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May 2014
Articles From May 2014
The Dartmoor Pony year
Posted in Farm on Wednesday 21st May 2014 at 12:26pm
As well as the work we do with the cattle we also keep Dartmoor ponies. The Dartmoor pony year is dominated by checking the ponies on the open common daily. We drift the ponies off in the autumn over 2 days with all the other commoners, sort them out and bring ours home to wean their foals and worm the mares if necessary. If any of the mares are looking in poor condition they stay on the farm until they are well enough to return to the common. The foals are kept on the farm until we can find a buyer for them, they are used as conservation grazers, they are old enough to return to the common as part of our herd or as a last resort we sell them to the zoo for lion meat. If we are keeping them we have them chipped, inspected and passported as heritage Dartmoor ponies. The colts are gelded by the vet when they are about a year old. With our stallion we maintain a herd of 28 on Spitchwick Common.