Tethering laws

Stinkbomb

Stinkbomb

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Does anyone know whether there are any laws on tethering horses?
I went on a long walk today and found 7 tethered on waste land. Although they are of good weight and rugged ( well if you can call it rugged :( ) but my concern was that the area they are on is virtually bare and they have no water or shelter available to them. It doesnt look like they have hay, although i cant prove that as i dont know. The area didnt look like it had seen any hay?
There were feed buckets scattered about so they must get something but they looked so miserable :(
Is it worth speaking to some welfare party about them? i dont know who owns them.
 
Tethering is legal provided the horses welfare needs are met (some would say that's pretty hard to achieve when used as a permanent thing on a single patch of ground rather than the original practice of moving on each day and horse having fresh ground).

Welfare needs being met basically means regular access to water, food eg grass growing within their tether chain/rope reach, checked at least daily and well fitting headcollar/tether equipment.

So the lack of water would be the main issue from a welfare perspective. Shelter is less of an issue in the milder climes of the UK than it would be where I live in NE Scotland, tho there should be some available ideally.

Personally I believe tethering should only be legal as a temporary solution when in transit, so horses should not be permitted to be tethered in the same field in consecutive days, nor in the same field within 28 days of the previous use.

Unfortunately from a tradition accompanying a horse drawn caravan along the roads and byways it has become an epidemic of being used as a means to illegally occupy land with fly-grazed horses on a permanent basis.

I hope your horses do better than the one near my old place who was left in a field with nothing but ragwort to eat. After loads of delay after complaints, he was finally moved - to a field with nothing but acorns within his reach. Again lots of delay by the authorities and no action by the owner, until poor lad had to be PTS due to organ failure from the acorns.

If there really is no water provided then I would report this case to World Horse Welfare
 
They sound as if they need reporting anyway to be on the safe side, however 'providing water' could mean that water is offered a couple of times a day rather than a constant supply freely available. If their bodily condition is good then the welfare agencies are unlikely to be able to do anything sadly.
 
From recent experience it seems as others have said there is little anyone will do if they don't look like skeletons. Some horses near me are kept tethered on a cliff top, they are not moved for several days on end, have very little to eat and I am sure they are not watered every day so I called the *****, who attended but decided they didn't look poor enough to take action.

Really makes me angry, as I wrote on a previous thread I am not one for fussing over rugs and so on, but seeing the conditions some animals are allowed to exist in is disgusting.
 
It upsets you but it's not illlegal and you have to be able to prove that the law has been broken . It looked miserable your honor and I did not like it's rug just won't cut it I'm afraid.
It's a huge problem.
 
Goldenstar said:
It upsets you but it's not illlegal and you have to be able to prove that the law has been broken . It looked miserable your honor and I did not like it's rug just won't cut it I'm afraid.
It's a huge problem.
Click to expand...

My concern is not over its rug, its the fact they have no water, no food and no shelter. I appreciate now that no laws have been broken but that was why i asked the question.
 
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