Dartmoor Ponies

Diminuendo

Diminuendo

At the Start
Joined
Jun 3, 2003
Messages
1,453
Location
The West Country
This is a subject very close to my heart. Dartmoor is a place I love and the ponies that roam the moors have become very important to me. Numbers are dwindling fast, as the farmers don't want them anymore. There used to be thousands of ponies on Dartmoor, now there are probably just several hundred. The few that are left are bred for the dinner tables of France. Each autumn the best of the young stock are rounded up and sent to market where they sell for just a few pounds. Every year I take photos of all the ponies I have passed on my wilderness walks, and now I have built up quite a stock.
Today I popped up onto the moors to see a few more of them.

Pony1.jpg


Pony2.jpg


Pony3.jpg


Ponies.jpg
 
Knife, fork, plate... with a touch of garlic, and a red wine sauce, Brian...

More to the point, how does the UK sanction their export, and not give a damn that they're just left to fend entirely for themselves, often the target of speeding cars, and then consigned to the meat trade? How do we - this 'animal loving nation' (wotta lotta cobblers) live with ourselves?
 
Ah, but they are not left to fend for themselves. Every pony is owned by a farmer. It is every farmers responsibility to make sure they are well fed etc. At this time of year, especially when the winter still has its grasp on Dartmoor, the ponies are often given extra hay to eat. I often see them coming towards the car parks where the farmer usually off loads the hay for them. The ones that live further into the moors are given extra too.
 
Ah, that's a bit better than I thought. Perhaps it's the Newfies I'm confused with - aren't they also rounded up to be slaughtered for meat, too?
 
Kathy the second piccy down showing the little skewbald would be just right for you. He just couldn't wait to come over and investigate the camera. He was so gentle too.
 
He is lovely Diminuendo.

How I would like to have a couple of fella's like these in a field next to my house, with a goat and a pot-bellied pig to keep each other company.
 
Hands off - I'd have my eye on the two skews!! Unfortunately you couldnt show them as natives though - I think the breed standard saays they have to be dark brown or bay?

We have a group of nutters managing the New Forest ponies - there is general agreemenmt that there are too many being bred, and that drives the prices down ( pairs of ponies were going for £5 not so long ago :blink: !) but the NF trusts answer - fewer stallions of a better standard????? I agree with only the better quality stallions being allowed to roam the forest, but for gods sake, surely its not rocket science - if you leave the number of mares the same, there will be exactly the same number of foals each year! Each stallion is capable of fathering potentially loads of offspring - but each mare can only have one foal ( ok - very very rarely twins!!) so surely if you cut the number of mares availabnle to cover, it stands to reason there will be less foals??? Or am I missing something????
 
They are gorgeouusss, I could just go and cuddle to 2 bays in the bottom pic. My field is calling out for them to come and live with us, we seem to be accumulating ponies (3 at last count :blink: ) so i'd better not show these to my daughter or i'll be in trouble!
 
Originally posted by BrianH@Mar 3 2006, 06:50 PM
But just because ponies have owners it doesn't necessarily mean that everything is all right. Read here on the ILPH site about the owner of ten Welsh stallion ponies:

Drowning In Droppings
Click to expand...
About 15 years ago my family did some work for the British Horse Society when there were a large number of neglected ponies found in Wales. These ponies were so thin with no regular drinking supply or any food bar the scrub they lived on around the old slag heaps. They apparently had owners but tracking them down was difficult and prosecution even harder. We ended up taking alot to rescue places where many were successfully rehomed. It was heartbreaking stuff though - many were just too weak to be moved and had to be put down.
 
My God that lot are adorable.

It disgusts me that horses are still exported for meat from this country.

My baby (not literally, she's my first pony and still lives with us...mad but utterly gorgeous) was bred for the purpose I believe but thankfully she and her brother (also mad) were bought by my Aunt.

Puff (I didn't name her, okay? :) ) has bought so much pleasure to my life and also bred us the gorgeous Basil who was the perfect gent and utterly adorable (sadly had to sell him on though). How anyone can subject a horse to the export trade is beyond me and makes me bloody furious.
 
The skewbalds, piebalds, palaminos, greys and whites usually get bought at the markets as they make good childrens ponies, unfortunately the browns, bays and blacks usually get exported. So i don't hold much hope for the two woolly bears in the fourth photo. :cry:
 
I am prepared to be slagged of but I have eaten horse and it was very nice. It wasn't in this country though, it was in France.
 
Went onto the moors again at lunchtime. It was very mild, windy and wet, but it felt good to be outdoors and I took the camera in case I found anything interesting. I had walked a couple of miles, when I approached some rocks and sheltering on the other side was this mare and foal. Usually foals are born from May onwards. This little lassie looks at least two weeks old. Jeez, she must have wondered to her little self, if the weather was ever going to improve.

DSC_0052.jpg



She even has a little dribble of milk on her nostril.
Foal.jpg
 
These are fantastic - thanks for putting them up. Wonder what the cat would think???????
 
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