Mark Johnson who is spearheading a campaign for enforcement of animal welfare law (triggered by his personal discovery of some dead and dying horses at Fosse Park near Leicester) has shared the wording of the Animal Welfare Act - below. There are many common horse management and horse keeping practices that do not meet the criteria of the act and which are therefore already illegal. That would include routinely keeping horses in isolation - in separate paddocks with no opportunity for physical contact with other horses for instance. Keeping horses routinely stabled for long periods with no opportunity to socialise or to free-forage or even to exercise. Routinely leaving horses shut up in stables without any forage. Horses are physically designed to be foraging for between 16 and 20 hours a day. According to the experts in equine nutrition and the equine gastro-intestinal tract, horses that are routinely without access to any forage for more than 2 to 4 hours at a stretch are at risk of developing conditions such as stomach ulcers, colic and hind gut acidosis. This happens routinely with stabled horses. I am surrounded by horses that have no hay left when I leave the yard at 9 at night and may get nothing more to eat until 7 or even later the next morning. There are training methods that are used for the control or training of horses that routinely make use of pain as a motivator or for control. The harsh use of bits, spurs, the routine use of whips and sticks to either motivate them to move, to remind them to move or to stop them from moving would be examples of where pain is routinely used in training or management with horses. If it wasnt hurting it would not be working! I completely support Marks campaign for the enforcement of these laws. Compliance with these laws is the responsibility of the horse owner and trainer. It is not the responsibility of the RSPCA or the police. The RSPCA have no law enforcement powers. Only the police can enforce laws. But it isnt just the likes of the owner of the horses at Fosse Park who are failing to comply with the Animal Welfare Act. I see illegal horse keeping, horse management and training of horses around me everywhere. All the time. I hope this campaign and others working to both publicise and encourage compliance with what are very simple laws are successful. We should do more to publicise this law and to think about whether we ourselves are keeping and training our horses legally - never mind ethically. We should look at ourselves first. Just because our horse is in a clean paddock with safe fences and a nice rug on and he gets two meals a day and access to clean water does not mean that we are keeping him or training him in a way that either meets his needs or is within the law. It takes quite a bit more than that. Makes you think!
Posted on: Mon, 24 Mar 2014 11:16:33 +0000
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