We've been asked by lot of people if the news circulating on the internet about hot branding is true...
The information states that Defra have established that domestic equines and those not being put back onto the moors to live in a semi-feral environment cannot be hot branded and that this practice was made illegal under the Animal Welfare Act 2006, and particularly the Permitted Mutilations Act 2007.
If this is true, then this would be a big step forward for Exmoor Ponies, as many young domestic Exmoors are hot branded at inspections all over England and Wales every year.
At present, there seems to have been no official public press release from Defra about this, and I have asked our MP Neil Parish to see if we can get some clarification from Defra.
The information also states that the code of conduct for hot branding semi-feral ponies will come into place ready for this year and contains "the move to a
single brand only, with restrictions on the size of the brand. The code will
also include training and handling requirements for hot branding. It is
understood that the strong aim is to find an alternative method of ID to hot
branding as soon as possible, after which all hot branding of equines will stop".
We have very little information about this at present - whilst the code of conduct does appear to look at a range of issues, we still believe that the practice should be banned completely...This could however be a big step in the right direction, but we will let you know more details once we have them...
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