“The greatest deterrent
to freedom are men and women of zeal, well-meaning, but
without knowledge or understanding.”
~Justice Louis Brandeis~

"People are so quick to defend their own agendas, but they so often fail to realize we must protect the rights of all if we are to continue to have any rights of our own."
~Jenqu~


Ranch meaning, in general, any real world dwelling probably not involving full care board. Kind of a rural voice of real horse owners, trainers, traders, auction owners, rodeo contractors, etc.. all of us who have taken a verbal beating and called greedy ass hats. Back at the Ranch contributors, moderators, subjects, and so on, are pro-horse, pro-owner, and pro-slaughter.
Back at the Ranch was formed by a group of like minded horse / livestock owners. It is a place for us to try to educate, a place to vent our frustrations with the current equine industry, a place to share humor and snark, and in general try to open the eyes of the public who seem to be anti-agriculture.We do have a section for comments of course, and if you would like to email us you can do so directly or through the contact us form. We like to hear from our readers. I hope you enjoy reading our blog as much as I enjoy managing it.
Sincerely,
Ranch Manager
manager_back_at_the_ranch@yahoo.com

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Seems the ONLY People Thrilled With the Passports Are……….

And Here Is Research On Some Common Drugs Marketed In Europe……..
I don’t think the Europeans are as thrilled about this passport business as we have been led to believe…….Don’t comment to me I didn’t write it. Only guilty of copy and paste.

---The media has been having a field day over European Union legislation requiring horse owners to supposedly undertake that they will not eat their horse.
"I hereby declare that I will not eat my horse or pony," the mass circulation tabloid, The Sun, headlined its take on the story.
Describing the new EU rules as barmy, The Sun reported that horse owners must sign a pledge not to eat their pets - or face up to two years in jail.
United Kingdom Independence Party leader Nigel Farage was quoted as saying: "I'd like to be a fly on the wall when the Queen and Princess Anne are asked to sign a form saying they're not going to eat their horses."
Bloggers and the like have taken up the story with glee, providing yet more grist for the mill for those who delight in the obscure, quirky and sometimes downright bizarre twists and turns found in the growing mountain of EU regulations.
The "pledge" is part of EU regulations around horse identification which come into force in Britain on July 1.
The regulations recognize the fact that horses regularly enter the food chain in continental Europe.
The regulations will require all foals born after July 1, and horses born before June 30 that have not yet been issued with an equine passport, to have a microchip implanted by a veterinary surgeon when their owners apply for a passport.
Compulsory microchipping will aid accurate identification as it provides a permanent link between the horse and its lifetime passport, Britain's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs explains.
The microchips, to be placed in a horse's neck by a veterinarian, will match the passport.
"Horse passports will clearly identify those horses which are not eligible for the food chain if they have been treated with substances which are potentially harmful to humans.
"By strengthening the current passport system we reduce the risk to human health, avoid the withdrawal of key veterinary medicines, and protect the horse meat trade in this country."
Microchipping will also help recover and identify stolen and abandoned horses, as well assist with welfare cases.
The new EU regulation provides for a standardized format to exclude a horse from the food chain if certain medicines are used, or to suspend its slaughter for human consumption for six months if treatment is carried out with another set of listed medications. The passport must accompany an animal to slaughter.
The so-called pledge is actually about opting an animal out of the food chain.
The regulations state: "An equine animal shall be deemed to be intended for slaughter for human consumption, unless it is irreversibly declared as not so intended in Part II of Section IX of the identification document, by the signature of:
a. the keeper or owner on his/her own discretion, or
b. the keeper and the veterinarian responsible, acting in accordance with Article 10(2) of Directive 2001/82/EC."
A horse's passport can therefore be marked accordingly, or at a later date by a vet should medications be used that disqualify the animal from the food chain.
Actually, seeing the Queen and Princess Anne signing isn't so hard to imagine after all.
If you are among the one million people in the country who owns a horse, a pony or even a donkey, you should already know that by the end of June you must have a passport for the animal. If you are one of the many millions who do not, you will probably need to look twice at that opening sentence.
A passport? For a horse? Bizarre as it seems, the Government introduced regulations shortly before Christmas requiring all equines to be in possession of a passport, whether they are traveling or not. It is, effectively, a form of ID.
In the horse world, the issue has been a hot topic for a year or more. Jokes about how to fit the animal into the photo-booth rapidly gave way to anger over the costs and bureaucracy involved. Already, organizations such as the Horse Passport Agency have sprung up offering the required document to owners who will be criminalized if they fail to comply.
There is a fine of up to £5,000 and, for a second offence, one month's imprisonment. Imagine it. You could go to jail because you forgot, or declined, to get the Shetland pony at the bottom of your garden an ID card.
You may well ask why they are needed at all since racehorses and competition horses already require some sort of identity document to travel overseas. The story, unsurprisingly, begins in Brussels, where regulations were introduced 10 years ago to ensure that horses treated with certain drugs do not enter the human food chain.
Since the British do not eat horsemeat, the UK obtained a "derogation" that ran out last year. But instead of demanding another, the Government said it was legally bound to introduce compulsory passports for all equines.
So every owner, whether of the oldest nag in the farthest field or the proudest hunter in the stableyard, will have to sketch their animal, note down its identifying markings and send this information -- known as a "silhouette" -- to an approved agency, which will charge between £20 and £30 for the document.
This may not seem like a lot of money; but, a week or so ago, the Government further decreed that owners should not identify their own horses. Instead, the "silhouette" will have to be completed by a vet, who will probably charge £30 a go.
So a passport could end up costing £50 or more. For someone who owns a riding school, or a donkey sanctuary, and is already finding it hard to make ends meet, this will be a crippling cost.
James Gray, the Tory MP for North Wiltshire and president of the Association of British Riding Schools, said around 200 schools close down every year and he feared the new passport could spell the end for many more.
The Government maintains it has consulted widely and has the support of august bodies, such as the British Horse Society, one of a number of groups empowered to issue the passports. But Mr. Gray says there is outright hostility among ordinary owners and weekend riders represented by the ABRS, the Pony Club, the Donkey Breed Association, the Shetland Pony Association and many others.
The regulations will be enforced by trading standards officers with the power to enter stables and fields to see whether the horse matches the description on the passport. "The thought of a new army of jobsworths stalking the countryside checking the paperwork of horses fills me with dismay," said Mr Gray. "It is a bureaucratic solution to a problem that doesn't even exist."
What possible justification is there for this law that will cost the industry millions of pounds to implement and could send small businesses to the wall?
Alun Michael, the "minister for the horse" at the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs, said it would establish a database "which would be to the advantage of the horse industry in the event of horse diseases becoming a problem in this country". Asked in the Commons to identify what disease he had in mind, he failed to offer an example.
Some in the industry say there are spin-off advantages, such as allowing potential buyers to check whether an animal has been stolen and discovering how many horses and ponies there are in the country. But the principle reason is set out on Defra's own website: "It will satisfy the European Commission that the UK has a viable method of identifying horses that have been treated with medicines that must not be administered to food producing animals."
Since only a few thousand horses are slaughtered in this country and exported to Europe for food, why not limit the requirement to them? Why do a million owners have to go through this rigmarole because other countries have a taste for horsemeat?
Mr. Gray -- who is tabling two Commons motions today opposed to the regulations -- says the Government intends to remove a long-standing prohibition on exporting live horses other than high-value racehorses or stud animals. Combined with the passport, he suspects many more British horses will now be sold abroad for food, which is anathema to a country that is home to one quarter of all the horses in the EU.
There is a wider issue here about how we are governed and the cavalier use of legislation. This measure was brought in by way of a Statutory Instrument and was already law before MPs even had a chance to pass judgment. Moreover, the drafting was found to be seriously defective by a parliamentary monitoring committee, something the Government acknowledged.
In addition, the regulations covered only tame animals and therefore did not include thousands of semi-wild ponies on the West Country moors and in the New Forest for which separate arrangements have been made.
Yet instead of withdrawing them, ministers simply placed the flawed regulations on the Statute Book while promising to replace them with an unflawed version at a later date in order to "avoid confusion".
As Mr Bumble would have said, this law is an ass. And it does not need a passport to be identified as one.
______________
Guess there are some “anti-government separatist loons” in the UK too….Who would have thought?

Here are a few of the “banned” drugs mentioned in the comments following the market opinion piece I seem to remember one so called vet who was adamant about ivermectin not being studied in human consumption horses….guess that wasn’t as factual as we were led to believe…..
Don’t write to tell me this is not all of the drugs…..I realize that. It’s as far as I’ve gotten for several reasons so deal with it.
An Ivermectin containing wormer marketed in the UK as Eraquell http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/Eraquell-horse-wormer-Larger-Tube-Treats-700kg-Bodyweight/productinfo/ERAQUELL reads as follows: Withdrawal period Horses may be slaughtered for human consumption only after 30 days from the last treatment.
A moxidectin containing wormer in the UK is marketed as Equest: http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/Equest-horse-wormer-gel/productinfo/EQUEST/ reads as follows: must not be slaughtered for human consumption within 32 days of treatment.
A product containing moxidectin and praziquantel is marketed in the UK as Equest Promax http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/Equest-horse-wormer-gel/productinfo/EQUEST/ reads as follows: must not be slaughtered for human consumption within 64 days of treatment.
Fenbendazole , a benzimidazole wormer marketed Panacur, Exodus, and Strongid P containing pyrantel are not allowed in horses to be used for human consumption.
Mebendazole, one of the benzimidazole wormers marketed as Telmin Granules http://www.hyperdrug.co.uk/Telmin-Granules-horse-wormer/productinfo/TELG/ has this statement (might be where the 180 days is coming from) indications, warnings, etc In accordance with the Horse Passport legislation (Commission Decision 2000/68/EC as implemented in national legislation), a 6 month withdrawal period applies to the use of this product.

Trivia for the day…..to the person who held Chinese racing up for demanding a $40,000 stipend of sorts for an owner to be allowed to race a horse as a model of humane foresight by a country looking after its equine athletes……Not so sure I’d bet the ranch on how much of that is in the interest of humane retirement for horses…….. The 2005 statistics for horses killed in China, 1.7 mil …..and just in case you think I made that up, go to the study outlining unintended consequences on a horse processing ban in the U.S. prepared for http://www.animalwelfarecouncil.org/ May 15, 2006. Do you think Chinese horse slaughter has gone from 1.7 mil to 0 in these past four years? Seriously?
Stop blaming the AQHA for all the wrongs in the world….It is not their responsibility to care for anyone’s horses. This is perhaps my favorite anti-slaughter oxymoron………If you can’t afford to humanely euthanize it you shouldn’t own it/what has the AQHA (or whatever association or person needing blamed at the time) done to care for unwanted horses…….Doesn’t anyone else see the crossed points here???????
Alex Brown has proclaimed we should keep the auction/rescue infrastructure we have only to administer grants payable to same for each horse they “humanely euthanize” or adopt. Am I the only one who finds this plan repulsive on several levels???????
RH1

13 comments:

  1. ((Alex Brown has proclaimed we should keep the auction/rescue infrastructure we have only to administer grants payable to same for each horse they “humanely euthanize” or adopt. Am I the only one who finds this plan repulsive on several levels???????)))
    No you definately not the only one who finds that repulsive.
    Gosh, anyone hear crickets again? lol

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  2. Well I think the Alex Brown form is so full of nut cases that when i want a good laugh i go there.. were people talk to dead horses and them dead horses in return run their lives... OK so tell me how smart that is.. so does this auction/rescue... grants... humanely euthanize.... supprise me.... from the alex brown site.... NOT IN THE LEAST.. THEY ARE FRUIT CAKES.

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  3. I've been keeping up with the EU information as it unfolds, and you're right, not everyone is as thrilled as we have been led to believe. It's going to be a money maker for someone, that's for sure. Isn't it funny how you often hear about the greed on the Pro horse side, and then these plans often end up costing money? I don't think we'll hear about any vets volunteering to do the paperwork or microchipping for free for the love of the horse? I think it's sad that those working so hard to end the "inhumane" treatment of the horse, are pushing many good owners and programs out of the Industry, leaving the very ones they are fighting against. And Alex? Don't forget, he'll have that book he's getting published, and as he has said himself, he has a "captive audience" of about 5,000 to buy it, so he'll just keep churning out the same old rhetoric that keeps their nose to his.....forum, and will continue to be the king of ABR.

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  4. Well I guess no one wants to talk about little Mister Alex... kinda figured he just might bring his little self on over here and have a sit down and talk.. but NOPE.... so.. lets talk about the HB 503 now and what it would mean if it passed.. or what it would mean if it got flushed down the crapper...... how about it RH2... ya think we could do that?

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  5. Anon, are you refering to hr 503 "The prevention of equine cruelty act of 2009" - To amend title 18, United States Code, to prohibit certain conduct relating to the use of horses for human consumption. ?
    It really has a misleading title doesn't it?
    We have discussed this in many places over the years, from the original hr503, to the senate version to the new hr503 version. I hadn't really though of discussing it here since it is all over the internet but we can if people really want to.

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  6. Hmmmmm....I was expecting a little more action on this one. We were burning up the comment section on an older thread with all of the facts and figures from those well versed in all things EU.
    And to Anonymous, I'm up for a little HR503 action. Discuss on.....or shall we start a new topic on it so we can give it it's due?

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  7. rh2, I expected more as well. Of course when people are proven wrong they tend to become silent. I would have sworn years ago the ivermectin tubes said "not for use in horses intended for slaughter within 30 days". I think the labeling changed so as not to rile up the "horses should never be butchered" crowd. Just my thoughts though as I have no proof and the memory isn't what it used to be. I wonder how many labels have changed over the years on different equine meds and products to keep the purchasing public happy and keep them buying....

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  8. RH2... lets start a new topic on the HR503 and give it it's due.... Thank you very much.

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  9. Anon, I'm not RH2 but I can see about doing that. Just not sure what we can say that hasn't already been said a million times lol.

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  10. "Alex Brown has proclaimed we should keep the auction/rescue infrastructure we have only to administer grants payable to same for each horse they “humanely euthanize” or adopt. Am I the only one who finds this plan repulsive on several levels???????"

    Yes, it's repulsive, but you forgot to include the accusations of favoritism and loopholes. I think Alex Brown has been studying the everyday antics of Congress. The only thing missing are the lobbiests.

    Just me.

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  11. Ranch Manager, I agree, we've discussed HR503, but not here, so I say let's give it a whirl! Maybe we should have a discussion about King Alex some day, too! I just love the guy! You know, he really takes his role as leader seriously, and his idea that his book will be a succes because he has a "captive audience" of 5,000 barbaro faithful is intriguing to me. There is some genius in there, though-got to give the guy his due.
    Back to the subject at hand. With all the excitement on the EU regulations we had before, I really thought we would have more input on this article. Hmmmmm. As for the labeling of the wormer, I agree. The PC angle has caused more than one company to change wording to get others to buy their products. Heck, it caused a leading Equine Magazine to stop publishing it's Breeding issue!(By the way, I thought that was really ignorant of them. By all means, let's remove any information on responsible breeding practices in order to appease those who don't have a clue about the Equine Industry in the first place!) Anyhow, another good, informative article. A shame it has been missed.

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  12. OK RH2 you will have mail soon LOL.
    "king alex" is right and the mods of his forum are just as bad. I have dubed it the AB cult.

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  13. hmmmm I see my response is only about half of what I typed.... My computer likes to mess with my mind LOL.
    RH2 your right about manufacturers being PC, Heck if my living depended on it I would be too. Some of us are smart enough to understand that ;) again I agree with you on the magazine not publishing the breeding issue. What a shame they folded and did more harm to the equine industry than any good for anything else!
    ""Anyhow, another good, informative article. A shame it has been missed."" I'm not so sure it's been missed, I think it's being ignored lol.As I said before the big mouths usually get pretty quiet when proven wrong. And golly isn't it funny the way RH1 credited her information with links and proven facts. Something the anti side doesn't usually do.....Of course they can't because there is no proof or factual studies to back up most of the things they say and claim as facts.

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