Moving to Germany

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emmah1979

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Just bought a new horse (4 days ago) and today have now been offered a job and promotion to Germany. Typical! Does anyone have any experiences of moving horses to Germany?

Are there any specific things that I need to do such as additional vaccinations?

How much can I expect transport to be for 2 horses to near Hannover?

What about taking my dog as well?
 
You need to have all flu etc up to date and have paperwork down 24 hours or less before they leave the country. Your dog will need a passport too.
 
I looked into taking my horses last autumn as OH is working near Berlin.

For the horses you need to have an export licence which you get from DEFRA at Carlisle, all the forms are available on line and can be submitted on line. They are pretty straight forward to fill in and I think this service is still free (if not it used to be!).

The horses also need health papers from a vet who is on DEFRA's approved list. Contact your practice and they should be able to tell you which vets can visit and fill in the papers. The health papers need to be issued no more than 48 hours before travelling. It can all seem a bit daunting, I have always sorted the export licences myself and then got an agent to handle the health papers. Most horse transport companies that do trips to the continent will handle all the paperwork for you which makes the job far less stressful. If you are using one of these companies to transport your horse they will quote you for a full package which will be transport and all relevant paperwork.

As for taking your own lorry then I am still in the dark about who needed notifying or where I had to do that. All I managed to find out was that the vehicle would be able to stay in Germany on English number plates for 12 months before it would have to be swopped on to German plates. Insurance was confusing too, my english insurance covered me for three months but then technically the vehicle should have come back to england (it could turn around on the docks in Dover) and then commence a further 3 month period in Germany. The minute I said to the insurer I would be driving it to Germany and staying they did not want to know! The company OH works for offered no help whatsoever with these matters.

As for the dog, well that was rather easier. Your vet needs to give a rabies jab and complete a dog passport. Three weeks after the jab your dog can travel and will be able to return to the UK. Just prior to return to the UK (cannot remember how many hours it is) there is a timescale that the dog must be given a wormer. This has to be given by a vet and the date AND time of administration of said wormer recorded and stamped in the dog's passport. As far as I am aware that is about it for the dog. I paid £70 for my dog to be vaccinated. The rules changed on 1st January 2012 so that they only need one jab. The jab is valid for 2 years but I am not sure if you have to have them done annually in Germany. Once in Germany your dog has to be registered at the Rathaus along with yourself! Oh and you have to pay a dog tax, you are issued with some sort of ID that has to accompany the dog I believe.

In the end I didn't go, the whole thing about taking my lorry, language barriers and OH travelling a lot for his job made me decide to stay in the UK and we both commute.

Hope it all goes well for you and you enjoy a new experience in Germany.
 
If you are taking the horses the easiest way is to get someone like parkers to transport them as they deal with everything, all you need to do is have the horses ready to travel with their passports! they will sort out the health papers and get them stamped at their yard so they are in date for the journey. I would expect it to be around £6-700 each horse to ship but ring the transporters and they will talk you through everything and give you an idea of the costs. There are sales on for the next 2 weekends so although you may miss those its worth having a look at the verband sites and seeing whats on in Verden Vechta and Munster as transporters will often have a lorry headed back from the sales so you could possibly get a slightly lower cost by having them go at those times. although it seems to be contained with the EHV thats around in the UK I would be having them innoculated for it just in case as I am overcareful but thats personal preference
 
Taken my ponies through Germany twice, we stabled there a night each time on the way to other places :) Even if you want to drive them yourself get a firm to sort the paper work- much easier.
 
Thanks everyone for all your advice. I have contacted Parkers and they have quoted me £500 +VAT per horse. They do all the paperwork and the horses just need a vet's check before they travel. Dog is off to vets tomorrow for doggy passport. I'm off in a month's time. Just need to try and find some livery for them now?!?
 
have a look on this website, I found it very helpful http://www.stall-frei.de

The information will tell you what type of livery the yard is offering and what facilities they have along with how many boxes they have and how many vacancies. You can search in a radius of where you will be living. I also found a yard whilst just driving around, it was not advertising anywhere and I spotted it from the road, it was the yard I would really have like to be at if I had gone.

£500 plus vat including the paperwork sounds like a very good price, it would have cost me about £400 in diesel, £300 on the boat and then the health papers on top to take my own lorry to Berlin plus an overnight stabling cost.
 
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