Highlighting the welfare challenges facing Scotland’s Equines

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BHS/WHW/Scot Gov Welfare Conference Belwade 20.04.16

Title: Highlighting the welfare challenges facing Scotland’s Equines

I was very pleased to represent BHS D&G at this Conference.

Take home messages in brief, please contact the page if more info required:

Nick Ambrose from the Scot Gov spoke about EC Regulation 2015/262 That current horse passports will remain valid. New passports will have a different layout. Vet treatment affecting meat status must be written in. A smart card will be available to travel with the horse. New Central Equine database should be up by mid-summer and fully operational at the end of the year. Scotland is likely to have its own database showing where every horse is located in Scotland.

Richard Newton spoke on Biosecurity, we must all concentrate on reducing risk and understanding our enemies. Keep yourself to yourself at events and shows, quarantine on returning home particularly if you have stabled away. DO NOT SHARE EQUIPMENT. It was pointed out that some portable stabling is not disinfected between shows. Know your horse’s normal temperature and isolate if it goes above 38.5C. DO NOT MOVE animals away from affected premises. Take care with visitors to your yard. Risk assess what vaccines are needed, the strangles vaccine is still not adequate. The PASS scheme promoted as it allows horses to be moved from yard to yard safely. (Premium Assured Strangles Scheme run by SRUC) DEFRA will not make strangles notifiable but the Scottish Government may consider doing so. He also updated us on re-emergence of old diseases like Glanders and Dourine and the more modern threats from WNV, EIA, Avian Flu in horses and donkeys. April is Equine Flu Awareness month.

Roly Owers spoke about the Horse Crisis. In 2012 we saw charities full to bursting, an increase in ‘’free to good home’’, overbreeding, indiscriminate breeding and one culture where horses are a status symbol. We have ineffective laws, chaotic equine ID , lack of enforcement and few consequences and little consideration for the future of foals bred. There has been a rise in large welfare cases and hoarders will carry on and repeat. The UK Government has made a U-turn and the Welfare Codes will be statutory. He considers stallion licensing un-enforceable.

Prof Nat Waran spoke about measuring happiness in horses. Horse riding, statistically, is more dangerous than riding motor bikes. So we must consider are horses sufficiently trained to be ‘’Fit for Purpose’’ and safe . A well trained horse which is capable of giving rider satisfaction is not a horse which gets sold on many times. It is easy to recognise the unhappy horse, tongue out, tongue above the bit, blue tongue, teeth grinding, tail swishing, napping, horse refusing a jump and rearing or bucking away. It is harder to recognise a happy horse but looking at eye wrinkles can give us clues. Please do not ‘slap’ your horse down the neck as a reward just rub or scratch his neck! Horses need positive experiences.

The speaker on the Equine End of Life Study Dr Georgina Crossman stressed the need for us all to have a plan in place eg for the ‘’what if your horse has a serious accident’’ and you cannot be contacted. There are many booklets available from BHS, WHW, Donkey Sanctuary, Blue Cross to assist your decision making.

WHW investigator Phil Lawson painted a bleak picture of ID fraud which led to the horsemeat scandal. They found blank Richard Steel horse passports in Holland when this PIO closed in April 2009. It is far too easy to get a passport on line. Horses are exported for riding but if unsold end up in the meat chain. They found fake documents, passports with a microchip number added by hand, re-use of passports of dead horses. When horses are bought at mart already signed out of the meat chain many dealers just get a new passport. When checking for microchip do both sides of the neck right up the nuchal ligament almost to the poll. Horses are known to come in through Cairnryan in the middle of the night without passports, it is up to each one of us to speak out against fraud.

Gemma Pearson is an excellent speaker and showed short videos on de-sensitising horses using clicker training to allow hoof handling, needles, tube worming, clippers, eye drops etc. I feel many horse owners would benefit from her teaching and would like to invite her to speak in D&G at a future date. Her ethos—‘’punishment tells the horse what not to do, but not what it should be doing’’