Liverpool wants a dung sample from your healthy horse

The facts

Study

HealthyHorseAMR, run by the University of Liverpool

Funder

The Veterinary Medicines Directorate

Who can join

Horse owners and keepers in England, including trainers and others responsible for horses

What is asked

A questionnaire plus one faecal sample; a pack with instructions and pre-paid return packaging arrives by post

Scale of the sector

Around 847,000 horses in the UK, kept across roughly 374,000 households and professional yards

Antimicrobial resistance is what happens when bacteria stop responding to antibiotics, so infections become difficult or untreatable. The point researchers make about horses is that resistant bacteria can sit in an animal that looks completely well. That animal becomes a reservoir, and those bacteria can move to other animals or to people.

Monitoring already exists in parts of the livestock world. It is thinner for companion animals and horses, and healthy horses throw up their own practical problems, so the methods need to be built for the equine sector rather than borrowed. The UK has a 20-year commitment to contain and control AMR by 2040, with surveillance written into the National Action Plan for Antimicrobial Resistance covering 2024 to 2029.

The first stage of this project worked with veterinary professionals. The second stage opens it to owners. Researchers are comparing different ways of collecting and sampling, to find out which approach would give a fair picture across the national horse population in future. Because horses are handled daily by the people who keep them, what turns up in the samples matters to human health as well.

Professor Gina Pinchbeck of the University of Liverpool said the work builds on earlier equine AMR surveillance, including ongoing activity within the Equine Veterinary Surveillance Network, and encouraged the industry to take part. Dr Tamsin Dewé of the VMD said the research was commissioned to fill an evidence gap and to show where further action is needed.

What this means for you

Owners and keepers in England

You can register now. The commitment is a questionnaire and one dung sample, posted back in packaging that is already paid for.

Yard owners and trainers

People responsible for horses, not only legal owners, are invited. If you run a livery or training yard, you are eligible.

Owners outside England

The call is for England. Nothing in the announcement extends it elsewhere.

Anyone whose horse has had antibiotics

The study is about healthy horses. Resistant bacteria can be present without any sign of illness, so a well horse is still useful data.

What to do

1. Go to the University of Liverpool's HealthyHorseAMR study website and register your details

   Registration is open now

2. Check you are keeping the horse in England before signing up

   Before registering

3. Watch for the sampling pack in the post and read the instructions before you collect anything

   After registering

4. Mention it to your yard manager or trainer, who is also eligible to take part

   This week