What are 'Green Yards'?

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Slightlyconfused

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As title, sister helped rescue a horse loose on the A5 the other night near Dunstable. Police came, she said he was lovely but had no idea how to deal with horses, and horse after caught was picked up by some people from a Green Yard.

We have never heard of them before and was wondering what they were?

Horse was a lovely boy, scared silly, mane full of brambles and very over weight and looked like was going through a laminitis attack.
 
I believe this is just where police keep horses they find/rescue until an owner comes forward.
As far as I know, they get a bad rap for charging people a fee to release the horse back into owner's custody.
 
Exactly - just like a dog pound :)

Green yards are a place of safety for an equine or farm animal till the owner can be traced/7 days. Most police forces have them, but not all (and some police don't know about them at all, despite their county having one!)
 
They are a safe recognised yard for the police and a few of the welfare organisations to put a horse in. You won't know where they are as they don't advertise and they are used to taking all sorts of horses that have been uplifted in all sorts of circumstances.

I don't know about charging but personally don't think its unreasonable to try and recover some of the costs if a horse has been straying and they've had to go pick it up and care for it on a professional basis? I don't know for sure that they do?
 
iconique said:
They are a safe recognised yard for the police and a few of the welfare organisations to put a horse in. You won't know where they are as they don't advertise and they are used to taking all sorts of horses that have been uplifted in all sorts of circumstances.

I don't know about charging but personally don't think its unreasonable to try and recover some of the costs if a horse has been straying and they've had to go pick it up and care for it on a professional basis? I don't know for sure that they do?
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There was a whole debacle on FB about a pony who had escaped from his field and the woman couldn't afford to pay the fee to release him. All very dramatic.
I totally agree though that charging (within reason) for locating, transporting and looking after the horse in a safe location is hardly crime of the century and I don't blame them for trying to cover the costs.
 
Thank you :)

Hope the pony gets what he needs (and to be completely fair from how much my sister said he was starting to stand back on all fours pts would not be a bad thing :( )

He had very interesting markings
 
I've got a slightly less positive view.

They are like a pound but they are not run by the police but by private individuals on behalf of the council. Their location is a closely guarded secret, the police call them and they come and collect the horses. There is quite a high charge to get the horse back including a daily livery charge. That is on top of a charge to come out and pick up horses. I can't remember what it was but think hundreds of pound to get horse back after a couple of days. Given that alot that end up there are probably abandoned or the cost of getting them back is much more than the what the horse is worth, alot don't get collected.

One night I helped the police round up 5 youngsters that were loose on the road. They were yearlings or 2 year old, the colts uncut. Hadn't had much handling but we managed to get headcollars on and get them standing quietly.

We thought they might have got loose from a local traveller site but they said they were not missing any horses. The non horsey policeman was all for opening a random field with horses in and turning them out. This would have involved cutting a padlock. Luckily there was one equine police officer there so he was talked out of this and the green yard people were called. I got the impression from the police they had never been there and didn't know where it was. They really didn't want to call, only as a last resort as the callout and collection charge per horse was so high.

So we stood in the dark holding the horses for a couple of hours and eventually an old knackered horsebox turned up and two large tattooed men got out. If I had driven past and seen the scene, I would have been sure they were horse thieves. They produced some old knotted rope halters and shouted and beat the youngsters till they went up the ramp. The box hadn't been converted that well so when they got to the top of the ramp, they had to clamber over a metal lip of about a foot high from the lorry's previous life. There were not partition so the horses were just tied to some rope next to each other.

I also know of someone who visited one (They had contacts in the police and were able to get the address. It was the local one so would have been the same one) and it was apparently very run down, think rubbish all over the place and wire and horses in muddy lots with no grass. There were dead horses lying around.

I don't know if this is typical or just this particular green yard.
 
Criso - I know of several 'green yards' partially because I am involved with welfare. All of which are not as you describe and the local one to me is actually a very well respected vet practice, you would never know that they take welfare as their main facilities disguise very well what is on site. Unfortunately I can't speak for the ones I don't know!
 
iconique said:
Criso - I know of several 'green yards' partially because I am involved with welfare. All of which are not as you describe and the local one to me is actually a very well respected vet practice, you would never know that they take welfare as their main facilities disguise very well what is on site. Unfortunately I can't speak for the ones I don't know!
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I really hope that the one I know of is the exception then. I know I would never have let any horse of mine in the back of that lorry with people who handled horses like the ones I met.

Should add this was a few years back so hopefully it's not in business anymore.
 
Criso, I agree, it doesn't sound right! Although i have found that most of the police have zero experience and it wouldn't surprise me in desperation they add someone to the list without checking them. The welfare world is in complete crisis and no one seems to have an answer! With winter starting, fly grazing is going to get worse and welfare incidents worse.

Heres a link to messaging MP's about fly grazing and changing the law, its not much but a start, if anyone can fill in and help, welfare takes everyone helping to make the difference needed and OP sorry to hijack your thread!

http://campaign.publicaffairsbriefi...875b&_cldee=bGl6QHN0b3JleS51ay5jb20=&urlid=14
 
iconique said:
Criso - I know of several 'green yards' partially because I am involved with welfare. All of which are not as you describe and the local one to me is actually a very well respected vet practice, you would never know that they take welfare as their main facilities disguise very well what is on site. Unfortunately I can't speak for the ones I don't know!
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The lorry was nice but the men were old and scary according to my sister and the village they were going to has a known knackers yard that does not a have a very good reputation by a lot of the horse owners and even farmers round here. The animals that have been known to have been sent there to be pts have not been done straight away and just dumped I. Fields on the grounds.

criso said:
I really hope that the one I know of is the exception then. I know I would never have let any horse of mine in the back of that lorry with people who handled horses like the ones I met.

Should add this was a few years back so hopefully it's not in business anymore.
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The lorry for the place I mentioned above once went to a friends yard to pick up a horse, thank fully it was already pts by vet, the lorry was dripping blood on the ground as it pulled up and ten inside was still wet with blood from the previous body :/

Hijack away, I've learnt something new tonight
 
iconique said:
Criso, I agree, it doesn't sound right! Although i have found that most of the police have zero experience and it wouldn't surprise me in desperation they add someone to the list without checking them. The welfare world is in complete crisis and no one seems to have an answer! With winter starting, fly grazing is going to get worse and welfare incidents worse.

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This was 3 or 4 years ago but this time of year and the I think they'd been dumped rather than feed them through the winter. Talking to the horsey policewoman it was the one they used in that area of Herts. There was no list or ringing round. It was the usual one they used they were just a bit reluctant because of the high callout/pick up fee. I heard about the account of the place after when we were talking about it and it was related to an attempted theft of the horse the previous year who ended up there.
 
Slightlyconfused said:
The lorry was nice but the men were old and scary according to my sister and the village they were going to has a known knackers yard that does not a have a very good reputation by a lot of the horse owners and even farmers round here.
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There was one not a million miles from here, I wonder if we're thinking of the same place. It was run by one of the chaps implicated in the horsemeat scandal. He came to one of our old YOs place to pick up a stray gypsy horse that the YO had reported to the police. He said it was a 'nice little earner' for him. He said the police would ring him, he'd come and pick the horse up, get paid handsomely for a few weeks, and then if no-one claimed them he could 'dispose of them'. That was before the horsemeat scandal and when that all hit and he was arrested we all thought 'hmmmm'....
 
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