Natural Herd Size

I returned in the middle of the night from a twelve-hour trip off the ranch for a family birthday party. Under the nearly full moon upon my return, I let my dogs out of the kennel and fed them. Then we walked to the stallion pen to feed my boy there. When I got back to my house, thanks to the moon, I could see that there were a few ponies in the pasture nearby. I went through the gate and greeted each of them. It turned out there were six there to acknowledge my return home. It’s always a source of happiness when they choose to greet me in this way.

There are nine ponies on that pasture now, but they are often split into two herds, one of six and the other of three. It is always of interest to me when all nine are together and then when the bands are smaller. When I moved here, after the foals of that year were all gone to their new homes, the six remaining ponies stayed together nearly all the time. A year ago, there were seven on the pasture, and usually they all ran together, but sometimes a pair peeled off and ran separately.

My observations of these group dynamics caused me to take special note of a brief part of a conversation between Tom Lloyd and Bert Morland on the Fell Pony Podcast. Tom is the host of the show and is the steward of the Hades Hill herd which is a fell-running herd. Bert was the guest on that episode and is the steward of the Lunesdale herd, another fell-running herd. I think it was Tom who said that he has observed that his ponies tend to divide into groups of six or seven, and Bert agreed. I was left with the impression that this size is what could be considered natural for our ponies.

When I heard the conversation between Tom and Bert about natural herd size, I had already been pondering reducing my herd back down to that six or seven size for a number of other reasons. Now I have this new perspective of natural herd size to contemplate as I make decisions. While I could increase my numbers to have two herds of six or seven, I am more likely to cut back to a single herd from my current nine. Stewarding these ponies is a source of endless fascination!

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022

Eyes in the Back of My Head

My first horsemanship mentor had three stallions at their facility when I was visiting and helping out there. They also kept my first Fell Pony stallion after I bought him until I felt my horsemanship was up to having a stallion at my place. One of the first rules they shared with me was, “Never turn your back on a stallion.”

I now have my fifth Fell Pony stallion. The relatively mellow nature of our breed means it can be easy to be complacent around stallions, so I try to keep my mentor’s advice in mind. For me, it is often about turning on ‘the eyes in the back of my head’ when I turn my back to a stallion. I raise my awareness of where the pony is and how far from me before I turn my back to them, keeping my senses tuned so that I return my gaze to them if they approach me so I can manage our interaction.

Now that it is spring, there is green grass in my stallion grazing paddock. The gate is at the bottom of the incline that is the stallion paddock, so I walk with my stallion from the top to the bottom. I have taught him to walk calmly beside me with no tack, stopping and starting when I do. Nonetheless, his energy can be high in anticipation of green grass, and because it’s breeding season, mares and mating are on his mind. So I am extra mindful about watching using either the eyes in the front or the back of my head.

At the bottom of the hill, I ask him to stop ten feet from the gate and stand still. If he moves, I ask him to return to where I left him. Then I move to the gate to open it. The eyes in the back of my head get a workout since I turn my back to my stallion to get the gate unlatched. Once I have the gate ready to open, I make sure my stallion is still listening to my direction, only moving toward the grazing paddock when I invite him.

I am always mindful of how quick our ponies can be. A colleague told me a story of entering a paddock where there was a three-year-old colt (‘colt’ because he hadn’t bred any mares yet.) My colleague, like me, headed across the paddock to open another gate and in an instant the colt had jumped on them from behind, knocking them to the ground. My colleague is an excellent horseman and took full responsibility for the accident, knowing that they had turned their back on a stallion without fully activating the eyes in the back of their head.

It was very easy to imagine how this sort of accident could have happened. There’s a reason my first mentor gave her rule about never turning your back on a stallion. My stallion has days where he is especially rambunctious and he finds it challenging to contain himself on our walk down the hill towards the gate to the grazing paddock. On those days he will shoulder into me to try to initiate some sort of game, sometimes trotting in place and then trotting off if he gets the reaction from me he is seeking.

I am thankful that my colleague shared their story about their young stallion jumping them. It has helped me to be more mindful to open the eyes in the back of my head when I am with my stallion.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2021