New Forest Pony Management

[ahlam1399]

This post came up I another that and I found it very interesting, so Snow Falcon agreed to have a thread about New Forest Pony Management. Off topic a little - how do you keep track on the ponies free ranging in the forest- do they tend to have their own area or do they roam quite far? (Apologies if it's a stupid question!) Nope, not a stupid question at all. The ponies have a haunt (about a 2/3 mile radius) which they roam. At certain times of the year you get to know where they will be. I've had one mare 17 years and watching her/searching for her, you get to know their patterns. Of course, sod law says that when you go out looking for them they've disappeared. 3 hours later you are back where you started and the ****** pops out from behind the gorse bush! Due to the introduction of the stallion scheme a number of years ago some mares will now travel a lot further to find a stallion in the spring. The stallions are only turned out for 4 weeks now so there's limited opportunity for them to be covered. All the ponies are owned by a commoner (who have rights attached to property/land they either own/rent in order to be able to turn stock out on the forest) and have to be branded with the owners brand. During the autumn there are a series of round ups where the ponies are driven into pounds. They are then tail marked with the tail mark of the agister (stockmen of the forest) who's area the commoner lives in. This way if a different pony turns up in a area the tail mark will alert the agister to where it may have come from. More than happy to answer any questions.

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