Country file..pony meat to keep a breed going

OK so know I shall be totally Beasted for saying this, but........ (here goes):-

The only way to thoroughly deal with this awful situation is a cull; round up these poor little ponies and despatch them humanely.

Then start again with the proper "Dartmoor" breed, as it always was (see my previous post) and start again - this time keeping the purity of the "Dartmoor" breed and keeping the bloodlines pure, basically breeding something that people actually WANT and which will sell for a realistic price.

Sorry if this offends the fluffy bunnies but sometimes tough decisions need to be made instead of endless skirting around the issue.

The problem is that no-one is prepared to take ultimate responsibility for this diabolical situation.
 
alainax said:
Could they be used in the pet feed market to increase the quality of meats used? Or is it the same thing that people won't buy pony meat.

Although I wouldn't eat cat, dog or horse, I do think them having a value may reduce their risk of some of the inhumane treatment we see currently.
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There is definitely a market for raw fed dogs. I would happily feed mine horse. I'd eat it myself if it met welfare conditions that I was happy with.
 
Mijods I do think they should somehow stop people having the right to graze ponies in the moor (not sure how!) and offer a free despatch service for those not able to keep their stock on privately owned land.
 
be positive said:
If this is about the DHP, they keep coming back to this every couple of years or so, the DHP is NOT a breed, it does not have any set breed standards, registration of breeding, they are just feral ponies of various types with no reason to be saved as such, a few go on to make riding ponies but the majority are poor quality, of fairly wild nature and need to be reduced in some way not encouraged, the Dartmoor pony is totally different, are generally bred responsibly to breed standards and have recorded bloodlines going back generations.
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I wholeheartedly disagree, The DHP has just been scientificaly proven to have older genes than anything else on Dartmoor and also to have a rare gene mutation making them more capable of surviving than any other moorland pony in the world. They should be being celebrated NOT discriminated against by Snobs and mis informed people.
 
ester said:
Re the breeding for meat - those French breeds are massive and definitely bred for purpose, why would you choose to breed essentially a Shetland cross for the same purpose?
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Both of mine were destined for the meat market - French trait du Nord and Belgian Ardennes - and give the weight they can carry when allowed unlimited food they would definitely be worth someone's time and cost in the meat industry. The Trait du Nord in particular was a meat breed until the French realised they could get cheaper imports from Eastern Europe. I think its a sign of declining popularity in terms of human consumption that the French have moved away from a specific meat breed to whatever 'surplus to requirements' horse meat they can buy in.

I don't eat horse meat so I can't comment on flavour etc, but I suspect a lot of the scrappy little pony types just end up in pet food - you're going to get better horse steaks off an Ardennes than a Dartmoor cross!

(Btw - my two are both signed out of the human food chain now, so are definitely not heading for french dinner tables any longer)
 
ester said:
You drift them the same as everyone else does and pull out the boys the same as everyone else does.
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You drift them but the problem is some get missed. It is not easy to get them all. If one of those missed is a stallion or more likely a colt it will then be out on the moor to reproduce when the mares go back. When you eventually find the missing colt you cannot in practical terms drift the whole lot again to get one pony off the common.
 
Feival said:
I wholeheartedly disagree, The DHP has just been scientificaly proven to have older genes than anything else on Dartmoor and also to have a rare gene mutation making them more capable of surviving than any other moorland pony in the world. They should be being celebrated NOT discriminated against by Snobs and mis informed people.
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ironic coming from someone who thinks only connemaras are 'useful'.
 
Feival said:
I wholeheartedly disagree, The DHP has just been scientificaly proven to have older genes than anything else on Dartmoor and also to have a rare gene mutation making them more capable of surviving than any other moorland pony in the world. They should be being celebrated NOT discriminated against by Snobs and mis informed people.
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Really? Please provide this data that proves this.

I'm amazed - the DHP being better for living than an Exmoor? or Shetland, or Fell, Dales, Dartmoor, New Forest, Highland....

Complete clap trap :mad3: please stop trying to be sensationalist Feival - in whatever guise you are this month :rolleyes3:
 
Of course some may get missed in drift but they don't even try. Just the same as everything else say they can't or it won't work. It's not that long ago that they couldn't because of how it would change the group dynamics and change the grazing patterns.

Re pet food etc unless there is currently a shortage I don't see that there is a market and I don't think we should have lower welfare standard for our pet food either, and as it stands the care these ponies receive doesn't meet any standard unless you wanted to introduce and 'abandoned and wild living' one. It is my understanding that they currently fulfill the requirements of the zoo market mostly.
 
Diva&Rosie'sMum said:
some of those ponies in the gallery actually look like quality little things. Not HOYS winners maybe but there's nothing glaringly wrong with them!! Especially the spotted ones but I am a fan of spotties :P
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some of them will be nice-but there's no market for them, there's too little a market for ponies full stop. same goes with the wormy welsh scraps that are poorly bred and poorly done and end up at auction for virtually nothing.
 
be positive said:
a few go on to make riding ponies but the majority are poor quality, of fairly wild nature and need to be reduced in some way not encouraged, the Dartmoor pony is totally different, are generally bred responsibly to breed standards and have recorded bloodlines going back generations.
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the hill ponies could be said to be mongrels. However so could many of the horses people on here are riding. Many of those are not purebreds. A highland x TB is a mongrel, so is a TB cross something else or arab x welsh or any of the rest.

If you replace all the hill ponies with purebred dartmoors then the same problem will arise. There will simply be too many small ponies for which there is no riding/driving market. This is the problem. Contraception at least reduces numbers, putting geldings out on the moorland also reduces wastage.
Being a purebred dartmoor does not guarantee anything. There are plenty of poor tempered, poor quality animals in any pure bred breed.

I wonder from your comments how many hill ponies you, or many others on here, have actually trained? Many of the comments about them are not based in any way on the ponies I have handled. Nor are they based on my own hill ponies. I have worked with pure bred dartmoors (and there are some on the common) and also with hill ponies. The hill ponies for me have the edge.

I have known many go on to become riding ponies. Once their new owners get them they usually adore them. I have seen 'runts" 4 years later all broken and decked up to go to a show. By that stage they are far from runts.

To say the majority are of a fairly wild nature is just untrue. I have found them to be far easier and more co-operative than some of the pure breds and some of the small welsh breeds. Once haltered mine have just about taught themselves. They come from a good background out on the common, they have learnt from the start to gallop across the common, jump banks and ditches, deal with cars etc.
There is a problem with numbers and what market there is for them but there is also a problem with narrow minded people who have little actual knowledge of them as working ponies who are not willing to give them a chance.
 
Diva&Rosie'sMum said:
some of those ponies in the gallery actually look like quality little things. Not HOYS winners maybe but there's nothing glaringly wrong with them!! Especially the spotted ones but I am a fan of spotties :P
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The spottiness was introduced recently I think to help the popularity :). I think part of the issue is that those that make the better ponies to go and do a job are not necessarily the ones that are best adapted for moors living. So there ends up with a bit of a conflict there.
 
Paddy I do totally agree that a lot make pretty good ponies, being fairly local I see a fair few about/we have show classes for them etc. But the farmers see reluctant to give them much of a start into that world even though they would then make more money.

I think the ponies have plenty of benefit to the moor too but they have to be the right ponies with the ability to deal with the conditions (and I suspect some of the hill ponies are better for this than pures these days) and in the right numbers and up there for the right reasons.
 
ester said:
Paddy I do totally agree that a lot make pretty good ponies, being fairly local I see a fair few about/we have show classes for them etc. But the farmers see reluctant to give them much of a start into that world even though they would then make more money.

I think the ponies have plenty of benefit to the moor too but they have to be the right ponies with the ability to deal with the conditions (and I suspect some of the hill ponies are better for this than pures these days) and in the right numbers and up there for the right reasons.
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So who is going to tell these farmers which ponies they can graze and how many?
 
paddy555 said:
based on?? Dartmoor isn't a lovely flat smooth grassy field with boundaries.
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Based on people saying they can't catch them? Though I'm not sure where that comes from as as far as I'm aware they do and always have drifted?! I'm pretty local so there's no need to be patronising!

I think the main question has to be why do the DHPs have this numbers issue when other wild living ponies don't, quantocks are ok, new forest etc (though there is a similar issue with some welshies I think). What happens that is different in the areas that are getting it right?
 
millikins said:
So who is going to tell these farmers which ponies they can graze and how many?
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I think that defra already run agri- environment schemes which restrict numbers?
My only issue is when welfare is seriously compromised., in part as a result of numbers.
 
ester said:
I think that defra already run agri- environment schemes which restrict numbers?
My only issue is when welfare is seriously compromised., in part as a result of numbers.
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But in the case of the DHP I don't that is the issue is it? Most of the argument against them seems to be that they are small, nondescript and not a recognised breed.
 
rembering that a lot are feral/unmarked and not supposed to be there so that numbers do not match what should be there with regards to the number of registered rights commoners have - it's been a while since I looked at it properly.
 
I really enjoy horse meat, its got a great flavour to it. Dont think I'd want to eat my own horse or a horse I knew but yes, very tasty, wish it was more readily available.
 
millikins said:
But in the case of the DHP I don't that is the issue is it? Most of the argument against them seems to be that they are small, nondescript and not a recognised breed.
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I don't think that is an argument against them existing per se, more being used as an argument that we shouldn't invent a horse meat market to keep them going- Because if you want to eat horsemeat they probably aren't going to end up giving the best meat or be worth the slaughter cost and that market would soon start having more suitable animals bred for it and the dhp would be in the same situation it is in now.
 
paddy555 said:
the hill ponies could be said to be mongrels. However so could many of the horses people on here are riding. Many of those are not purebreds. A highland x TB is a mongrel, so is a TB cross something else or arab x welsh or any of the rest.

If you replace all the hill ponies with purebred dartmoors then the same problem will arise. There will simply be too many small ponies for which there is no riding/driving market. This is the problem. Contraception at least reduces numbers, putting geldings out on the moorland also reduces wastage.
Being a purebred dartmoor does not guarantee anything. There are plenty of poor tempered, poor quality animals in any pure bred breed.

I wonder from your comments how many hill ponies you, or many others on here, have actually trained? Many of the comments about them are not based in any way on the ponies I have handled. Nor are they based on my own hill ponies. I have worked with pure bred dartmoors (and there are some on the common) and also with hill ponies. The hill ponies for me have the edge.

I have known many go on to become riding ponies. Once their new owners get them they usually adore them. I have seen 'runts" 4 years later all broken and decked up to go to a show. By that stage they are far from runts.

To say the majority are of a fairly wild nature is just untrue. I have found them to be far easier and more co-operative than some of the pure breds and some of the small welsh breeds. Once haltered mine have just about taught themselves. They come from a good background out on the common, they have learnt from the start to gallop across the common, jump banks and ditches, deal with cars etc.
There is a problem with numbers and what market there is for them but there is also a problem with narrow minded people who have little actual knowledge of them as working ponies who are not willing to give them a chance.
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They are not bred with any care, their breeding is not recorded and as the people trying to promote them state they cannot control by taking the colts off there is every chance many will be inbred, it also is why so many are of a nervous nature, or wild, so to my mind they are not comparable to purpose bred x breeds that most of us ride.

I have worked with a few over the years but while some may be useful the ones I have had were lacking in any real quality, too wide and strong for a child of a suitable age for the height, they did not have enough talent to excel in any sphere so are limited with the jobs they can do, 1 never lost his wild streak and remained here to live out his days as despite being a well schooled pony he was not safe at times and could never be trusted fully with a child and was not easy for most adults to deal with, he was a lucky one as he didn't get passed from pillar to post.

There are bad examples in all breeds but a responsible breeder will pick up on this and not use the same stallion continually or take the mare out of their breeding programme, the DHP have no breeding programme or records so repeat matings will continue.
 
be positive said:
They are not bred with any care, their breeding is not recorded and as the people trying to promote them state they cannot control by taking the colts off there is every chance many will be inbred, it also is why so many are of a nervous nature, or wild, so to my mind they are not comparable to purpose bred x breeds that most of us ride.

I have worked with a few over the years but while some may be useful the ones I have had were lacking in any real quality, too wide and strong for a child of a suitable age for the height, they did not have enough talent to excel in any sphere so are limited with the jobs they can do, 1 never lost his wild streak and remained here to live out his days as despite being a well schooled pony he was not safe at times and could never be trusted fully with a child and was not easy for most adults to deal with, he was a lucky one as he didn't get passed from pillar to post.
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I don't know even if we are talking about the same ponies!!. I have simply not found so many to be nervous in fact I have found them to be the calmest and steadiest of ponies and very comparable to the majority of mongrel horses. Lovely kid ponies in fact. No some wouldn't make the perfect show pony but for cross country, jumping and games they are perfect. I would trust a child with any of mine and they are nothing special. I think you must have been very unlucky to have dealt with so many poor temperament ones. That is not representative of them as a "breed/type" It is certainly not what I am seeing and I am right in the middle of them. I daily see the ones on the farm of the person on countryfile. They are usually blocking the road with endless kids handling them, loading them and having little shows. They all seem very safe with a lot of happy kids.

There are sadly always well schooled ponies of any breed that cannot really be trusted with kids and sadly some do get passed from pillar to post. Yours was a lucky pony..
 
I do not care how a pony is bred, it could be an uncared pure bred Welsh A, turned out on the common, or a DHP, purebred Dartmoor, a New Forest, living their lives unhandled infrequently. Small poorly conformed animals have fewer chances in having a life where they are looked after. If they have no breed passport there is an even smaller chance unless it is exceptional at the job it is trained to do. Even a well bred failed well bred from a well known stud show pony is only worth about £450 or less, if it not good at its job.
The NFPCS, realised there was a problem and did something about it, so the value of NF has gone up even at auction, but I think they have a Royal Warrant and they have control of the forest.
How ever it is bred if there is over supply it will have little value, at the welsh sales you can pick them up for next to nothing, if there was real money in selling them for meat the sheep farmers would be doing it by now, there is less regulation for horse meat at the moment than there is for lamb or mutton, and sheep like to die.
Breeding them will the sole purpose of them going for meat is not a variable solution, horse meat breeds are big for a reason.
 
MotherOfChickens said:
some of them will be nice-but there's no market for them, there's too little a market for ponies full stop. same goes with the wormy welsh scraps that are poorly bred and poorly done and end up at auction for virtually nothing.
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no one wants 'little' ponies (and fair enough, who wants to be a pony squasher? :P ) what most people want is something 15hh - 15.3, not too big, not too small - but no one is breeding nice, safe, sensible all rounders, people either seem to be breeding mini ponies or massive sporthorses with an equally massive price tag....
 
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