Dartmoor ponies

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Sandstone1

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Has anyone else seen he ad on equine ads on facebook about the dartmoor ponies due to be shot on thurs?

They are trying to home them. I have nothing to do with it just saw the ad and thought some of you may be interested.

Wish I could help but already have too many!
 
Hate to break it to you but hill ponies (& often foals) from Dartmoor & Bodmin Moor get shot all the time. Economics, not got enough value to pay farmer to feed them over the winter. Many don't make it to the sales as they wouldn't make the fuel money to get them there.
 
Just out of interest, is this a cull, or are the ponies going for meat?

I am afraid that I look on this sort of thing as no different from sheep or cattle, hill ponies, are, to many farmers just meat on the hoof, and not profitable at that.
 
What I do not understand is why the hell do they keep breeding them? To be honest they would not even be worth anything for meat, it takes as much work to kill and dress a pony as it does to do the same to a larger horse.
 
rema said:
They normally end up at the Zoo Enfy's..
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I know, no worse than using cattle, or sheep in my opinion, I should have qualified my question by asking "in this instance?" it doesn't sound any different to any other year, always, about this time, the pleas to find them homes.

I have lived at the Plymouth and Bovey ends of Dartmoor, we used to transport dozens and dozens of ponies from the drifts, the pretty ones went for maybe 15 pounds to Sanctuaries or private homes, the plain colts sold for less than a pound each, even 20 years ago, and we took them to holding facilities. Sometimes they went directly to the slaughter pens or were barned and brought on for meat in the Spring.

I worked for a farmer out at Yelverton and he had a spotted stallion out with his mares, scrubby little beast but he produced spotted stock which always sold for reasonable prices. We never even bothered sending the solids to market, sold them direct to the meatmen.

I lived on the Welsh Mountains too, exactly the same thing there.
 
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pip6 said:
Hate to break it to you but hill ponies (& often foals) from Dartmoor & Bodmin Moor get shot all the time. Economics, not got enough value to pay farmer to feed them over the winter. Many don't make it to the sales as they wouldn't make the fuel money to get them there.
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Im very well aware of that thank you. All I was doing was bringing this to peoples attention.
 
itsmylife said:
Im very well aware of that thank you. All I was doing was bringing this to peoples attention.
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thank you for highlighing this. I am not sure which particular group on facebook you are refering to but this is the one nearest to us.
The ponies were photographed last Sunday and you can see the success rates from the blog after a lot of work by the wonderful organisers.

http://dptcrehoming.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/list-of-ponies-urgently-needing-homes.html

in addition to the blog there are another 3 who already have homes and did not even make it onto the blog!! quite a good result. :)
 
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