Are you a horse owner?

If you own, ride or work with horses, you may well be aware of the life-threatening condition, Atypical Myopathy (AM). With the wet and windy weather this season brings, the chance of outbreaks of this condition is heightened. Atypical Myopathy is caused by a toxin (Hypoglycin A) which is found in sycamore seeds, and has a high mortality rate of 75-90%. Wind and rain mean that these seeds can travel far distances, and put even horses who don't graze particularly near sycamore trees at risk. A message is being sent out to all horse owners to ask them to check their fields for sycamore seeds, even if there are no sycamore trees within the field. If any are found in fields with horses in, they need to be moved immediately and then the seeds cleared.

Symptoms of AM include: sudden stiffness, muscle tremors, collapse, colic-like symptoms, low temperature, increased heart rate and dark urine. For more information, click here to read the british Horse Society's advice leaflet.

Dartmoor pony on your plate?!

Following the scandals of horsemeat getting into our foods last year, you'd be surprised to hear that there have been recent discussions suggesting that such meat is actually deliberately introduced to our shelves... One conservation group has suggested that the only way to save Dartmoor's hill ponies is, ironically, to eat them. The Dartmoor Hill Pony Association has proposed that the best way to encourage the pony herders to keep their herds is to create a market for their meat. The reasons behind it is simply that they believe the ponies will have a much higher chance of finding a new home at sales if money can be made through their meat. The fear of the Dartmoor ponies disappearing from the hills appears to have driven people to the extreme, stating that the only way of keeping them is to allow their meat to be used for human consumption.

An emotive subject amongst many, it seems highly unlikely that pony meat will become something of a commodity in the UK, especially as ponies and horses are more often seen as companion animals rather than a source of food. However, the view of many societies and conservation groups appears, bizarrely, to be in favour of the introduction of horsemeat in the UK, saying that:

 “As there is so limited a market for ridden ponies, show ponies and conservation grazers, why not promote the free-living Exmoor ponies as a food animal as much as an amenity or aesthetic resource?”

What do you think? Would you eat the horsemeat?!