{"topic_id":"exotic_profile_horse","category":"exotic-pet-profile","context":"---\ntopic_id: exotic_profile_horse\ncategory: exotic-pet-profile\ntitle: \"Horse (Equus caballus) and other equines — ownership profile: legal duty of care, herd-animal nature, lifetime commitment (UK DEFRA code)\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"DEFRA — Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017); Open Government Licence v3.0; verbatim quotation per COPYRIGHT_POLICY §2.\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt\ndate_parsed: 2026-08-22\ntokens_estimated: 187\nverification:\n  method: substring_match\n  claims: 6\n  passed: 6\n  date: 2026-08-22\nrecovered: false\npath: exotic-pet-profile/exotic_profile_horse/01_exotic_profile_horse.md\nsource_document: \"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs\"\n  title: \"Horse (Equus caballus) and other equines — ownership profile: legal duty of care, herd-animal nature, lifetime commitment (UK DEFRA code)\"\n  url: \"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-for-the-welfare-of-horses-ponies-donkeys-and-their-hybrids\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-08-22\"\n  ref: \"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)\"\n  doc_type: \"official PDF\"\n  needs_review: false\nlicense: cc_by\ncopyright_note: \"© Crown copyright 2017. This publication is licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3); verbatim reproduction permitted with attribution. Attribution: Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017).\"\nauthority_tier: T1\nauthority_tier_basis: \"T1:uk-gov\"\nauthority_tier_date: 2026-08-22\n---\n\n# Horse (Equus caballus) and other equines — ownership profile: legal duty of care, herd-animal nature, lifetime commitment (UK DEFRA code)\n\nSource: UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), “Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids” (December 2017), gov.uk. Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0 — verbatim quotation permitted with attribution; C1 substring-verified against `pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt`.\n\nThis topic profiles what keeping a horse legally and practically entails under UK law: the Animal Welfare Act 2006 duty of care, the horse’s nature as a herd animal with high daily foraging time, and the lifetime commitment involved (including end-of-life planning). In the Code, “horse” covers all Equidae — domestic horses and ponies, donkeys, and hybrids such as mules.\n\n## Claims\n\n- `Owning and caring for a horse can be a source of great enjoyment but it is also a big responsibility with a long-term caring and financial commitment.`\n- `Under the Act animal owners and keepers are under a legal duty of care for the animals for which they are responsible on a permanent or temporary basis.`\n- `A parent or guardian of a child under 16 years old is responsible for any animal that is owned or cared for by the child.`\n- `Horses are herd animals and in the wild would live in relatively stable social groups.`\n- `in a natural state they would spend 16-20 hours a day grazing and browsing for forage`\n- `Research suggests that only 9% of horses die of natural causes, so planning for the timely euthanasia of your horse is a key responsibility of ownership.`\n","sources":["exotic-pet-profile — Horse (Equus caballus) and other equines — ownership profile: legal duty of care, herd-animal nature, lifetime commitment (UK DEFRA code) (retrieved 2026-08-22)"],"source":{"authority":"exotic-pet-profile","title":"Horse (Equus caballus) and other equines — ownership profile: legal duty of care, herd-animal nature, lifetime commitment (UK DEFRA code)","url":"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/code-of-practice-for-the-welfare-of-horses-ponies-donkeys-and-their-hybrids","retrieved":"2026-08-22","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)","verification_file":"pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt"},"source_document":"Code of practice for the welfare of horses, ponies, donkeys and their hybrids (DEFRA, December 2017)","source_file":"pdf-raw/horse-welfare/horses_welfare_code_2018.txt","trust":{"authority_tier":"T1","fidelity":"verbatim","license":"cc_by","display_grade":"A"},"tokens_estimated":187,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}