Our Changing Horse Industry
New rules are about to be implemented into the horse meat production sector of our horse Industry. So why should you, the average horse owner or you the professional horse owner even be concerned? These new rules affect all of us and will be changing the face of the horse industry, as we know it “forever”!
Europe wants better traceability and additional food safety measures taken on horses that are bound for processing for human consumption abroad. And our Government agency, Canadian Food Inspection is about to give the European Union what they want.
The following are the new changes that are about to be implemented.
1/ By July 2010, Canada must provide horse identification and health documents that include treatment records for the last six months of an animals lives, before entering the processing system.
2/ Owners must keep track of all treatments, starting Jan 31, and horses used for human food must not receive anabolic steroids.
3/ If the seller did not own the horse for 180 days before slaughter, documents must be obtained from the previous owner.
4/ with in 3 years, Canada must have electronic identification and provide traceability on all horses entering the plants
Why are these new rules now being implemented??
The European Union food and veterinary office conducted two audits of the Canadian system, as well as other nations supplying horse meat and found few animals’ records were available for horses entering the processing system.
According to Rick Frederickson, head of Alberta’s tractability program. “Livestock owners” must register farm locations though premises identification and build trace back systems. The first are coming from beef and pork producers. “HORSE OWNERS” that’s you and me, need to comply or risk losing the processing Industry. And we all know what happened in the U.S. when plants were forced to close there.
How are these rules going to affect you and me?
Whether you believe in the Premise Identification program or not! You must comply or face heavy fines. Your option of sending your horses to slaughter, “for what ever reason”, has now been eliminated, unless you comply with the new rules. Breeders and people who raise and train young horses will also have to comply with the new rules, just to remain competitive in the market place. Horse prices will now have to rise to cover the cost of implementing the new rules. And this is just the start. As Les Burwash of the Alberta Agriculture Horse Industry Branch said “If we are going to want to sell, these are the rules of the game” P T Mitchell, Mitchell Equine Consulting www.mitchellequineconsulting.com

My very first blog on the new website, how cool is that?? So why after all these years in horses am I opening an Equine Consulting site?? The simple answer is, it is” needed”.

As some of you may know, for the last 10 years I was the founder and president of The Mitchell Centre for Equine Rescue and Education. We bought a lot of horses back from the meat pens, and I mean a lot, somewhere in the neighbor hood of 1500 head.  Many of these horses had been started into training but their training was poor at best. In my opinion many of these horses could have avoided being sold for processing if they would have been better trained and made marketable. That’s an owner “responsibility” to his/her horse.

Also I’m into Equine consulting to help you, the horse owner. The more fun you have with your horse, the more you will do with your horse. The more confident you will become. The longer you and your horse will remain “partners”.It’s a simple formula and not rocket science. Also the more you know, the safer you and your horse will become as a “team”.The short story is, it’s all up to you to “getter done right”..I’m here to help..

P T Mitchell

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