This little foal is very new to this world. We are hoping the agisters spot this one, because the mare is really thin. The agisters can ask the commoners to bring the animal off the open forest and restore it to good health
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4 comments:
yep poor girl needs a thorough check up shes not in the best of health :(
I wonder where shes been to get so thin?
I looked up "agister" and from there was led to the official verderers web site and to a web site called New Forest Pony Tales. These are most interesting. I hadn't known that the ponies are owned by commoners. I'd always thought they were wild.
Hi Pam,
yes the ponies are owned by the commoners, but they are one of Britains native ponies. They are wild in the sense that they haven't been broken in and mostly survive on the forest, left to their own devices.
The Agisters are in charge of animal welfare and they will make sure the ponies are kept in reasonable health. The stallions are carefully selected to maintain the characteristics of the breed, and they are moved around to different parts of te forest each year to limit interbreeding.The Stallions are taken off the forest in the winter months in an effort to keep the foals from being born to early in the year when they would strugglle to survive.
Despite the signs some tourists assume that the animals are tame and will try to sit their children on them and then wonder why the animals bite or kick.
Only Yesterday Gill and I were chased off by a stallion who was guarding his little group of mares and felt threatened by our prescence sitting on a tree stump.
He made us aware that he was unhappy and had we stayed he probably would have charged at us. We saw the signs and beat a hasty retreat. The stallion then went back to his grazing.
Thanks so much for the interesting explanation. I'm going to read the New Forest Pony Tales and learn more.
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