Exmoor ponies, conservation grazing & working with Exmoor Pony Society, Nov 2020

November 2020

We’re really excited to welcome four beautiful Exmoor ponies to help us with our land managment and grazing here at Llwynbwch. Gypsy, Rosemarie, Sienna and Ursula arrived a week ago and have to come to us from a local Welsh breeder, with help from The Exmoor Pony Society. Ursula and Sienna have recently been grazing a nature Reserve in nearby Ystradgynlais. All four of them are very friendly and inquisitive and have the distinctive Exmoor features of a reddish brown coat and honey coloured ‘mealy’ markings aound their eyes and muzzle. It’s a good job they’re hardy little ponies, as this past week we’ve had a lot of rain! Their shaggy thick coats and wide nostrils mean the cold and wet is no bother to them.

The Exmoor pony is native to the British Isles, their natural habitat is the high moorland of West Somerset and North Devon. Numbers plummeted to a low of 50 just after the second world war. Although their numbers have improved greatly, they have been given “endangered” status by The Rare Breeds Survival Trust and “threatened” status by The Livestock Conservancy.

Exmoor ponies are versatile, adaptable, very strong for their size and able to turn their hooves to a wide variety of activities. ‘Historically, the Exmoor pony was used by the hill farmers to undertake all kinds of work from being ridden for shepherding to being used in harness for ploughing, harrowing, taking feed to stock and the farmer’s family to market and church.

Exmoors have carved a niche for themselves as conservation grazers. Their excellent dental conformation makes them very neat grazers with a clean bite. They readily graze on tough herbage that other animals will not touch allowing more delicate plants space to grow. The Moorland Mouse Trust have over 100 ponies tidying up the British countryside as do the Yorkshire Exmoor Pony Trust who, as their name suggests have a smaller number of ponies grazing in North Yorkshire and the Sussex Pony Grazing and Conservation Trust who place ponies on sites in Sussex.

They are also employed by a number of county Wildlife Trusts, the National Trust and the RSPB.’
(Text taken from The Exmoor Pony Society website.)

Here at Llwynbwch they can roam free in our 60 acres and they seem to be settling well. They have plenty of places to shelter in the wooded areas and access to lots of streams for fresh water.  We hope their light but varied grazing will encourage and increase the biodiversity.