When somebody goes and sees pony, a horse in the field and
they decide that they're going to feed them something, I kind
of almost want to say to them just.
Take a second what are the dangers and the risks of going
and feeding a horse that you don't know?
Pony's are very greedy, so if they see something they think
looks yummy, they'll give it a go, even if they if it's going
to damage them. If someone would pass by a
field, enjoy the kind of company of a pony for a minute and give
them some something they've got in their pocket, you know?
Half an hour later, the owner's been up with the vet treating
this this horse. Knowing that these animals would
have continued their lives as much love, pets and family
members. Get permission first, have you?
Ever fed a horse without the owner's permission and without
knowing the harm that it can cause?
Or has your horse been fed by walkers, children or holiday
makers with catastrophic consequences?
Recently, I nearly lost my miniature horse because of
tourists secretly feeding him sacks of apples.
It was absolutely terrifying and I felt completely powerless.
Thankfully he pulled through, but it did get us thinking about
all of the horses and the equestrians suffering because of
this very preventable issue. And so we reached out to Natalie
Meneer who runs the campaign Stop Feeding Our Horses.
Natalie is impassioned to educate people against feeding
strangers horses. She gained a social media
following after the spike of quine tragedies during lockdown.
And alongside the team, she raises awareness about the
dangers and the avoidable deaths of horses with powerful signs,
posters and online content. Natalie's efforts have been
celebrated with a welfare award from the BHS, presented by none
other than Martin Clunes for her incredible and impactful
voluntary work. So how can we stop people
feeding our horses? Let's find out.
Nathalie, welcome to Curious Equestrian.
Thank you for having me. Now take us back to the start of
the campaign. What inspired you to launch Stop
Feeding Our Horses So it? This was all instituted by
lockdown. So what we found was, and I'm,
you know, at that point I was just kind of spending time
walking around the village with my children, enjoying the
sunshine as other people were. And I noticed that kind of signs
were popping up and owners were getting quite protective over
passersby feeding their horses and things.
And I also noticed online that loads more stories were popping
up about horses being fed by by my walkers and it was having
quite a detrimental effect. One of the real key stories that
I saw was where a bag of potatoes was tipped into a field
and a horse choked to death on the potato.
That was lightning. You might have remembered that
one. And that was just a really
traumatic, terrible story, but there were, there were so many
others. And I just thought I'm, I was on
maternity leave at the time and I thought, what can I do to help
this with this? I've got a little bit of time on
my hands around parenting, you know, what can I do?
And I, I didn't feel like I could physically, you know, be
around doing things, but what I could do is have maybe some
implement influence online. So myself and a couple of other
people started setting up a social media page and groups.
One of them was, was private and it was to be a kind of safe
place for owners to come forward and share their stories and for
us to kind of get together and plan a, you know, some tactics
on how we could kind of try and tackle the problem.
And then another one was for was a public group and it was just
to try and get the message out there and share more widely with
some of the things that are happening.
And and we kind of try and get, yeah, a message out there to
explain to people the dangers. Because I think the key thing is
majority of people don't have any idea that it's dangerous and
it's a completely harmless thing.
You know, and even kind of picking some lush grass on one
side of the fence and feeding it over the fence could actually be
dangerous because we, you know, you don't know if that's been
sprayed by the farmer or the grass in there as, you know,
shorter. And you might have laminated
ponies and things. But more often than not, people
would be walking out with carrots and apples or plan a
trip to go out there to feed the ponies locally and, you know,
bring their kitchen scraps and things from home and to save
them for the ponies and the village kind of thing.
And that was just happening more and more.
So. Yeah.
So that was kind of how it started up really.
And then it just grew more stories that we came across just
seemed like it was there. Well, in fact, at Bigham where
we thought it was a, a national problem, but it was actually a
global problem. And we the, you know, stories
were shared from all over the place.
And we had no idea how big it was at first that yeah, it just
expanded. We had a lot of support from the
BHS as well. We they're all very aware
obviously of what a huge problem it was and they were taking kind
of measures themselves. A guide doctor David Marlin
started carrying out some studies, kind of sending out
questionnaires and stuff and he, he got some really interesting
information back. I think he worked with the BHS
and the University of Bristol on that.
So yes, it just, you know, we were playing a small part in it,
but just trying to kind of, you know, educate and get the
message out and also help owners in trying to tackle the problem
themselves where. Were you in that time of your
life, obviously in lockdown, where were you in the country
and at that point, did you have your own horses?
Did you have a, a, a real fiery passion for horses?
Is that where your your willingness and your need to get
involved came from? Yeah.
So I've been, you know, horsey girl.
I've been married since I was four years old.
It's just, yeah, in my blood. It's always been yeah, yeah, my
kind of main hobby and well, career early on until maybe, I
don't know, 10-15 years ago, I had a bit of a switch of career,
got a proper office job and something to, you know, a few
more pennies. And also because we'd had kids,
just didn't feel like I could really dedicate the same level
of time. So, yeah, So right, the point at
that time I was, let me think I had, I had a toddler, 2 year old
and I was, I just had a my, my second.
He was born into lockdown. So at the time we were doing a
lot of sting walks and dog walks in the woods and around at a
local area where the where the ponies are.
So we would go out every day and visit the ponies, but we would
always walk by. And also because it was it was
kind of COVID times, we wouldn't even touch them.
You know, as much as I'd want to stroke a velvety nose, we would
just stand back and just admire them because we're aware that
even, you know, touching them And then touching the next
ponies or somebody else coming along with COVID and stretching
their nose and us doing it could also spread the virus.
So we're really kind of careful about that.
So just doing our kind of daily exercise and trying to get out
there. So yeah, that's where we were
really at that time. So yeah, hadn't, didn't have any
horses myself, but was just really keen to try and kind of
give something back and support the kind of local community as
well as the wider community. And for those who have stumbled
across this and have no idea why it would be a problem to feed a
horse in a field, what are the dangers and the risks of going
and feeding a horse that you don't know?
Yeah. So it's it's it's twofold.
I mean, before I kind of talk about what actually happens, I
think the the key thing for me is when somebody goes and sees
playing your horse in the field and they decide that they're
going to feed them something. I kind of almost want to say to
them, just take a second and think about it.
Because this isn't your animal. This isn't a pet.
I mean, this isn't your pet. This animal owned is blown by
someone else. And there's no way that you
would walk past someone's garden, see a dog in their
garden and feed them something. So there's a kind of assumption
that just because it's in the field, it's public property.
You know, it's, it's not these, these horses are owned by, by
humans and they love them dearly and they spend a lot of money on
their care enough key. And, and so there's that.
There's the kind of, why would you do it?
And, and obviously, if you know the owner, you can ask them and
they may love for you to give them a carrot, you know, once a
week or something, they might be very happy with that.
But the key thing is kind of having that permission.
So the risk of feeding to start with are so horses are very
complex animals. They have a really complex
digestive system, something that they get more often than not is
is colic. So they have quite a long
digestive tract, like meters, meters long.
And there's particular areas in that that kind of get quite
narrow. And they also almost like have
kind of 180° turns. So if they overeat something,
they can sometimes really struggle to digest it and that
can cause lots of problems like impaction where they get a kind
of blockage and if they can't work it out themselves, then it
it might result in an operation. If you're giving them something
they're not used to that isn't in the normal diet, that can
kind of exacerbate stuff. So horses typically, especially
throughout grazing, they'll just be constantly eating grass all
day. If they then suddenly stop
eating, that can cause problems. If they're given something
unusual that can cause problems. You know, someone took, they
were a pile of vegetable peelings or something, that's
going to have an issue. Also, some people think that
grass clippings are safe for horses because, you know, it's
grass. But actually what happens with
grass cuttings in particular is they start to ferment.
So if you dump a pile of grass cuttings, they'll start to
ferment. And if horses eat that, that
fermentation carries on in their gut.
It releases gases, gases and stuff, which has such a
dangerous. I mean, they're basically, you
know, the gas static funds in their stomach and it can be
fatal or kind of best required Western new assistance.
So yeah, so there's quite there's, there's also something
called choke, which is where horses can't.
So horses can't be sick. Their their, their body isn't
designed to do that. So if something goes down, it
has to keep going, can't come back up.
So they're given something that's too Chucky for them to
kind of chew. They might be elderly, they
might have really rubbish teeth. So if they struggle to choose
them properly, it's going to get stuck and some.
So there's something called laminitis as well.
So it is basically a really common problem, particularly in
chubby ponies. And it it's all kind of to do
with the sugars. So I think a lot of people will
be amazed in how much sugars in grass.
So you know, grass just seems like nothing but.
Disbelief. Isn't it?
Absolutely disbelief? But you see a horse and everyone
assumes horses are built and meant and have evolved to eat
grass. But it's one of the biggest
problems, isn't it? As a horse owner now managing
the land and managing the grass levels, I know that, you know,
me and my mum struggle to keep that juggle going and to make
sure there's enough but not too much.
And we've got horses of different sizes and miniatures.
So it's such a conundrum, isn't it, What to do each year?
Absolutely. And, and as you say, people just
don't understand that they've got no idea.
And sometimes owners will be seen as being really cruel.
And we, I mean, I, you know, we have our own words for things.
We call, you know, rugs that they wear at night, pajamas or,
you know, whatever. And we might say we're putting
them in a starvation pallet. Obviously we're not starving,
we're starving them. But yes, we know how susceptible
they are to that. Yes, high quality grass.
So it's really important that we make sure we manage that.
So it might look to somebody passing by.
Oh my goodness, that pony's got nothing to eat, but we know we
might have given them, you know, a wedge of hay three times a
day. And that is their, that is their
limit. They are, that's all they can
have today because they're on a strict diet.
They're really laminated. You know, they have a lot that,
you know, we're doing the right things for them.
But somebody that doesn't understand that it looks cruel.
So I completely get that. And which is why we, you know,
we say it's a, it's a kind thing.
It's, it's not, it's not malicious.
Somebody is trying to do something nice because but they
they they don't understand actually the management it takes
to make sure that they don't overeat. 100% and it's such a
huge issue and actually Nestle you you greet me today sort of
already riled up by an experience that I've been going
through with my rescue herd of horses.
We've had a diabolical time and, you know, I've known about your
campaign for many years and, and have supported your efforts in
in spreading the word on social media and opening up the
discussion about deterring people from feeding horses.
And I've just been unfortunate enough that feeders, holiday
makers, walkers, tourists have been secretly feeding my rescue
miniature ponies. And it all began, you know,
obviously they are susceptible to laminitis as all miniature
ponies are at 34 inches, they are tiny.
So they have to have soaked hay, they have to very restricted
turn out and like you mentioned, the word starvation paddock,
exactly that. They have a mud paddock with
open stables, so lots of places to explore.
But they have their soaked tie and just the right amount for
their weights and their heights. But to the external light,
people probably think, oh, there's nothing in there, but
there is. And there's all sorts of low
sugar treats and low sugar forage hanging all around the
stable and in and in treat bowls.
So it's all very, very, very carefully managed by me and my
mum and we had the absolute horror that our tiniest at the
American Miniature Rescue Diesel went down with laminitis.
Now normally in the stable deep bed, all the usual low sugar
maintenance and management precautions are put into play,
which is our usual regime that if there's even a little bit of
soreness or footiness, we jump into action and we catch it
early and it never progresses further than that.
This time round we could not understand why he kept going
further and further downhill. We felt hopeless, we felt
devastated. We thought what are we doing
wrong? We were staying up late at night
racking our brains, could it be something we've missed?
The vet was coming out saying this is, you know, there's
obviously something underlying, maybe it's Cushing's, maybe it's
EMS, maybe it's something worse. You know, we're going to have to
do blood tests, investigations. And he kept getting worse and
worse and worse. And what it transpired, what we
found out was we changed our daily routines.
Obviously the three times a day we go up, we swapped all our
timings around and lo and behold, through the gates,
trespassers came. Holiday makers that been staying
very close to the land that we rent through the gates.
They came with a massive sack of apples.
And throughout their holiday stay, they had been bringing big
sacks of apples from the farmers market and feeding it to Diesel,
who is tiny. I mean, I cannot, I cannot
describe how big these sacks were.
And that had been what almost killed him.
And we managed to sort of stop them in their tracks and say,
oh, excuse me, you know, what are you doing?
Do you realize he's been seriously ill, that you've
nearly killed him by feeding him these apples?
And all we were greeted with was oh, but he's so cute.
I'll be so cute at the. Fence.
And we were just like, oh, jaw dropped.
I didn't know what to say after that.
I didn't, you know, I'd explain that he'd been in like a nursery
situation and they're like intensive care stable, that the
vet had been out every day, that, you know, we were
despairing. He was close to death.
And it just didn't sink in with this person.
I just said, you know, no, we said, please never feed this
horse. Do not feed horses.
You don't know and then we proceeded although we had
already had some signs up, we proceeded to then buy out our
local supplier of CCTVCCTV in action no trespassers, no, no
unauthorized people buying this gate and we have obsessively
littered every fence with with signs to the point that you know
you'd have to be a peculiar person to now avoid these size.
We bought all of the please do not feed these horses.
Your kindness may kill them. We've put them on every host
rail so that if any of the horses come up at a particular
point in the fence, it's covered at that post to be as clear as
clear can be. But Natalie, I'm sure you feel
the same. Even though we've put these
precautions up, at the end of the day, if someone wants to
trespass and is going to take it upon themselves to feed a horse,
short of camping there, what else can we do?
And you feel so out of control and you feel so powerless, don't
you? And I'm sure this is one of
many. Hundreds of stories I've.
Heard. Yeah, and it's impossible.
You know, it's completely impossible.
And you feel like you're going way overboard.
I mean, it feels like you're put kind of almost putting them in
this, you know, I don't know, prison camp, you know, like you
just do. You're wrapping them up because
you want to to cover everything that you can possibly do to try
and kind of people from feeding and and sometimes that even that
even all of that is not enough because it's like a sign saying
don't walk on the grass. Some people will just ignore it.
They just think they know better and they will do it regardless.
And even, you know, like you say, having that conversation
with the people and they still just don't get it.
They they don't hear what you're saying.
They just think it's nice that, you know, you use the term
killing with kindness. Completely, completely, Yeah,
accurate. We we are just seeing that,
that, that they are trying to do this, not what they see is a
nice thing. And they cannot understand how
it can possibly be cruel. And I guess I mean, the econ
industry doesn't have a great reputation, particularly right
now. You know, you, you will often
see, I'm sure people worrying about econ welfare.
And you know, the racing industry doesn't have a great
reputation. More recently, even dressed, the
dress arts industry has kind of gone under the microscope a lot.
And, and people obviously are concerned, but there's also a
huge level of ignorance and, and lack of understanding.
And I mean any horse, any sport horse, I know their owners,
their grooms, everybody involved.
They love that horse 2 pieces. And they do, they go above and
beyond, give them that level of care and they, they manage
their, their lifestyle so carefully.
You know, if God forbid the worst happened, they would be
besides themselves. That, you know, they, they adore
them. That's why they do it.
You know, horses aren't treated like bikes.
They are respected and very, very well looked after.
But I think with there's just such a level of ignorance,
people don't really understand what goes in that.
People just don't have that that awareness.
So I think the big part of the kind of campaign that we're
trying to do was just educate and go about it in the right
way. We didn't want to kind of get
angry with people for doing it. We wanted them just to
understand the dangers and the risks and then what's happening.
You know, you talked about other things that you put in place
with your ponies to try and protect them.
And that was a kind of a lot of advice that we gave out as well.
We talked about kind of so a lot of lot of fields might have, you
know, hedgerows or post and rail around the outside.
And we encouraged kind of electric fencing as well, just
to kind of get the horses back a bit further so they wouldn't
necessarily put their heads over the fence to reach.
And, you know, talk about CCTV. That's not a, you know, small
investment, but sometimes it's necessary, especially if your
worses live, you know, far away from where you are and you can't
kind of keep a close eye and you're visiting them, you know,
one or two times a day maybe. It's really challenging.
I mean, the signage is great and, and one of the things that
we found was really effective actually was a kind of personal
sign. So we made juice a few signs for
sale and we worked with a couple of companies to do that.
We had some car stickers and we had, yes, field signs and stuff
as well. But one thing we were asked a
few times was can you make me a bespoke sign for my my horse or
my pony? So we did do that.
You mentioned EMSA little while ago.
So one owner, for example, she talked, she, she explained how
her horse had EMS, which is equine metabolic syndrome, which
is really similar to diabetes. So basically her horse is really
susceptible to to a lot of kind of sugars in the, in the diet.
And even that comes from grass. There's an amazing amount of
sugar in grass, especially ash grass.
So this time of year now, it's been springtime, it's quite
challenging for owners to manage that.
And you know, you talked about strip paddocks and things and
fencing sections off, so only allowing them to have a small
amount at a time because they could otherwise just go in and
gorge themselves. And you've also got me thinking
about muscles as well. Muscles for ponies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The grazing muscles, yeah.
Well, it's not terrific. And if you were someone that
didn't know about ponies, you saw that on a pony, you'd think
that, well, pony can't eat grass, poor thing.
And I've had stories of people taking them off because they
think they know better and they want to take them off to help
the pony, but obviously that isn't helpful at all.
So. Yeah.
So some of the kind of signs we made some for.
Yeah. Ponies with the Ms. we have
ponies with the laminitic. And actually that worked quite
well because it felt like those that coming past got to know the
ponies. Oh, you know, this is Bella.
She's got the gun of this going on.
You know, I can't eat this or, you know, I'm Bob and I've got
no teeth. I can't eat this.
Please don't feed me it it, it kind of wouldn't really help.
Some people were bathing by because they, they, they felt
like they could actually get to know the ponies and what the the
kind of risks of what they might do could affect them.
So that that was quite effective.
As you say, there's lots of kind of things that we just only
could do, but at the end of the day, can't physically stop
people from doing it. Even with the fencing setting
them back and stuff, they could stand there and took a carrot if
they wanted to. They could do all of that.
So you physically can't anybody, but you can do what you you know
what you can. So yeah, that was part of the
campaign. We're just trying to, and they
do help people. And they do because previously
our our previous land, we set them back from, we had signs on
the gate. This was the previous moth land
that we rented before it flooded.
We had signs on the gates. We set them back with electric
fencing and people would still lob apple cores as far as they
could to reach the miniatures. And you think, what does it
take? And you'd make that key point of
education. Natalie, how far do you think it
needs to go? We've got signs.
You've got personalized signs, car stickers, social media
campaigns to spread awareness and to make viral posts and
shareable posts to spread the word.
What will it take? What next do you think will it
take to stop people from doing this and to educate further?
So, you know, I'm really passionate and I can hear that
you're really passionate and now that it's not happened to you,
which I'm so sorry about, you know, I know how kind work your
spirit. Absolutely, like such a kindred
spirit and to have that shared philosophy and that shared
experience. I think it makes you feel
empowered together, really to have these kind of conversations
that we feel we can have this discussion, we can put it out,
you know, into the podcast sphere sphere onto the Internet
and hope that it will reach other people that will share
this and spread the word. They'll pop it on social media.
They might share it with friends.
They might even share it to friends with the dog walkers,
you know, on a on a bridle path with fields of horses.
And we have that hope that actually the message might reach
far and wide. As you say, it's not just a
local issue. It's not just a national issue.
It's a worldwide issue. How far can we share this
podcast episode and hope to educate people?
And that's, that's my, my real ambition for this, this episode
together that we're creating today.
And I'm hoping, Natalie, that you've got big dreams.
What do you think next in terms of education?
What do you think? What else can be done?
Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a really, it's a really
challenging one because I think what's really important, what
really helps is the engagement and the commitment, commitment
from other people. So in the past, a lot of people
that joined the campaign were going out there and, you know,
making themselves known and, and educating.
So I had some, some women, for example, they went to their
local primary schools and they spoke to the children.
And it was so interesting to see the reaction because the kind of
what happened was they were explaining to these children
the, the risk. And it was interesting, you
know, like they, they asked a question, would you ever feed a
dog chocolate? And they know the answer's no,
but would you ever go in, you know, walk past a pony and feed
them carrots? Yes, yes, we would.
You know, so it's kind of re educating to say actually can't
really do that. You haven't spoken to the owner.
It's not your, you know, you don't own that pony.
You need to get permission before you do that.
So it's a really interesting education piece.
And then what we saw was that the kids would go away and
they'd tell their parents, you can't feed that random pony that
you don't know. You can't do that.
So that was really, really valuable.
And, you know, the more that that happens, the better.
I actually found locally that there was there some donkeys in
the village at the other end of the village that some of the
school children were brought past and they might, you know,
decide to offer some carrots. And so I had a conversation with
one of the teachers to say you can't use that.
They're not, you know, that you don't own them.
Funny enough, they, they happen to be moved.
So let's, and they, they kind of came by.
They're disappointed to see that the donkeys weren't there.
They were sent back in the paddock that they couldn't.
And I can't help but wonder, was that a reflection on the kind of
action that was happening? And, you know, that and the
owners are trying to protect them and move them back.
I've had owners kind of say to me that they're losing their
land effectively because they're having to set their ponies
further and further back. And they're, you know, not able
to, to utilize the kind of grazing that they would like to
because they're just trying to protect them and have them
further from, you know, public footpaths or roads and things
for their own sake. And I've also known people that
have physically moved their ponies or horses and they've,
they've been at, you know, lovely yards, which are a really
handy spot for them. And they physically move them
somewhere else just to put them in a safe place because there's
just too much footfall and they can't be sure that they can,
they can keep them away from passersby, which is not ideal.
It's really challenging. But these are the length that
you know that we have to do as pony owners, horse owners to to
make sure that our animals are safe.
And it is increasingly hard to find.
Isn't it Natalie as well? And actually, I, I don't know
about you, but you know, for me, when you're looking at potential
premises that you can rent or land that you might be able to
rent for your animals, you know, increasingly you're having to
turn down opportunities because it's on a really busy public
footpath. And you just know, like you say,
you're going to lose half of that field for moving the back.
You then can't rotate them and move them around the field.
They're stuck in a permanent sort of box which you don't want
for your horses and you're not able to utilise the space and
then you have to look for other options.
And there's less and less land for equestrians now to use
because of farming and because of housing and, and, and all the
rest of it. So then we're feeling trapped as
well, and we're feeling like the there are less opportunities for
for horse ownership because of the lack of land too.
For sure and also the kind of levels of enrichment that we
might want to give them. So we might want to, you know,
utilise the hedgerow and things that are there that are
available and we're kind of losing that as well.
So, so yeah, there's, there's so many, so many impacts I think
people aren't really considering.
And also, you know, it's just a kind of complete innocent act.
So someone would pass by a, a field, enjoy the kind of company
of a pony for a minute and give them some, something they've got
in their pocket and then carry on walking.
And they don't know that, you know, half an hour later, the
owner's been up with the vet treating this, this horse.
And I, I remember someone talking to me about an incident
where something like that had happened.
And then a week later, the same person came past the field and
said, oh, you know, where's, where's he gone?
Where's he not, wasn't on the field anymore.
And they explained what happened and the impact feeding had had
and that horse wasn't around anymore because of it.
And that really obviously kind of hit home to that person.
But we shouldn't need to come to that, you know, those levels of
extreme to understand and, and kind of, and we acted what being
said and listen to what's being said.
I just wish people would would, you know, hear what we're saying
is serious and, and take it like that.
I think also we haven't had any favours done for us.
I know a little while ago there was an incident that was
reported on what the program called, but it was where.
Oh my goodness, Like a morning, good morning programme and
somebody was basically had this happen and the presenters made
fun about it. You know what's so bad about
giving them some grass? They didn't take it seriously.
We did issue a complaint and asked for kind of retraction,
but it didn't flex. But you know, if we've got that
level of interaction, that kind of media attention and then not
on our side, it just doesn't help us out.
There have been numerous programmes.
I mean, the BBC did a brilliant programme, interviewed us a few
years ago. And you know, there's been loads
of kind of newspaper articles and stuff written and loads of
horse and hound articles written.
And that's all really helpful. But it's also kind of to a
specific audience. So it's, it's the mainstream
media that we really need to listen and to kind of side with
us because they're the ones that are going to get the public kind
of get on their side and explain to them the dangers.
It's all well and good being in our industry, but it's that
reach that we need to go a bit further because we all know the
dangers within the echo industry, but it's those outside
of that that need to have that understanding.
Exactly. I was also just thinking about
of those who happened a while ago.
So, you know, I talked about colic and choke and lemonites
and stuff and grass cutting, but I was also just thinking about
injury in general. So, you know, we're, we're
careful when we manage our group of forces together and how they
interact with each other. And we know sometimes, like if
you were giving them their feed, you'd spread out their buckets
and make sure that they can't scrap because, you know, they
might fight over food occasionally.
But there has been incidents, some incidences where people
would feed over the fence and horses would get quite
territorial and then fight. And there was the most horrific
injury of one horse called Flash.
And it was basically because somebody fed him something and
his field mate wasn't very happy about it.
And, you know, and they had a fight and, you know, he's never
been the same since He had a huge amount of veterinary
attention to, to kind of try and help him out.
But you know, he's, I think he's now ridden and, and back in
work, but it took a long, long time to get there.
And obviously huge expense. But that's just the most kind of
simple thing that could happen just from the old mates, you
know, fighting with each other because of feeding.
There's so many different branches to this, aren't there?
Like you say, injury, death, illness.
And of course, at the end of every one of those different
scenarios is a huge vet bill as well, leaving the owners not
only devastated about what's happened, whether it is death or
whether it is severe illness or whether it is injury, but
there's also thousands of pounds to pay in vet bills and only the
owner to pick up that cost. And I know that from personal
experience. We had thousands of pounds of
vet bills to pay to cover the investigations with the vets,
then the, you know, the medications, the treatments and
then all the bedding costs from him being in and all the rest of
it. The cost just keep tallying up
and at the end of the day we have to pay that.
Even though it was not due down to our management, it was down
to someone feeding the horses. And we were just lucky enough to
be able to say that we caught those people and we were able to
stop it happening. And, and we'll hopefully touch
wood and unable to get Diesel back from from the brink.
But he also suffered for the first time in his entire life
with a rotation of his pedal bone in his hoof.
And at the age of 14, throughout his life, he'd only ever had
that sort of touch of inflammation of laminitis, right
The early stages, we'd always caught it on time.
We'd always nipped it in the bud before it became anything
serious. And for the first time, due to
other people, due to people feeding diesel, he now has a
slight rotation. And apparently as he goes down
with laminitis again, he might have to have hoof boots.
And the cots continue. And the worry continues as to
what that might mean for him and his little hooves.
And I just can't believe I'm, you know, it's still, as you can
probably tell, it's still so fresh and it makes me feel so
angry and upset that this has happened due to people
trespassing and, and take it upon themselves to feed.
And I think we have to talk about those intentions, Natalie,
because I through talking about this on curious equestrian and
on YouTube and on on my animal sanctuary platform, mini multi
sanctuary, we've had a lot of people say, oh, but you know,
people are doing it because they've got the best intentions.
You know, they want to be kind, they want to feed the pony.
Do you think it is that natty at the end of the day?
Or is it people just wanting to do what they want to do and not
be told otherwise? I think it's a bit of both to be
honest. I mean, I think lockdown didn't
help because people would go out on their daily exercise and they
would, you know, they'd, they'd make a point.
I mean, their daily exercise could involve visiting the
ponies locally and feeding them something nice.
I mean, that they, they saw that as their kind of the fun thing
to do for them. Almost like we have petting zoos
across the country. We have, you know, farm parts
and things. And as part of that, I mean, I
know at our local farm park, we can buy a bag of food and we can
go around and feed the animals. However, we are not allowed to
feed the donkeys. We're not allowed to feed the
ponies. You know, we know that we can
feed the deer, we can feed the sheep, could feed the pigs, but
we can't feed the ponies and the donkeys.
And but I think, I think knowing that those are available, I
think some people kind of think, oh, this is basically a free
petting zoo, isn't it? I can just go pop down the road
and see these ponies and you know, I'm going to save back my
apple cores or, you know, my vet's peelings and I'll and I'll
save them for them, which which I mean, potentially even a one
off could be dangerous. But if there's 10 people going
on the same public footpath passing the same horse ponies
every day and they continue to feed them.
I mean, you know, your own pony was so susceptible to, well, it
sounds like an enormous bag of apples, probably bigger than
him, but but even how 2 makes a difference, God forbid, you
know, a huge volume of it. But so I think there's part of
that. I don't necessarily think it's
malicious. However, when they do have a
conversation with the owner and the owner says, you know, you
can't do this. Do you think people just think
they know better and will do it regardless?
But I think what does help is having that conversation with
the owner. And I've known some people that
have said, you know, I'm happy for an amount to be given, but
it has to be limited. So some people have kind of
almost created kind of collection boxes and said, we've
got some treats for this pony, pop them in here.
Thank you. You know, and we will distribute
them kind of gradually, you know, where there's normal feed
at an appropriate time. But but it makes sure that they
don't have a huge volume. So that's one way of doing it.
But I would absolutely encourage people to kind of get in touch
with the owners and have a conversation with them and get
to know the ponies and what they're about.
Some might love it, some might be very happy to have, you know,
an odd carrot and things and some might not.
So, but, but kind of having that level of engagement is really
helpful, which is why I quite like the idea of the bespoke
signs as well. You know, if you're comfortable
to put your kind of contact details on there, if you want
someone to find out, you know, you want people to find out more
about your ponies and you can do that.
Obviously it's completely up to the individual.
But, but if it's someone that you, you know, a local to and
you'll see them regularly, it just might be an idea because
again, that just helps the, the, you know, raising awareness.
And then once you kind of have that one conversation with that
individual, they may go home and they might spread it across
their community as well. So that's just kind of helping,
you know, the community in general and trying to kind of
reach a bit of wider awareness. And just circling back to you
mentioning children, because of course adults will feed horses
as well. We all love horses at every age,
but there's a particularly particular draw for children,
isn't there? Like you say, it's like a
petting zoo activity. People think, oh, it's OK to
take my children for a walk before bed and to go and feed
the horses. So if the education needs to
start at that child level, as you mentioned, you had a great
response when you were talking to children.
Do you think there should be a permanent pro schools programme
rolled out across the country to educate children in all schools?
And do you think that would ever be possible with budgets and and
the education system as it is? I mean, I mean that, yeah,
absolutely fantastic. You know, I'm aware of some kind
of forest schools and organisations and things.
And I mean, I know in the local community around West Berkshire,
loads of the schools, they stay, you know, on their curriculum,
they go outside, they go on woodland walks, they go, they
have forest schools in place, things like that.
And it's really important that there's a really good awareness
and level of teaching for, for, for world, for wildlife and, and
communities. And also know we've, we have a
fairly low natured discovery centre and they have, they do a
lot of teaching as well. And so, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, if this is brought in as part of that, it would be
brilliant. I think about the kind of New
Forest area and I know they take it really seriously and they
make sure that, you know, educated about this.
But yeah, absolutely it should be part of that.
I know the the, the legislation on Defra was changed, I think I
want to say a couple of years ago.
I don't know how what I do that's been communicated, but
but yeah, you know, it's really, really important to get it out
there. If that could be included, you
know, no, it doesn't take much. It's just a, you know, just
raising that awareness and just going through the basics and,
and the main thing is, you know, just permission.
Just, it seems like, and I feel like a nice thing to do, but
just make permission first. Once you've kind of got that
established, I think everything else kind of comes comes
alongside that. It's really important to
understand the reasons why, but the main thing is get permission
first before you go and feed any animal you don't know.
And you mentioned at the beginning of the episode
Lightning's story where Lightning choked on the bag of
potatoes. Absolutely tragic.
I've mentioned my story. There was a recent news article
across all news outlets talking about a Suffolk horse owner,
where the horse was fit and healthy and happy and young 10
year old. At the start of the day, the
owner checked the CCTV Cam on their phone at lunchtime to see
they were sort of writhing on the floor.
And by the evening they were dead, despite the owner managing
to get their friends and and support network to go to the
horse on their lunch break from work.
And there was nothing they could do because people had been
feeding them cabbages of this particular horse, cabbages which
is of course toxic to horses. And then the horse died in the
evening. You know, a horse that should
have lived a long and happy life.
And I know we don't want to dwell on too many negative and
sad stories, Natalie, but, but could you give us some more
examples of other stories? So we've had cabbages that kill
horses, potatoes that kill horses.
We've had my own horse being fed apples when he's susceptible to
laminitis and nearly killing him.
What other examples are there of of of what people are doing to
horses across the country without realising?
One that's really prominent to me was a little a little
Shetland pony called Hamish. I don't know if you you came
across that story, but yes, sweet little Shetland.
We know we talked about them being quite good doers, which
means they they do very well on very little.
And somehow, and I still am at a loss in how this happened, but
he was was basically fed the remains of a roast dinner.
And you may well, I'm sure you know, but for the, you know,
wider community, horses are vegetarian.
There is no way they they can't digest meat.
And again, I talked about earlier about the fact they
can't be sick. Something goes down, it won't
come out. Ponies are very greedy.
So if they see something that they think looks yummy, they'll
give it a go, even if they if it's going to damage them, they
don't have that kind of level of common sense.
They will gorge themselves to death effectively.
So this pony did that. He he stuffed his his face with
a left labour roast dinner, which I assume was some kind of
take away. You know that someone was in
middle of eating and they dumped in his paddock and he suffered
with impaction colic. Luckily the owner was able to
rush him to the vet and he had emergency surgery.
He had a incision basically the full length of his belly.
They got in there and managed to sort it out, you know, and, and
with colic, you really have to catch it quick.
If you know, the dead gut needs to be removed, obviously shorten
that system, which makes it really difficult.
They managed to get in there and sort out the get rid of the
impaction and so back up. A lot of horses even if they
have had surgery don't necessarily recover because that
kind of intrusion can then going forward and it can, can affect
the digestion. So horses that kind of have
colic once or twice may become prone to it and continue to to
suffer from it. But luckily he survived that
operation and made a full recovery.
I think the owner moved him pretty swiftly after that to put
him in a safer place. Slightly setbacks from the
public and and yeah, and he's doing OK.
But he was really lucky, you know, and kudos, Fiona, that for
catching it so fast. But even if it had been, you
know, in other cases, it might have been same situation may
have been caught just as quick. Sometimes it's luck at the draw
if they make it or not because it's just a very risky procedure
process. So he's one that kind of springs
to mind. I mean, there's a number of
horses and ponies that weren't so lucky.
I have, you know, I have a long list of, of owners who have come
to me telling me that they had that the outcome was fatal.
I mean, we've got, as I mentioned, we've got stop, stop
beating our horses pages on Facebook, Instagram and so on.
And you can go in there and have a look at some of these stories
and personal stories of, of things that happened.
I've also got pages that just have the kind of memorials to
the ponies and horses that were lost through public feeding as
well. So there's a lot on there.
It's. So heartbreaking and I've seen
those posts that you make necessarily and and how gutting
it is knowing that these animals would have continued their lives
as much loved pets and family members as all of our animals
are to us. And yet this isn't an issue
affecting dogs or cats or rabbits because as you say,
everyone knows that you wouldn't feed a dog treats on its walk.
No one stops a dog and says, can I give it my ice cream?
Can I give it some treats? Can I give it the leftovers of
my lunch? Because that's not what you do.
And everyone knows that's the social way to act.
And yet these horses would have continued their lives if it
wasn't for humans getting in the way, doing what they want,
feeding, thinking they're being generous and kind and, and how
heartbreaking that is. And I don't know how those
owners ever recover knowing that it wasn't down to them.
You know, we all have to accept as, as pet owners and animal
owners that one day we will lose our animal.
We hope they're going to be elderly and old and, and have
lived a long, happy life with us.
And it's hard enough then, isn't it, to say goodbye and to let go
and to come to terms with that grief.
How on earth do those owners recover that have lost their
horses? I mean, you must have seen the
after effects and heard the after effects all too many
times. Absolutely.
Well, I don't get the honest truth is, I don't think anybody
ever does. I mean, you know, when you lose
anybody in your life, you grieve for a long time, and
particularly when it's something completely, completely
avoidable. And we talked about lightning
earlier. And I just keep, I keep thinking
back to him. I mean, he was the most
beautiful Gray show pony, absolutely stunning, you know,
And if you ever come across the BBC Manchester radio interview
that his owner has done, it is really emotional.
And if I listen back to it, even now, it gets me going because
you can just feel the pain. It's just impossible because you
know, it's completely unavoidable, completely
avoidable thing that happened completely out of the owners
control. Nothing that they could have
done to stop it from happening. Somebody just decided it, you
know, upon themselves to feed them and that was the result.
There's also, you know, sweet little ponies that are
children's ponies that are they're everything, you know,
these, you know, you must know of these kind of golden ponies
that are just just the most amazing school masters that, you
know, these kids grew up, grew up with.
And then again, suddenly going from living a perfectly happy,
healthy life, being completely, you know, doted over and adored
to suddenly gone is just heartbreaking.
And these poor kids, they shouldn't have to deal with with
that in their, you know, early lives.
It's just, it's not fair. So yeah, it's, it's really
difficult. And again, I mean, I know a
number of adult owners and this similar, similar things
happened. And for us, I mean, our, our
horses are our family. I mean, even now I've, I've been
away from having my own for a long time and it's really hard
and it's almost like a drug. I walk past the yard.
I mean, my, my, my 4 year old goes riding now and I'll go to
the yard and I'll just breathe it in.
He'll breathe in that smell and I love it.
I, I know I miss it when I'm not around.
You know, I volunteer with British eventing.
So at least I kind of keep my foot in the door and, and help
out and do offence judging and things when I can't ride.
But and they ride, you know, friends forces now and again.
But it, it's a lifestyle and, and we adore it.
And those, you know, these animals are our family put in
use of our income and a lot of our time and commitments.
And for things like this to happen, it's just, it's
completely devastating. Yeah, I have.
I mean, I have no words. It's just, it's very, it's, you
know, when you lose that, you lose an animal.
It the huge level of grief. I don't think people ever, ever
get over it. I, I often find as well, when
more recent stories get shared on social media, I see the same
owners popping up and, you know, just, it's like they've had,
they have that emotion all over again.
It's like it's happened to them all over again because it's so
real and it's just a reminder of of what happened to them
personally. So yeah.
So it must be really, really tough.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And you have put so much time,
love, energy, effort into your social media campaigns and your
signs and raising awareness and you have won an award.
Can you tell us how that came about, Nathalie?
Because it's so deserved and huge congratulations.
Thank you. Yeah, it's completely
blindsided. I got contacted by the VHS and
they were so a couple of people that kind of equine welfare
campaign officers that work within the VHS have been in
touch with me over the years. And we've been kind of sharing
information both and trying to kind of work out tactics
ourselves and things. And we even kind of fed into the
video that they created a while ago to raise awareness and on
what might be the best way to kind of go about that.
So we've had, you know, we've had, we've had a really good
relationship. And then they, they contacted me
and Hannah Johnstone, who, who was there at the beginning
setting up the campaign to begin with.
And, and yeah, and we received a net crying welfare award from
Martin Collins via the BHS. And that was lovely.
Popped down to the Newbury Race Course to receive it.
It was, yeah, it was fantastic. I was absolutely blown away.
It was really lovely as well. I was was seeing what everybody
else had won an an equine welfare award, but that's
different, voluntary work for various things.
So yeah, it was fabulous. It was really lovely.
What does it mean? Because obviously it's it's a
thrill, isn't it, to win an award, whatever you are doing.
But for this particular campaign, what did it mean to
you to get that recognition and that acknowledgement at that
time? I was really grateful.
It was, it was really lovely. I felt that I shouldn't be the
one just, you know, sole person to get it.
I made it really clear kind of on social media that it was for
everybody. You know, it's, it's a massive
campaign and everybody's participating in it.
So I wanted to make it really clear how many people have been
involved in this process and, and kind of fed into the
campaign in various ways. So for me, it's, you know, it's
a group effort. Everybody helped us kind of get
there. But yeah, so grateful, so
grateful recognition. And what was it like meeting
Martin Clunes? We're all going to.
Ask if it's class track, if it's class track.
I mean, he's lovely. So, so sweet, so friendly.
Yeah, my mum joined me and she was very tough to meet him as
well. I think he's a bit of an idol
for her. But yeah, I know.
It was really nice. Yeah, he's very, very.
He's top bloke. He's really lovely.
And just thinking as well about the word community at a time
when, you know, things are very insular.
We are all behind screens. Lots of us are working from
home. We've got these phones that are
now computers and cameras and everything all in one that we we
can't seem to live without. What does the community mean to
you that you have built, you know from the ground up, from
lockdown, that they're online waiting to share posts and
sharing your videos and to spread the word and to rally
behind and support each other. How does that feel to have built
something online when actually social media gets a negative
reputation for a lot these days? But this is doing something and
making something great. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's, it's
great. I'm, you know, I'm really proud
of of kind of what we achieved and, and raising that awareness.
I mean, our kind of following grew over the years.
So it's, you know, it's really nice to be involved in that.
And as I say, you know, I I'm, I'm just really proud of
everyone kind of individual contributions in that we had so
many people kind of come forward and volunteer for various
things. I mean, there was a chap that
created some telegraphic designs for us just just in his free
time, just because he he could. She was so sweet.
A guy called Kevin Wilshire. And, you know, everybody's kind
of contribution just played a part in this and it was fab.
Yeah, You know, I'm, I'm just really grateful of the kind of
community and everybody doing what they could do.
Thank you so much for listening to and watching Curious
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