Horse shelter calling on owners to take precautions to keep animals safe
Two horses involved in a road collision on the A11 last week have been adopted by Redwings Horse Sanctuary
Last updated 22nd Jan 2022
A horse shelter has called on equine owners to take stronger precautions to keep their animals safe. It comes after three horses were hit by a lorry on the A11 in Suffolk last week, killing one of them.
Redwing Horse Sanctuary, based in Norfolk has since taken in the two surviving ponies under their care. Nicholas de Brauwere is a veterinary surgeon and the head of welfare at the shelter.
He says, "Both the ponies coped really well with being loaded up and brought to our quarantine centre in Norfolk.
"Horses are always a bit unsettled when you take them to a new location, and we don't know quite how frightened they were at the time of the accident so often that mental stress takes a few days to settle down.
"But they are eating normally now and they've responded to the care that we've given them and they seem quite happy."
Neither the shelter nor the authorities have been able to identify the original owners of these animals. No one has come forward to claim them either.
Mr de Brauwere explains there could be multiple possibilities: "We have had incidents where owners have deliberately let their horses loose because they didn't want them anymore.
"Or where the horses have escaped, some owners don't come forward because they worried that they are going to get into trouble if, for example, an accident has happened.
"We have also seen examples where owners have actually been away and they don't know yet that their horses have escaped or died. So we might still find somebody comes forward in a couple of weeks time."
In the mean time, the shelter have adopted the ponies and named them Mariah and Carey respectively. "At the end of the day, we try and make sure that we have space for horses like them, so that in situations where we can't find the owner, we can at least make sure that they will be safe with us going forwards."
He is using the occasion to highlight the need for greater precaution and safety measures amongst horse owners and farmers.
"What it has brought home to all animal and livestock owners, is that you are responsible for two things, one to protect their welfare, to make sure that they are well looked after, and also that they don't pose a danger to other people.
"It's really important that your fencing is secure and that you do things like put a decent lock on the chain that holds your gate closed, especially if you're in an area where perhaps it's quite common for the public to walk past with their dogs, a high incidence of youngsters playing pranks or even serious crime where people are trying to steal horses."
They are also urging horse owners to not only get their animals chipped but also to update the microchip database on a regular basis. "If you've got your horse with a microchip but you don't keep the database up to date with your name and address, then it's very difficult for the police to contact you if they find your horses on the road or if your horses are stolen.
"If you don't do those basic things, then you're not going to get be able to benefit from the protection you get from having a microchip. Because we can help the police and scan the microchip easily, in a couple of minutes and it's done. But if we can't then find who it belongs to, then we can't help them."