Thursday 9 January 2014

More Hot Branding Updates From Defra

We've received more information from Lord de Mauley (thanks to our MP Neil Parish) about the progress being made on hot branding.  On the whole, the news continues to be promising...

The warmblood societies who had been hot branding have been directly contacted by Defra and have been informed about the law regarding hot branding.  They have been informed that anyone identifying their horse or pony in this way runs the risk of being prosecuted under the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

The hot branding code of practice is nearly completed and Defra will be publishing the details on their website.  The semi-wild moorland pony societies will be responsible for ensuring that branding is carried out in accordance with the code.  Any concerns about poorly applied brands should be reported to the relevant semi-wild moorland pony society (hmmm, perhaps not so good!)

The good thing is that Lord de Mauley finishes his letter by saying "I consider the code of practice is a step in the right direction.  The semi-wild pony societies must also continue to look for suitable alternatives to hot branding as I am sure advances in technology will eventually make branding unnecessary".

Lord de Mauley has certainly done substantially more work on this issue than any other Minister and we are very grateful to him for his time and efforts...and of course, thank you again to Neil for helping us with this issue.

Hot branding will be completely banned in this country...it's just a matter of time!

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