Mumsnet Talk

So ive gone down to let my horses in tonight, and there is an extra fucking horse in my field. I know its not mine. I know it wasnt there at 7:30 this morning. I know its been put in because the lock is cut off. CUT off. Theve cut my padlock off to put an additional horse IN!! IN!!

It went crazy when I took mine in to the stables, so I had no choice. Hes now in a stable with a haynet.

Ive rang round locally and noone appears willing to claim him. Ive rang the police, and theve advised me to put un an abandonement notice telling whoever owns him they have 14 days to shift him, before he becomes mine, and apparently hes my legal responsibility in the meantime because hes on my land.

WTF do I do now?

Wow and autocorrect has incorrectly spelled their. How rubbish!

RSPCA?

, is he in good shape? have seen a lot on the news about people not being able to aford to look after their horses . Can you contact a horse recue charity and see if they can take him if he is not claimed?

Can you sell it, that's mad.

Is it in good condition, been looked after etc?

I guessed it was just registering its surprise that the horse was THERE!
This is a new problem. Does it have any distinguishing features? Does local vet, stables or farrier know of it?
<wistful I'd live just one pony emoticon>
The economy is rotten if ponies have to squat illegally!

<secretly wishes someone would dump their pony at my house>

But seriously i can see why you are stressed, horses cost a lot to keep, he could have health issues (could be the reason why he was dumped?) and could end up costing you a fortune.

Why oh why does no one dump horses on me...?

He's lucky you've an extra stable . Do you have a rescue anywhere nearby that may be able to take him off you .

Hes in good nick. He appears sounds, hes not underweight, friendly enough, was catchable, picks his feet up, polite(ish) in the stable. Hes certainly not a skinny underweight mistreated pony.

Hes a bay, TB type, no other markings. Someone has obviously deliberately put him in there which makes no sense really.

Theres only 2 vets that do horses around here, ones mine and he doesnt know him, ill ring the other tomorrow, again ive rang the local livery yards and noone has a horse missing and Id hope someone would notice he was gone.

Apparently legally ive got to put this notice up in case he owner comes by, and then at the end hes legally my property, but then I cant sell him unless I passport him ... woohoooo expense. Hes not freezemarked. He might be chipped I suppose, so ill have to ask the vet to check.

And in the meantime, he is my responsibility to feed, water and keep heathly else id be neglecting him.

I know of one rescue locally (and by locally I mean 50 mile away) and they have no space. I do horse transport for them occasionally and I know they are full, and even their foster homes are struggling.

marne or D0G I could come and "dump" him at yours in 14 days

Im in Staffordshire if anyone knows of anything nearbyish.

He is lovely, I can see him out my window, he keeps sticking his head over the door and looking around. Hes massive though, hes got to be 16hh! My shettie is disgusted! She keeps giving him evils!

Can you put a photo up?

I suppose you could hope he's microchipped and his owner could be traced that way, but I guess that is going to be unlikely.
I think this sort of thing sucks. I suppose you could just push him out through the gate pretend it never happened and leave him to fend for himself, but I'm not hard hearted enough to do that, so why should you be? You have to pay the hunt to do "the deed"
Options as I see it are that he continues to eat you out of house and home and trash your field, or you persuade some horse rescue place that you simply cannot afford to take on someones elses abandoned animal.
Passporting a single one will probably cost you around £100 - depends if you can get your vets to help you with costs seeing as how it was dumped on you... Then you could send it to the local horse sales and possibly watch it go through for meat money. Don't expect to get back the cost of passporting.
How could anyone do that to their horse?

He sounds lovely (shame i live so far away or you could dump him at my house, though i might struggle to fit him in my garden).

Maybe he was pinched from somewhere and then they panicked and dumped him? Hopfully a owner will come forward as it sounds like he has been well looked after, fingers crossed he is chipped.

No no no not meat!

Poor horsey :-(

Im in Gloucester, I will have him if you can transport him to me!

I've heard of this before where if on your land you are legally responsible and absurdly pretty sure it is the case!!
Madness!!
Do you use horse and hound forum or similar - I'd recommend putting a photo and details up on there just in case....

I shall try and get a photo of him up tomorrow, although last time I tried my phone kept giving me an error message when I tried to upload.

He looks just like this

Oh Penny dont tell me that! thats a horrible thought!

Alphabeta Yes apparently the law is pretty clear. Hes on my property thus his basic welfare is my responsibility (and would be the case even if he was a livery and the owner was supposed to be checking him).

I was told I have 2 choices
1) Leave him there and hope they come and take him back - but hes my responsibility in the meantime

2) Abandonment notice for between 14 - 18 days stating that if hes not removed I assume ownership - but hes my responsibility in the meantime, and then my responsibility to do whatever with after the period has expired.

Either way he appears to now be my responsibility!

I'm sure I've seen something about this before on MN. Isn't this horse squatting?

It's completely deliberate, and iirc if the owner keeps coming back within the 14 days and doesn't remove the horse there's absolutely nothing you can do, because it's not abandonment.

Oh yes magic please do (seriously) I would LOVE him

Does seem a pretty mad law though.

We had this in our and a few local fields over a week or so, it turned out to be travelers. They'd always return after a couple of days then the horses would turn up a few fields over for a few days. The police were aware of it and said what they've told you and that it was not an uncommon way for them to save on feed bills.

NB this is not a traveler bashing comment, just the case where we live.

He doesn't sound like a travellers horse though don't they generally favour cobs?

Do you know any chevaline butchers?

I'm in Sussex & I would love him

can we have a MN horse

Try moorcroft or darley retraining if he looks tb ish