Yet another PTS...

Clodagh

Clodagh

Playing chess with pigeons
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I am having two elderly horses put down later this summer.
One is virtually feral, although I can handle him he is very headshy due to a bad past. The other is highly strung but no trouble.
I have always taken them to the kennels or had the huntsman come out in the past, but these two have never hunted so I don't mind where their bodies go tbh.
It is the deed that is a problem. They are both going to have to be sedated, something I have never done before (for a PTS I mean). So, is it easier then to just carry on and PTS with injection? Or sedate then shoot?
If sedated then shot I assume they could go for dog food? Whereas if PTS with injection they have to be cremated? Sorry if that sounds callous but to me although I love them when alive I don't have any serious feelings about their bodies once dead.
 
I would go for the sedated/shot option personally. Afraid it boils down to money. Some vets do hold the licence to do so, so don't always have to get the kennel man in for the deed.

Hope it goes as best as possible, never an easy thing.
 
How good are your local kennels? Would they have time to visit a couple of times for horses to get used to them stroking their face or for you to desensitize them to their face being touched?
I would see how you get on with that before going down the sedation route TBH but if you can't do that and it really stresses them out what about a dart gun? Many vets who visit zoos have to use them. There might be the bonus of the zoo taking them too for food if it's a sedative they can deal with.
 
i have had mine sedated and then shot by my vet who also arranged for the knackerpeople take the bodies...i dont care what happens to the bodies and am prepared to pay extra for my horses to go in the least stressful way(for them). this way i can be with them until they are almost asleep and they dont know i have gone so i dont have to watch the final act ...my first horse was shot without sedation and i held him, and my memory of him was tarnished by that last day, so the sedation route suits me so i can remember them standing and not crashing to the floor. sorry you are going through this but it is our last kindness to them...
 
Fools Motto said:
I would go for the sedated/shot option personally. Afraid it boils down to money. Some vets do hold the licence to do so, so don't always have to get the kennel man in for the deed.

Hope it goes as best as possible, never an easy thing.
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As both you are LJR say, my vet can shoot so one person could do both, then I would just need to organise the bodies. I might phone the local slaughterhouse, I know they process horses. I liked my hunters goiung to the kennels if they were well enough to travel as they always thought they were off hunting.
 
Maesfen said:
How good are your local kennels? Would they have time to visit a couple of times for horses to get used to them stroking their face or for you to desensitize them to their face being touched?
I would see how you get on with that before going down the sedation route TBH but if you can't do that and it really stresses them out what about a dart gun? Many vets who visit zoos have to use them. There might be the bonus of the zoo taking them too for food if it's a sedative they can deal with.
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They are both OK with the vet and my horse is OK with his face but rescue pony will not have a man touch him. My vets are a couple and both can use a gun and a needle so might be best to ask for her.
 
splashgirl45 said:
i have had mine sedated and then shot by my vet who also arranged for the knackerpeople take the bodies...i dont care what happens to the bodies and am prepared to pay extra for my horses to go in the least stressful way(for them). this way i can be with them until they are almost asleep and they dont know i have gone so i dont have to watch the final act ...my first horse was shot without sedation and i held him, and my memory of him was tarnished by that last day, so the sedation route suits me so i can remember them standing and not crashing to the floor. sorry you are going through this but it is our last kindness to them...
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Sounds like a plan. I have held friends horses while they are shot but have always delegated my OH for mine.
 
I had mine sedated, then it was just more injection to do the deed. It was the right thing for us. You're in Essex aren't you? I can give you the names of a couple of stock collection companies that cremate them (group or individual) if you like. Just to add, sorry you are having to do this.
 
texas said:
I had mine sedated, then it was just more injection to do the deed. It was the right thing for us. You're in Essex aren't you? I can give you the names of a couple of stock collection companies that cremate them (group or individual) if you like. Just to add, sorry you are having to do this.
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Essex yes, I imagine if it was an edible carcass it would go to Martins and if not the place at Wood Farm?
 
Personally mine have been sedated then PTS by vet injection then Ive had them buried in my field. I would never personally have mine shot or the bodies sent away, they are to remain on my land where they belong.
 
Martins and resting pets at wood farm have both in the past collected non edibles as you put it. I think at resting pets one can actually send them there to get the deed done if one wanted.
 
Potentially daft question, but if they are both feral, how will anyone get near them with a needle to sedate? Or is it done with a tranquilliser, like the zoo style mentioned above?
 
Mine was shot at home by Martins who then took the body. Very professional to deal with. Disposal of a nonedible carcass is eye-watering.
 
If there is any question of them standing quietly whilst a gun is applied, then I'd have them lightly sedated and shot, which would mean that the local knackerman would find some use for the flesh, and so reduce the cost. My local chap charges £160 per animal.

Alec.
 
id agree with Alec in sedating them.
If they are likely to be easier for you to handle than the vet the domosedan gel would be a good choice.

As for disposal it depends what it in their system and what the local hunt/knackerman will accept. I just had my horse PTS, he was on a variety of drugs so needed to be cremated - I used the local hunt masters wife who runs an equine disposal service, was £360 for the dispatch and cremation, which under the circumstances I felt was a reasonable charge for a orofessional service
 
I had my mare shot, because I witnessed a bad experience with the injection. It was Lizzie with a business called Earth to Heaven.. Was around £150 and she gave my mare a bucket of feed and lots of polos as she done it. Was sudden and she felt nothing.
 
I don't understand how, if the horse is sedated it could be used for pet food or go to the hunt? Surely the drugs would contaminate the meat?
 
my boy is extremely needle shy, it's always a struggle with his normal jabs every year so sedation wouldn't be an option for me. I can vouch for Lizzie at Earth to Heaven, she's had to come to our yard several times and has a lovely calm and sympathetic approach.
 
selinas spirit said:
I don't understand how, if the horse is sedated it could be used for pet food or go to the hunt? Surely the drugs would contaminate the meat?
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I'm advised on here, and it may well be fact, that the UK pet food industry has now agreed that the only meat which goes in to their products is fit for human consumption. Lunacy, but there we are, and worked in to place to be sure that there can be no financial or sensible aspect to the end of the life of a horse. We can thank our equine welfare charities for that one! :)

Sedation and anaesthetic leave different residual traces, and sedated animals don't retain or carry such a level of toxins. That's my understanding.

QuantockHills, I attended the humane end of a horse which was needle shy and the owner was emphatic that the poor old chap wasn't to be shot. I covered his eye with one hand, took a pinch of neck skin with the other, and the vet administered an IM sedative. He wasn't even aware that he'd had a jab. We returned 10 minutes later and he was suitably dozy, and again, by covering his eye with my hand so he couldn't see behind, a lethal dose was administered by IV. To have shot him would have been the simpler and the more humane end, but the choice was the owner's.

Alec.
 
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