Rescuers create horses that need rescued.

cptrayes said:
It makes no difference. If you can't afford your chosen method of disposal of a horse you should not own one in the first place, imo.

My house was shot, removed and incinerated for £150.
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Good grief, I didn't know you could get houses shot!
 
Maybe we're looking at this from the wrong angle. Apparently the legislation in place should be sufficient, IF it is used. Most councils choose not to use it, as demonstrated by the Fosseway park horses. Why don't the RSPCA prosecute the council for neglect of duty, or whatever it is called? We're always told no one is above the law.
 
me too years been saying the same thing and had lots of indignant people telling me it wont work I simply don't believe them 14 days to get it right and pay for it or the animal is slaughtered simple to me.
 
windand rain said:
me too years been saying the same thing and had lots of indignant people telling me it wont work I simply don't believe them 14 days to get it right and pay for it or the animal is slaughtered simple to me.
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I would not require the tax payer or council taxpayer to pay for them for fourteen days three days tops then off to slaughter .
 
The solution, IMO is not more regulation, but rather a change in attitude to the use of horsemeat. It's ridiculous that you have to pay c.£200 to 'dispose' of what should be a £300 asset (400kg of useable horse meat).

Create a market for horse flesh (alongside decent end of life welfare standards), and the problem is largely solved.

I will not support (for selfish reasons and ideological ones) any plans to increase red tape around stallion or other horse ownership. The regulations we already have are intrusive, ineffective and punative. No thanks to more of the same.
 
pennyturner said:
The solution, IMO is not more regulation, but rather a change in attitude to the use of horsemeat. It's ridiculous that you have to pay c.£200 to 'dispose' of what should be a £300 asset (400kg of useable horse meat).

Create a market for horse flesh (alongside decent end of life welfare standards), and the problem is largely solved.

I will not support (for selfish reasons and ideological ones) any plans to increase red tape around stallion or other horse ownership. The regulations we already have are intrusive, ineffective and punative. No thanks to more of the same.
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Well put Pennyturner, totally agree :)

Also Defra to apply current regs, regarding passporting, even if those who are destined for meat as a foal have a cut-price, one way passport for id, to be produced at slaughter, within a 1 or 2 yr timescale from birth.
 
I'm not sure where to post this with all the current threads so may multi-post http://www.horseandhound.co.uk/news/private-members-bill-tackle-fly-grazing/

Congratulations to Julian Sturdy for getting off his bottom and starting the process. I wrote to my local MP who is in a neighbouring constituency to Mr Sturdy and he responded by saying he was liaising with Mr S to tackle the issue - so that's support from at least two!
 
pennyturner said:
The solution, IMO is not more regulation, but rather a change in attitude to the use of horsemeat. It's ridiculous that you have to pay c.£200 to 'dispose' of what should be a £300 asset (400kg of useable horse meat).

Create a market for horse flesh (alongside decent end of life welfare standards), and the problem is largely solved.

I will not support (for selfish reasons and ideological ones) any plans to increase red tape around stallion or other horse ownership. The regulations we already have are intrusive, ineffective and punative. No thanks to more of the same.
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So are you prepared for the withdrawal of many of the drugs we use on sport horses
Most of these problems horses won't have full passport records and therefore ought not to be in the food chain .
If people are going to eat we will have to be sure the meat is free from drugs that one of the reason cattle and sheep are so well regulated .
 
honetpot said:
I e-mailed my MP, I live in Cambridgeshire, have heard not a sausage, so well done to Mr Strudy
Sorry to keep pushing this but it only takes a minute to sign
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/66742
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Please can we all do this - we know its very complicated and emotive but if we all make our feelings known to our MPs, it will at least force more debate among the movers & shakers.

We will never all agree on the details but we all know there are thousands upon thousands of excess equines in the UK - bred by fools - that will need feeding this winter.
 
Goldenstar said:
So are you prepared for the withdrawal of many of the drugs we use on sport horses
Most of these problems horses won't have full passport records and therefore ought not to be in the food chain .
If people are going to eat we will have to be sure the meat is free from drugs that one of the reason cattle and sheep are so well regulated .
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Of course drugs cannot enter the human food chain. Sports horses etc should go for petfood (or even meat byproducts like fertiliser).

But the low end horses we are talking about have never seen a vet in their life and most certainly have not been fed expensive drugs.
 
I think that at these kind of 'sales' if they appear to be malnourished etc then an official should be able to just rock up, seize the horses and PTS and then issue the 'breeders' with a bill/fine. If that could happen then maybe they would think twice about letting their stock overbreed!

Its like those people that sell those silly harts and crap late at night on the weekends - they do it as they know some drunk suckers going to come along and buy them!
 
pennyturner said:
Of course drugs cannot enter the human food chain. Sports horses etc should go for petfood (or even meat byproducts like fertiliser).

But the low end horses we are talking about have never seen a vet in their life and most certainly have not been fed expensive drugs.
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Oh believe me, a lot of them do see drugs, just not legally administered.
 
What an interesting and valuable debate . . . and, while I haven't read all the way to the end of the thread, the phrase that is ringing in my head is this: until horses are treated like livestock (livestock that "may" enter the food chain), these issues won't go away.

If you think about horses as livestock - like cows, for instance, colts are simply a by-product of a breeding industry . . . in the case of cows the end product is milk + beef + money - but we need far more dairy cows (heifers) than we do beef cows (bullocks), so the young (unwanted) males are despatched humanely soon after birth. It's a fact of the dairy industry. Some are now being reared for rose veal - which is a good thing, and is driven by very real economics. The cold, hard facts are that, if you want to drink milk (or put it on your cornflakes or in your tea or coffee), eat cheese and spread butter on your toast then bleating about culling young male calves and refusing to eat veal is hypocrisy. Translate that to the horse "industry" - because that's what we're talking about here - and if indiscriminate breeders can't find a value/market for their unwanted colts, then one of the responsible things to do is cull them - and sell them for meat - either as pet food, or overseas for meat (or, God forbid, for meat in this country).

Unless and until horses are treated like other livestock, and their lifecyles properly regulated (which doesn't currently happen), we will still be having this conversation/debate . . . and the only way that will happen is if someone undertakes a massive education campaign so that people - all people, the general non horse owning public, horse owners, breeders, abattoirs, knackermen, vets, DEFRA, etc. - can have a rational debate and hammer out something sensible and workable.

Oh, and I'm another who doesn't believe for a second that the worst place a horse can end up is in an abattoir - that depends on so many things, not the least of which is the slaughterman himself.

P
 
PolarSkye said:
What an interesting and valuable debate . . . and, while I haven't read all the way to the end of the thread, the phrase that is ringing in my head is this: until horses are treated like livestock (livestock that "may" enter the food chain), these issues won't go away.

If you think about horses as livestock - like cows, for instance, colts are simply a by-product of a breeding industry . . . in the case of cows the end product is milk + beef + money - but we need far more dairy cows (heifers) than we do beef cows (bullocks), so the young (unwanted) males are despatched humanely soon after birth. It's a fact of the dairy industry. Some are now being reared for rose veal - which is a good thing, and is driven by very real economics. The cold, hard facts are that, if you want to drink milk (or put it on your cornflakes or in your tea or coffee), eat cheese and spread butter on your toast then bleating about culling young male calves and refusing to eat veal is hypocrisy. Translate that to the horse "industry" - because that's what we're talking about here - and if indiscriminate breeders can't find a value/market for their unwanted colts, then one of the responsible things to do is cull them - and sell them for meat - either as pet food, or overseas for meat (or, God forbid, for meat in this country).

Unless and until horses are treated like other livestock, and their lifecyles properly regulated (which doesn't currently happen), we will still be having this conversation/debate . . . and the only way that will happen is if someone undertakes a massive education campaign so that people - all people, the general non horse owning public, horse owners, breeders, abattoirs, knackermen, vets, DEFRA, etc. - can have a rational debate and hammer out something sensible and workable.

Oh, and I'm another who doesn't believe for a second that the worst place a horse can end up is in an abattoir - that depends on so many things, not the least of which is the slaughterman himself.

P
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This is exactly what I have been trying to get over but have been told it is too difficult I cannot see why just make horses livestock the only thing that might have to have a different slant on it is transport as the current livestock rules for transporting farm animals is very very strict
 
windand rain said:
This is exactly what I have been trying to get over but have been told it is too difficult I cannot see why just make horses livestock the only thing that might have to have a different slant on it is transport as the current livestock rules for transporting farm animals is very very strict
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Most politicians are only concerned about the next election and what is a major concern to their local voters because that is what gets them elected. I would imagine that the general public has little or no idea about the horse welfare problem, fly grazing etc they just see a few ponies at the side of the road. Until there is a huge pile up on the M25, A3, A14 or any big arterial road with loss of human life because these animals have been dumped the general public will remain uninterested and the MP's will remain uninterested. So trying to get new laws passed is going to be an uphill task, government will not do it, it would have to be a private members bill which very rarely get through parliament.

The horsemeat scandal did put horses in the public eye and if attached to that a strengthening of the passport regulations that are already there would be less contentious and easier for the public to understand. Changing horses in to farm animals under DEFRA would just take too long.
 
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