© Dartmoor Pony Rescue Centre 2007
DPRC News: Back to the main news/updates page
26/06/07 - Website updated
It has been a very busy few months for Joe, our website manager who has been working for a tree surgery company based in Sidmouth, as well as starting up his own design business. However he has now found time to update the website and is working on re-developing the DPTC site at the moment. We have expanded alot since our early days, and so has our website, but its now time for a bit of re-development to better organise things.
If you have any comments or suggestions about the website please send them to Joe - joecanti@yahoo.co.uk including DPTC in the subject field
01/06/07 - Looking for new land
The DPTC is looking to re-locate soon. This should enable us to have better access on open days and also much easier working conditions during the winter months. The last winter was very hard work for Nat and Kathryn, and ease of use during the winter will be high up on the list.Having said this the summer months at our present location are wonderful with far reaching views and pleanty of grass!
01/06/07 - Name and aims change
As you may have seen we have changed our name and our aims slightly. For more information on this please click here to be taken to the who we are section.
May Newsletter - Download here
New Field Shelter from Cozee Homes - 10/01/07
We have purchased an excellent field shelter from Cozee Homes... It has been sitting in the field for a while now, and has been getting lots of use in the recent stormy weather.
Please click here to find out more about our field shelter & about Cozee Homes.
Tavistock Market - 08/12/06
We went to Tavistock Market on 8th December. There were around 250 ponies at the sale and we came home with 8!
We brought 4 bay colts who are part registered, they were 15 guineas each and already had passports which usually cost £10 on top of what you pay for the pony. 2 of them were born in mid to end August this year according to their passports so they aren't even 4 months old. However they have settled already as they have grown up together and 3 of them are actually brothers so that has helped them. They are quite brave and have already leant where to wait for their food!
The next one we took on is a bay colt born in May 2005, very sweet and being older was initially a lot more confident thank the others though he is now finding himself out of the gang a bit at the moment so needs to find his feet. I am sure he will be playing around with Merry & Pippin before we know it!
We then took on another bay colt foal who again has to be very very young, he stays with the mare and foal we now have (see below) but did today discover if he comes in the pen with the others he gets food!
Finally our sad story of the sales is a mare and foal. They came in to the ring and went unsold the foal is no more than 2 weeks old and the mare has a big foal belly but no weight on her and she can hardly move her back legs. We offered the farmer thirty quid and he came back to us and accepted (all went through the auctioneers of course)!
Te mare is obviously very protective of her baby and being older I guess the herd won't accept her in the same way they accept the young ones - I swear sometimes they don't even notice the new arrivals!!! So we take hay up to her and leave her in peace for now. She looks like she is suffering from shock and I am not surprised at her age she will have been on the moor all her life having foal after foal now suddenly she is rounded up and sold whilst at a very delicate stage with her foal I dread to think what she must be feeling. Hopefully she will pull through shortly.
We should point out we do not bid against anyone other than the dealers. If a member of the public is bidding even though they are going for a low price we will not bid.
Trago Mills, Newton Abbot 3rd December 2006
We took Buzz and Trixie to Trago Mills for the day to meet the public to enable us to raise awareness and to sell sponsorship packs as Christmas presents. We had a very successful day and both ponies loved all the attention and behaved impeccably. I think it goes to show what wonderful ponies Dartmoor Hill ponies are, they did not worry about flapping signs, children running up to them, forklifts, pushchairs etc. they just took it all in their stride.
Everyone was very generous and we raised £250 so thank you every one who donated and sponsored a pony. We will be back on 17th December.
We went to Chagford market and were pleased that no ponies were unsold. However as with Tavistock market many were going to the meat man. We brought two Mikey & Steer to prevent them having this end. Please look at our pony updates to read about them.
17/10/06 Letterbox Walk
A walk in aid of the DPRC. Here is some information from the organisers:
`A DARTMOOR COTTAGE`. A 3 mile walk around the Trowlesworthy area with 12 stamps plus a starter stamp given with the clues (No’s 40358 – 40369). Suggested parking at the car park near Blackaton Cross, Grid Reference 57053 -63080. Go up around Great Trowlesworthy, Spanish Lake and back around the leat. Walk in aid of the "Dartmoor Pony Rescue Centre". Please send cheque for £2.50, made payable to "Dartmoor Pony Rescue Centre", plus sae to M&S, 22 Coombe Road, Saltash, Cornwall. PL12 4ER. We would really appreciate your support for such a worthwhile cause, as the DPRC aim to help many foals and ponies that are left unsold at the sales, and would otherwise have no future. For further information on the DPRC and what a great difference they make to the lives of these ponies, please check out their website.
Any queries regarding the walk and the boxes please email micksu@blueyonder.co.uk
Many, many thanks to all who have contributed.
The walk is out now, and will be out for six months, until the 1st May 2007
01/10/06
Star and Socks went to their new home and are settling in brilliantly. For more information please go to our Pony updates section.
October 2006
Drifts – Most of the ponies that live on Dartmoor have now been rounded up. When ponies living in certain areas of the more (commons,) have been rounded up they are sorted out and each farmer will collect their ponies and take them back to their farms. They are inspected for health and farmers will sort out which foals they will keep as replacement stock and which ones they will sell. Once they decide this some will go to market and some will be sold privately.
September 2006
The ponies have been moved to their new grazing in Bickington and are getting on very well. To save on time Kathryn and Natalie share the cost of the grazing with the Rescue Centre and keep their own horses with the ponies. As well as having them all in one place, this is very useful because it means we now have a very stable herd with lots of older horses and ponies to make things less scary for the younger ponies.
Kathryn has 2 ponies – Lily and Tigger. Lily is a 14.2hh section D mare and is very striking. She has a great character and is good at keeping the foals in order! Tigger is a Dartmoor Hill pony and is a year old now. He is a very handsome pony and is probably going to be big enough for Kathryn to ride eventually.
Natalie has 1 horse and 2 ponies. Beau, her Horse is 16.1hh and is very handsome. Beau is a rescue horse and had been very badly twitched before Natalie took him on. As well as suffering very bad nerve damage in his ears from the twitching, Beau had learnt a very good way to stop people hurting him – he would head butt anyone who came near him! Anyway when Natalie met him she fell in love and felt that she could help him get over his fear of people and now he is a fantastic, very calm and sensitive horse!
Rosey and Hazel are also rescues and are both lovely mares. Rosey came from East Sussex and was left abandoned on a small scrap of land in the floods about 4 years ago. Luckily a lady saw her and managed to get her rescued before she starved – unfortunately Rosey now has a bit of an “eating disorder” and is completely obsessed with food.
Hazel was taken on by a kind lady as a favour to some people who could no longer look after her and four other foals. The lady concerned didn’t have the time to work with her to get her used to being handled and wasn’t really sure what to do with her. Since Natalie took her on she has gone from strength to strength and is not only very happy around people now, but will very happily follow small children about and let them stroke her!27.08.06 - Open day
Thankyou to all those who came to the open day - we really enjoyed meeting you all and i'm sure the ponies did too. We have some photos of the day and you can see them by clicking here. If you have any photos that you would like to see up here please email them to us.
20.08.06 - Open day
We are holding a small open day on Sunday the 27th of August. We and are very keen for anyone interested in our work to attend. We are currently looking for loan homes for 4 of our ponies so this would be an ideal opportunity for anyone interested to attend and meet the ponies.
As most of you know we work using non-confrontational training methods and will be doing several training demonstrations throughout the day. There will also be the opportunity to meet the eight ponies and see how they are progressing.
12.08.06 - DPRC on ITV
We had some very exciting visitors this weekend. A crew and a presenter from the ITV show “This morning” came out to visit the DPRC to find out more about what we are doing. They spent two days filming us at our base and also at a show we attended – The Brooke Devon Supporters group “Rescue Horse and Dog show.”
The crew were filming for a series on rescue centres all across the country and we were very proud to be chosen as the only horse and pony rescue centre in the UK to be filmed. The series begins on the 11th of September I think but we don’t yet have a confirmed date for when we will be featured. Keep looking on our news page for updates on this.
The team were great fun and although the weekend was very long (we didn’t realise how long it takes to film a relatively short feature,) it will be fantastic publicity for us and the work we do.
Along with the work we are doing training and re-homing foals left unsold at the pony markets we are keen to promote all the ponies on the moor as they have such fantastic temperaments. Hopefully this will come across in the film and Star certainly charmed everyone who attended. They are such fantastic ponies and although they have been through such a lot in their short lives they are very willing to trust us and seem to take everything in their stride.
We will let you all know when we find out when the program is going out, it’s very exciting, but we aren’t too keen about seeing ourselves on the screen
12.08.06 - Brooke Show
Star and Socks came to the Brooke show we attended and they were fantastically behaved. They loaded up very quickly in the morning and spent the whole day in their enclosure meeting lots of members of the public! They had children, teenagers, dogs, horses and all sorts coming up to meet them but they seemed to take everything in their stride. They were pretty happy when they got home though and ran off to tell the others all about their day!
10.08.06 - Cartridges Solicitors
We have received a very kind donation from Cartridges which will go towards our insurance fund - we are trying to raise £1000 to enable us to get insurance to take on volunteers. For more information on Cartridges, a local solicitors, please click here.
30.06.06 - Open day
We are hoping to move the ponies to a more permanent base in the next month. Once a date has been confirmed for this we will set a definite date for our open day when we hope to be able to meet some of you. You will be able to meet your ponies and we are hoping to have a few events throughout the day.
27.06.06 – Castration
All of our colt (entire male) ponies have to be castrated before they can be re-homed. Although it sounds a bit unpleasant, the operation is fairly straightforward and if we don’t do this we wouldn’t be able to re-home the ponies. The majority of people would not take on a pony that hasn’t been castrated so it really is vital. On the 27th of June Moorgate vets came to see us along with our farrier Chris Hopwood. We set about operating on the ponies as well as vaccinating them and trimming their feet. The day was very tiring and a bit stressful, but all castrations were completed successfully and we all learnt a lot. Next year we will hopefully have more helpers and we will have fixed pens in the field so that the ponies are contained securely. Pippin decided that he didn’t fancy the operation and managed to jump out of his enclosure; he’s going to make someone a very good jumping pony one day – it was over 3’ high and he’s only small! Anyway, all the ponies are recovering well and seem to be back to normal now. We couldn’t have done it without the support and patience of the team from Moorgate Vets and Chris Hopwood the Farrier. I would also like to say a bit thanks to my two fantastic helpers; Nicky and Charlie, you were great!
We are desperately trying to raise money for our insurance. We need to get third party public liability and also insurance to enable us to take on volunteers. At the moment we have so much work to do, but because we can’t take on volunteers because of insurance the workload is getting more and more. We all have full time jobs and all the work we do for the DPRC is voluntary. Hopefully if we can raise the £1000 (I know it seems like an awful lot!) that we need for the insurance we can begin to take on volunteers.
We are always keen to hear from anyone in the Ashburton, Woodland, Denbury area that has any spare grazing!
As we don’t have a trailer of our own we are desperate for help with moving the ponies from time to time. We are also looking for a trailer to borrow so that we can get the ponies used to loading.
As you may know we are looking for permanent loan homes for four of our ponies; Star, Socks, Basil and Reggie. All four of these ponies were left unsold at the markets and unless we had taken them on they wouldn’t have had a future. All four ponies are now happy to be around people and almost ready to be re-homed. We are hoping to re-home them in pairs as this will be much less stressful for them and they have formed quite strong pair bonds. At the moment they can only be companion ponies as they are too young to be ridden. We hope that all four will eventually be able to be riding ponies. if you are interested in taking on a pony or two or know someone who is then please contact us for a chat – 01364 654609, dartmoorponyrescuecentre@yahoo.co.uk.
20/06/06
On the 8th of June 2006 the DPRC had a visit from Tim Sandles, a representative of “Virbac” A company that produce equimax and Equarell wormers. Tim contacted us after Kathryn, our fundraising officer asked him to put a link up to our website. Tim and Virbac have kindly donated wormers for all of our ponies – something which normally costs us a lot of money. We are really grateful to them for all their support and advice on worming programs. Tim has also given us a lot of advice on fundraising which is very much appreciated! For more information on Equimax and Equarell wormers please go to the link below.
10/05/06
We are currently looking for extra grazing in the Ashburton / Woodland area. Our current grazing is fantastic, but we really need a bit of extra grazing to build the ponies up. If you know anyone who has any spare land, then please contact us.
09/05/2006
We would like to say a big thankyou to Virbac for kindly supplying us with wormers: please click on their logo for more information:
01/05/06
We have received a donation of £500 from a lady in Yorkshire to pay for the castration of the 6 ponies. We are immensely grateful for her generosity and we will be getting the colt foals castrated as soon as they are ready.
We raised almost £200 at a boot fair in Exeter at the end of April. This money will go towards vets bills for the ponies, and makes a real difference. We will be doing boot fairs fairly regularly from now on and we hope to continue raising lots of money for the ponies.
29/12/05
After a few different trials the new website is up and running! Let us know what you think...
25/12/05
Happy Christmas from all at the DPRC
19/12/05
The ponies are all doing well, but we are in desperate need of more donations and sponsorships for the ponies. The Winter is fairly costly as we have to buy straw and hay for the ponies as well as paying for their grazing, supplements and wormers.
10/12/05
All of the ponies are now fully settled in to their new grazing. We had some really heavy snow on Dartmoor which was quite interesting for them as they’ve never seen it before. We had to make sure they had plenty of Hay to keep them going as they were unable to get to the grass! We have been doing lots of work with them over the past month, and they are getting very brave around people now. For more information on what we have been doing with them please go to the diary section in the “our ponies” page of the website.
10/11/05
Four new ponies were taken on by the DPRC. Merry, Pippin, Pixie and Trixie will form part of our “Base Herd” and will stay with us permanently. They will hopefully be able to give next years foals some of the stability they’ll need after the trauma of weaning and the markets.
10/11/05
Our four new ponies, , Pippin, Pixie and Trixie are now up for sponsorship. To find out more about them please look in the “our ponies” section and go to “our Downloads” to download a sponsorship form.
08/11/05
Our four ponies, Star, Socks, Basil and Reggie were moved to our new grazing in Ilsington, Dartmoor. We needed to find some more permanent grazing and the new place is perfect as it has stables as well so the ponies can shelter when its cold and wet
23/10/05
Website updates and foal profiles added - check out the our ponies section.
13/10/05
Chagford Dartmoor pony sale - all foals sold for reserve or more
10/10/05
Tavistock Dartmoor Pony sale - four foals aquired by the DPRC - Star,Socks,Reggie and Basil.
28/09/05
Website up and running
04/09/05
Organization formed at first general meeting and constitution adopted