# Equine Welfare, a horse passport dissertation survey



## ellymay94 (Jan 23, 2016)

Hi everyone,

If you are a horse owner in the UK I would be very grateful if you could please fill out my undergraduate dissertation questionnaire regarding passports. Don't feel you have to know anything about the passport system to complete it, as the point is to find out peoples understanding of this very important subject. There is possibility for the results of this survey to go further than just the dissertation; perhaps to be used in discussion with equine welfare industry members.
Should only take around 5-10 minutes to complete, depending on how many horses you have.
Thank you very much!

(It won't let me post the link; but if this survey interests you please private message me). Thank you very much.


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## FeelTheBern (Jan 13, 2016)

Passports? Passports for horses?


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

TehSnoipah said:


> Passports? Passports for horses?


yes it is a legal requirement that all horses in the uk are passported


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## FeelTheBern (Jan 13, 2016)

Lil Miss said:


> yes it is a legal requirement that all horses in the uk are passported


Why would your horse need a passport, unless it's traveling abroad (that is unlikely) ?


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2016)

TehSnoipah said:


> Why would your horse need a passport, unless it's traveling abroad (that is unlikely) ?


Because they're traveling abroad 
And no, it's not that unlikely, show horses travel a good bit.


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## FeelTheBern (Jan 13, 2016)

ouesi said:


> Because they're traveling abroad
> And no, it's not that unlikely, show horses travel a good bit.


Okay, but I'm still surprised that it's a legal requirement.


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

https://www.gov.uk/horse-passport/overview


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## Lil Miss (Dec 11, 2010)

its nothing to do with traveling abroad, you cant transport a horse ANY WHERE even up the road, without a passport.
a passport records all unique and distingusing features on a horse, and also records the microchip number, it also needs to be presented to the vet on each visit, and all vaccinations are recorded in the passport too


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## ellymay94 (Jan 23, 2016)

The primary reason for the passport in the UK is to protect the human food chain from contaminated horse meat. There is a page in a horses passport called Section IX, where the vet can sign the horse off as, 'not suitable for human consumption', therefore the horse cannot (well, should not) end up in the human food chain. Horses which are signed off have usually had a medication which is prohibited by the VMD to end up in the foodchain, such as bute. Other medications and wormers have a withdrawal period before the horse can go for meat, this is discussed with the vet. Therefore the passport is supposed to act as a protection when the horse is at the abattoir to firstly identify its the same horse, see it's vaccination record and any medication it may have been given.
Unfortunately, there has been a lot of controversy around the efficacy of passports as they are easy to forge for criminals and there's many loop holes in the system due to poor enforcement of the law. It is the law that horses must have their passport on them at all times, but if you talk to many horse owners most times the passport if not with the horse, and sometimes they don't even know where the passport is! There are many other EU and UK laws for the passport, however it's uncommon for a police officer to come to a stable yard to check or an inspection by Trading Standards to happen, so unfortunately compliance is weak. An example of how this has affected us is the horse meat scandal which happened in 2013.


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