Redwings is one of five charities that will be attending an in-person meeting with the Minister for Business and Trade in February to discuss the issue of fireworks. One of the big challenges around the topic is lack of data, so they have today launched their Horses and Fireworks survey.
It was initially designed to run on the stand at Your Horse Live, where we received 179 complete responses in the three days, which was fantastic. To increase the data, Redwings have made the decision to run the survey publicly to try and gain a wider perspective and bigger dataset that we can hopefully present to the Minister as evidence in the new year.
The aim is to generate a really robust set of data and valuable findings in terms of how fireworks (both public and private displays) affects those keeping horses, be it horse owners, horse loaners, or yard owners and whether they are kept at livery or at home, and to support better understanding of the impacts fireworks may have on the horses themselves.
If you are over 16, live in the UK and care for at least one horse, pony, donkey or mule, Redwings would love to hear your thoughts and experiences about the impact of fireworks on equines. There is a maximum of 22 questions and the survey should only take around 6 minutes to complete
The survey is open until 19th January
If you have a few minutes to spare, please take the survey and help create the data needed to support the campaign. The key findings will be made public to support Redwings’ ‘Keep Horses In Mind’ campaign and to help raise awareness of any issues that emerge . This could include sharing information with government ministers, devolved administrations, MPs and other organisations.