EC found on their website;
http://www.kennedyequinecentre.com/page4diam06.htm

The recent changes in course building (big distances) & the new found popularity in Dressage have changed our breeding focus. We now have to produce horses that are straight, sound, have elastic paces & show big scope over fences to compete with our continental breeders in the market.

Glidawn Diamond's bloodlines are the backbone of the KEC breeding programme, his fillies are crossed back to our Continental Sires to produce the new type Irish Sport Horse. We see that the stock retain the temperament, intelligence & fighting spirit of 'Diamond'. These vital characteristics are essential crosses with the big scope, elasticity, paces & ease of riding of our Continentals to produce our own Team Horses & also marketable competiton & amateur riding horses for the future.

 

[AndyPandy]

Completely agree with you again. So many "breeders" in the UK take themselves extremely seriously, even when they are breeding blind, with substandard mares and stallions. There are very few breeders in the UK who are willing to take the breeding seriously by investigating bloodlines, taking their animals to be graded and realising and accepting when they've got a horse which is not good enough.

What frustrates me at gradings is when owners, whose animals fail the grading, throw the "British Bred" card at the grading body. Where it was bred makes no difference, either the horse is up to scratch or not. If you take a horse to be graded (which you should if you are serious about breeding), and the grading body says the horse is no good - don't take it personally. Take their comments on board, and try again. I have some comments on the grading system in the UK as well, but those aren't for this thread.

Concerning surplus: again Magic, you're right. It is no different to any other "farm" animal. You are more than welcome to choose not to eat horse meat, but that doesn't mean it's unacceptable that people do. Would you prefer that they ended up not being wanted, and dying of malnutrition? As long as the horses are cared for adequately, even if they are put down/used for meat, the quality of care is all that matters - and for the mostpart, even the "evil Dutch" (as you would have us believe, Airedale) care for all of their horses. Of course, as people have said before - you'll be able to find AWFUL people in every country around the world, who mistreat their horses - but please stop trying to make a direct connection between continental breeding methods and animal cruelty. It's nothing like battery chicken farming.

What Britain needs are more sensible business people who also care about and enjoy the horses. Any volunteers?

Jamie

 

[StaceyTanglewood]

And so are my british bred horses !!! but i dont know anything about the US !!

 

[warmbloodlover]

I am reletively new to this site and do not very often answer posts but airdale I have never read so much twaddle in my life. If you think that british breeders worry about grading their horses more than the europeans you are sadly mistaken where do you think grading came from. Please make sure you are fully informed of the correct facts before spouting such nonsence. Have you ever been and looked at any studs over there???? I can take you to a stud over here breeding british horses that I would not send a dead rat to so there are good and bad everywhere. Do not slate the horses as we do not have anything over here to compete with them in certain disciplines as is the case the other way round and what we should do is take a leaf out of each others books for the sake of breeding good quality sound horses for all to enjoy. Reading ill informed rubbish like this makes me wonder why I bother looking at this site. I thought it was to share information and maybe help each other not just slate eurpeans and make broad sweeping unfounded statements.

 

[custard]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe British breeders should take some advice from continetal breeders as they then may actually stay in business and make buying a british bred horse a viable option.

But whilst people insist on breeding from lame old rubbish and stallion owners continue putting their stallions to such horses, british bred horses are going to remain either inferior or way too expensive if they are actually half decent.

[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry Airedale but have to agree with this, whilst the continental methods aren't ideal in our eyes I bet they have far fewer sick, sorry and badly conformed horses being passed round sales and ending up with the meatman

 

[airedale]

good for them - although if they 'now' have to produce horses that are straight and sound what the heck were they producing before

however a lot of what is said above about british breeding is what was happening 20 years ago and the statement quoted above reflects a lot of what is happening here - the UK isn't too proud to learn from abroad in trying to breed what the customer appears to want (or what is needed to get points/win/whatever) but they are doing that and you cannot say that the stock presented at say Addington isn't good.

what is wrong is that the 'reputation' (or marketing) of the continental 'product' has been better and so people think "need a competition horse - must cross the channel" which just isn't true anymore - and we need to have more people enlightened enough to look at the good stuff being bred here

I totally also accept that people eat horse - what I dislike is that people knowingly overbreed horses as it 'won't matter' as the junk can be eaten.

Personally I'd rather be an efficient business with heart than an efficient business without it.

 

[Faithkat]

[ QUOTE ]
I am sorry airedale, but the majority of people in the UK do not "try to breed a GOOD horse" or "In the UK we set out to breed quality". Stallion owners continue to take sub standard mares & people continue to breed from sub standard. Hardly anyone except the racing industry are interested in blood lines or how either horse is bred.

[/ QUOTE ]

That is an incredibly arrogant, sweeping statement. Do you KNOW everyone in this country that breeds? I am a one-mare owner and I can assure you that I spent time considering what stallion to put her to in order to produce what I wanted and ditto for next year too. I am most certainly breeding for quality. As someone said previously, it is far too expensive an enterprise to undertake lightly.

Most of the sports horse stallions in this country are of foreign breeding so what difference does it make where their physical location is and with exported semen a lot of "British-bred" foals are actually continental breeding anyway.

 

[magic104]

Quote "I am sorry airedale, but the majority of people in the UK do not"
That is not a sweeping statement at all, but a statement of fact, majority is NOT all. And if you think I am wrong ask any top rider what they think of our breeding industry. I have said this before as well Ireland knock spots of us. They are far more organised, but again treat it as an industry, not as a pet breeding activity. Their government give them backing ours could not care less. They proudly announce their achievements, & the breeding of their horses, what do we do? Diddly squat that's what. Why take it personally, if you do bother to grade your mare & look at the blood lines. My comments are not aimed at you. Cheers.

 

[Faithkat]

I agree that our government isn's helpful re breeding, particularly compared with the French who have several national studs for various types of TB and sports horses.

Have a look at this (scroll down to page 5) : http://www.nedonline.co.uk/pdfs/NED_News_10.pdf

I'm a bit biased as I used a very talented son of Carnaval Drum on my mare!!

 

[Tempi]

i really couldnt care less whether the foal/horse was named or not - TBH id prefer if it wasnt as then i can chose my own name.

Archie is 'U' on his passport.... Really dosent bother me, ive sent it off to get it changed and thats that.

And as for not buying British, surely what people do is up to them? I brought Archie purely for his talent and potential. I couldnt have cared less if he'd come from Australia/Britain/Netherlands whatever i still woudlve brought him.

 

[airedale]

Interesting link - the quote by Malcolm Pyrah is just so right and what I keep posting on here - we breed good horses - we're just useless at getting the UK public to believe that we breed good horses

and also to note is in last weeks H&H that stallion (can't remember it's name) that has gone over to Germany and got full grading - bit about them opening a bottle of Krug to celebrate

Now that was a british bred horse going and beating the germans in their own backyard.

I accept that there is a cross-fertilisation of bloodlines across the channel but also must point out that people here seem to have totally forgotten that the continental horses are what they are today because the germans et al came over here 20 years ago and took back with them some great TBs and native ponies to improve their horses

so that nice expensive import if you look at it's pedigree 4 generations back may well have UK horses in it
we have now got in the UK british bred mares and stallions that yes, 3 or 4 generations back were imported bloodlines, but they are now british bred and should be supported

WHY do we as a country have to keep shooting ourselves in the foot and coming out with cr4p like "well if you look at the good UK horses they are all of continental bloodlines"

apart from the fact that that just isn't true !! why not just make the statemetn a bit shorter and support UK breeding by stating "well - look at the good UK horses" and leave out the 2nd part of the sentence

You don't see the germans trumpeting the fact that their horses have british bloodlines - they are claiming they are GERMAN and proud of it

this ability to keep 'doing ourselves down' is so frustrating and such a symbol of the absence of national pride in our country.

WE can and do "do things right" but a few more people on here need to stop throwing bricks at us and instead support us and/or stop being so bl00dy negative.