Bransby Horses are urging all horse owners to check their fencing daily to make sure it is adequate and up to the job of keeping their animals safe and secure.
When horses escape from their paddocks, their safety and that of other animals and people around them is put at risk.
We are regularly called out to horses and ponies who have either been abandoned on unsuitable grassland or have escaped due to inadequate or broken fencing.
Many of these animals are not microchipped, despite this being a legal requirement since October 2020, making it almost impossible to reunite them with their owner.
All equines need a safe and appropriate environment to live, making the right fencing a basic need according to the five domains of animal welfare (Mellor, et al. 2020).
Horse owners are responsible for ensuring their equines are kept secure, to find out more about this, head over to our information pages here.
Escaped Horses
Just before Christmas Bransby Horses were called by worried members of the public who had spotted a mare and her tiny foal in a field without proper fencing in Flamborough, East Yorkshire.
With the assistance of the police, Bransby Horses’ Field Officer, Kris Walker, was eventually able to get the animals to safety.
Our Welfare Manager, Rachel Jenkinson, said: “If the landowner had agreed to be involved, we could have issued a four working day Abandonment Notice and got them out of there sooner but unfortunately that wasn’t the case, so the RSPCA took them into their possession with the help of the police. It just made the process a bit longer, but the ponies are safe now and in our care.
“We are very grateful to everyone who called us, ultimately saving the lives of these two lovely ponies who would not have lasted through the winter without help. They were both very thin, poor and in need of food and veterinary attention.”
The year previous to this saw our Welfare Phone Line inundated with calls from worried residents in a small village where three horses had been wandering loose for a number of weeks.
The ponies had been spotted in people’s gardens and on the main road, which was poorly lit at night.
Again, with the help of the police, we were eventually able to get the animals to safety – they were however not microchipped, which meant ownership couldn’t be proved.
If members of the public had not reported their concerns for these equines, the story might have had a different ending.
Bransby Horses’ Welfare Phone Line is open between 8.30am and 4.30pm Monday to Friday, however in emergencies where horses are loose on a road, the police should be called immediately.
To find out more about good equine welfare, why not attend one of our information evenings? Our next event covers the subject of alternative grazing systems and will take place on April 25, to find out more click here.
Mellor DJ, Beausoleil NJ, Littlewood KE, McLean AN, McGreevy PD, Jones B, Wilkins C. The 2020 Five Domains Model: Including Human-Animal Interactions in Assessments of Animal Welfare. Animals (Basel). 2020 Oct 14;10(10):1870. doi: 10.3390/ani10101870. PMID: 33066335; PMCID: PMC7602120.
