Exporting Horses - not a secret

Many Miniature Horse owners here in the USA as well as overseas, don't know how it works to send a horse by plane to a foreign country. Due to the fact of the "unknown", people are scared to jump into this experience. I'm going to explain step by step how it works and what options there are.

The payment for the horses goes usually by international wire transfers. The buyer needs your bank information, account number, SWIFT code and the ABA routing number. Sometimes, depending on the bank it can take up to a week before the money will clear into your account.

Before a transport company picks up the horses, you need a Coggins test and a regular health certificate for the shipper, who will transport the horse to our export separation facility. We also like to have a color copy of the registration papers and an invoice to clear customs abroad. It is not necessary that the horse is transferred in the new owners name! We prefer to have a previous vaccination record, but it is important not to vaccinate before you send the horse. We like to give them all the shots that are required by the USDA for Export here at our facility.

Anything else will be handled professionally by the export isolation facility.

After the horse arrives at our export isolation facility, we set up small groups that will go together to the same destination. Stallions have their own paddocks with a nice stall and mares or young horses will be held in a large area with trees and a big shed to find shade from the sun or other elements. We have small feeding sections, where the horses get fed individually if needed. After they finish their meals, they will be turned loose to stay in the herd situation.

Every time a new export isolation starts, a USDA health inspector has to come out, start the export isolation and file the paperwork. The export isolated horses need to be kept away and isolated from other horses. Anyone who is entering this section for cleaning or feeding, must disinfect the shoes and hands, before and after. There is no question, that equipment, tools and feed is only used for the export isolation horses.

Several vaccinations and blood tests are required depending on where the horses are going. International health papers have to be filled out and need to be filed with the USDA in a certain time frame. Very often it is a timing game, to get the papers stamped and approved by the USDA before the horses leave. A health certificate for Europe for example is only good for 10 days after the Vet signed it and mailed it out.

In the meantime we start working on the logistics to fly the horses out in time, which airlines and agencies to use and finding the best prices for the customers. It can happen for many reasons that a flight gets canceled or is delayed. In some cases all the blood work and paperwork needs to be redone.

After the export isolation ends, we drive the perfectly groomed horses our self in a clean and disinfected trailer to the airport where they have to spend at least 5 hours at the animal station, in nice large stalls to rest, before they get loaded for the flight. During this time, the USDA veterinarian will check the paperwork and identify the horses. After the horses are loaded, they drive them to the airplane and will be lifted up into the cargo plane.

There are two ways to fly minis:

- Wooden custom built crates. In this case, a wooden crate will be build to hold 1 or more minis. Weight and dimensions will calculate the air waybill. The advantage is, you can ship easily just 1 or 2 horses as cargo. The disadvantage is, that it is almost impossible to take care of the horses during the flight.

- Special designed horse containers. These are "big horse" containers with the possibility to slide over some or all dividers. In my opinion the best way to fly a group of horses. They can roam free in there, lay down to sleep, eat hay, and an escorting groom can go down into the cargo area to take care of them and water the horses. In my experience flying with big and miniature horses, the little ones drink a lot. Even if there is a divider, in case a stallion is on board, the groom has exit all the time.

I can assure everyone, that minis seam to take the whole journey very well and are not getting stressed out as some big horses. They get used to the noise and the pilot can set a nice temperature in the cargo room, so it is not cold down there.

For the logistic and airfreight, there are only certain airports from where you can fly out animals and into. These airports need to have animal stations with a USDA veterinarian for USA and a state inspection veterinarian for Europe. The veterinarian at the destination airport will check the health of the horses and all the paperwork. An agent is taking care of customs clearance and Import Vet Check.

The new owners just have to pick up their horse or send a transport company.

Everything is very easy for the new owner, not much to worry about, beside pick up the horse and paying the bills. We do our business a little different from other shippers, which means the buyer pays us for the export isolation and transport to the airport. The air bill and all other fees are billed separately by the flight agency, shortly before the horses flying out. This helps our customers to pay only what the airfreight actually cost.

It's for sure not that easy for the export isolation operator, who makes it happen. It's a lot of work, timing, frustration dealing with officials, many many phone calls and e-mails.

We hope that we could help to make the whole export procedure more understandable and that we covered all possible questions with this article.

Marion Maschke
Oasis Miniature Horses