Jump to content

Moving to the Gers with horses


Recommended Posts

Hi, we (myself, husband and two small boys!)are in the process of buying a house near Masseube in the Gers. We have 2 horses and would love to bring them with us. During our visits to France I have not seen many people 'out hacking' Are there many places to ride? Have heard the french aren't so strict on keeping to bridlepaths as we are, is this the case?

would also like to hear from anyone who has moved horses over from the UK and what company they used to transport them, and any other useful information for our big move to the Gers!

Look forward to hearing from you as have loads of other questions!!

Claire
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dear Claire,
We to are moving to Gers, near Mirande, that is myself, husband and 3 daughters, we are taking our 4 horses with us. We allso wondered about the hacking and have heard the same as you, we have been told you can ride any where!. I will send a message to your private box if you want to get in touch with me.
Zoe
Link to comment
Share on other sites

LAST EDITED ON 09-Mar-04 AT 09:31 AM (GMT)

The french do a lot of hacking out - but you probably don't see them as they are miles from any nearby road. There is a lot of space in France. French drivers have zero respect for horses on the roads so people try to keep off them as much as possible.

we have moved horses from UK-germany, from Germany to the UK, and the from UK to France.

If you want a professional mover then you can't do much better tha Pedans. http://www.peden.co.uk . We used them when shipping to Germany and back to the UK and they are superb. They are generally shipping race horses and international show jumpers etc all over Europe so they know their business, but they usually have space for the odd mule or two as long as you can fit in with their shipping dates.

However, when we finally moved from FR to the UK we moved them ourselves in a horse trailer. It is very straight forward with export papers (contact your local ministry office http://www.defra.gov.uk/ ) and on the ferry they are well looked after down on deck (still in their trailer !). Note , however that they will need to be booked in as freight (vehicle charge per metre length), rather than on a domestic tarif.

I guess if you are moving to Gers you might want to find a stop off point on the way to rest for a day or so , so try to find a chambre d'hote on a farm for a stopover. Any professional mover would in anycase plan in a stopover.

Note that since 1st Jan all equine crossing boarders must be microchipped with accompanying passport papers - again contact DEFRA for details.

regs

Richard
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
We moved to the Limousin in December with two Welsh ponies using ECS horse transport who were very good (can't remember their web address offhand but I think you could find it with a search). We left before the horses and they picked them up from their field, kept them at their yard for 3 days, (an immaculate one I might add), arranged all the paperwork and vetting, and were cheap to boot! They also brought over a bag of mollichaff & sugarbeet COD. They're always travelling to France, Spain and Italy so you could probably get a shared load (it's an eleven-horse (I think) box with air suspension and cctv).
The only problem they had was a 6 hour delay at customs due to the 'right' official not being available (well... it was a Monday).
As far as riding goes, although we're a different area, we've also been told 'you can go anywhere' - we haven't yet though - too much renovation to do! We did go for a walk one day though and found tracks going everywhere.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...