International charity, Brooke says that although there may never be a global guideline for carriage weight, they are working to educate those whose livelihood depends on transporting heavy loads.

International charity, Brooke says that although there may never be a global guideline for carriage weight, they are working to educate those whose livelihood depends on transporting heavy loads.

Many within the carriage driving community have been debating the issue of appropriate weights recently. Specifically, how much is too much for a horse to pull? Unfortunately, there isn’t a simple answer. Factors such as the age and condition of the horse, plus the distance they are expected to travel, make it almost impossible to provide a universal guideline.

Equids have been providing draught power for thousands of years and whilst they are no longer used for working purposes in the UK, how do heavy loads affect equids currently working in less developed countries?

Ashleigh Brown, Global Animal Welfare Advisor at international equine welfare charity Brooke, says ‘a strong, fit, healthy animal will be better able to cope with transporting weight than one who is injured, lame, malnourished, unfit or otherwise debilitated. Therefore, there’s no appropriate ‘one size fits all’ guidance on load weight for our context due to the variable condition of the animals and differing abilities to comfortably cope with their workloads.’

Brooke works across Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, in countries including India, Ethiopia, Nepal and Pakistan. Here, horses, donkeys and mules work long, tiring days within resource-poor communities, providing a cheap source of draught power and transport. In India, for example, equids working in brick kilns can be expected to carry up to 10 tonnes worth of weight on any given day.

Ashleigh says ‘the most important aspect to consider is not the weight itself in quantitative terms, but the extent to which animals are able to cope with the load they are being asked to transport within their own working context.’

One way that Brooke is changing attitudes around what is expected of equids is through community based education programmes.

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