A question to those who live in Kent.

I wonder if any of you can shed light on the dreadful situation regarding the dumping of dead and dying horses which is exceptionally bad in Kent. I am almost at the stage of not reading The Horse and Hound news items as the ghastly suffering of equines in this county is being reported on almost daily.
Most of the dumped equines are coloured horses and ponies. These type of equines have traditionally been connected mainly but not solely with a particular ethnic group. Does Kent have a large population of these?
I can't quite understand why the situation has got SO bad. Yes there has been dumping going on for many years but it's now at epic proportions. I wonder if these poor creatures would have ended up at illegal abattoirs and then into the food chain had the scandal of horse meat being passed of as say beef not come to light a couple of years ago. When hunting flourished (I am not saying I'm for hunting) the hunt kennels did provide a very useful service by collecting fallen/unwanted stock to feed their hounds. To have a horse humanely destroyed and disposed of cost over £1000, I know because we had to go through the horrors of it. Easy to see why ill/starved/dead equines are being dumped for the council to clear away.

This is a quote from Horse and Hound.

“We are seeing a spate of dumped horses in the county at the moment, which is extremely shocking and distressing and needs to stop.”

Last year the RSPCA received calls about 98 dead horses in Kent compared to 68 in 2014.

We call ourselves a nation of animal lovers, I struggle to agree with this.

 

It's happening in the west as well, some people can't afford them no more and just leave them and a few ................. er's

 

I don't read the Horse and Hounds @silu so I'm not up to date in equine news - unless it features on the local news. It isn't something that has been featured recently (to my knowledge).

We have our share; how large in comparison to other counties, I really couldn't say.

Where I live, we are surrounded by horses and stables and the horses are well cared for with plenty of land around them. One of our dog walking companions is very proud of his 26yo "thoroughbred" horse. I'm sure he said thoroughbred at least 5 times in 5 breaths, so I'm guessing he is very proud

It is distressing news that you are reading and I hate to think of any animal left to suffer.

 

I can only say what I've seen locally, last year, during the winter, I noticed quite a lot of ponies appearing on land that was not in use, pretty sure most of them were fly grazing, by as you say, a certain section of the community.

They mostly seemed to disappear last summer and I dont see any this winter?

As I understand it the law has changed, so I guess most of them ended up in the knackers yard, which would probably have been the best thing for them, as most appeared to have no feed or water and relied on what they could find.

Sad situation, I hate to see it.

 

I am pretty sure there was an article last week in the Dail Wail about abandoned horses and ponies in Kent and a lot of them were Piebalds (black/white) and I think they were either dead or dying and just dumped out of the back of large vehicles and left to rot.

There was also a programme on telly which showed all these tethered ponies on grass verges and sports fields or anywhere where there is a piece of grass and the ponies had eaten all the grass in the circle where the tether stretched to and the ponies were in a poor state and evidently there is a group of people who go in the dead of night to rescue and take away these ponies but if the owners gets wind of what is going on then there is a confrontation with the rescuers and the owners armed but when it was asked why they keep the ponies they said they looked at them like they were a pet or some sort of status symbol


The rescuers also said that many of the horses and ponies they were rescuing would possibly end up being put down if homes couldn't be found for them,which to me defeats the object

 

Hate to say it @Kandy, but they are better off dead than being owned by these people, lets face it, they dont even have caravans to pull any more, if they did, they would feed the poor bloody horses.

 

I agree with pete to me it is better to have an equine humanely PTS rather than be left to die a slow painful death through neglect/ starvation. Unfortunately many people are completely clueless as to the needs of equines and the expense attached. Thanks for you input regarding my question. It may well be the case that the instances of dumping is just as bad in other counties but perhaps less visible.

 

If I or you have to get a tiny dog like a chihuahua chipped why cant they chip a horse ? Cows and sheep have tags too so they can be traced to their owners so minimising neglect.

 

I think that one of the reporter was threaten with some one with a baseball bat

 

Our horse is chipped and has his own passport too. The passport is similar to that needed by cattle and every equine in Britain is required by law to have 1. Do they? like hell do they. We got our cats chipped too just in case they got lost. It is only responsible pet/horse owners who microchip, the ones causing all the misery= the ones that don't chip their animals. Many years ago you needed to have a dog licence (brought in to try and stop the instances of indiscriminate breeding/strays) Didn't help in the slightest as again the responsible owners complied the rest gave 2 fingers to the licence.

 

Yes some don't have them, and where do they get rid of there animals at the end of they're life
leave them some where, bury them and or take them to the hunts yard