Keeping Fell Ponies Warm in Winter - 2
/When our recent extremely cold weather was due to hit, I was very thankful for my more-than-twenty-years of keeping Fell Ponies warm in winter. When we were at 9,000 feet above sea level in Colorado, I often got the question about how to keep the ponies warm. Blankets haven’t ever been an answer to that question, which astounded many of my inquirers. Instead I rely on the ponies’ natural abilities. My first article on this subject, which is included in my first Fell Pony Observations book, said, “They have four strategies: winter fur coats, movement, cover, and digestion. My goal in winter is to support these strategies as best I can so that these ponies retain their native hardiness.” (1)
My Fell Ponies twenty years ago in Colorado at 9,000 feet above sea level. We had snow there more than half the year, so I learned how to keep them warm in winter.
South Dakota winters are very different than Colorado winters, of course. Where we are now, there’s less snow, more ice, and more wind. Until this latest storm, the coldest temperatures had been similar. With this latest storm, we had wind on top of the coldest temperatures I’ve experienced, so I pondered a lot how to keep my ponies warm. As it turned out, it was just supporting their four strategies as I’ve always done. I realized, though, that I’ve added new ways to support those strategies and some of the ways I support them are different here than they were in Colorado.
I support my Fell Ponies’ healthy winter coats, one of their natural strategies for keeping warm in winter, in part through my nutrition program. My stud colt Globetrotter Moth’s coat shines when it’s not covered in frost!
One of the ways that I support their strategy of healthy winter coats is the nutritional program that I have them on. While that support was initially based on loose free choice minerals, I have in the past several years also added a dry-lot-support formula that includes healthy fat and copper which has added even more body and sheen to their coats. It is heartening to see and feel the health of the ponies’ coats in the depths of winter and to see that they are well protected by the hair’s ability to stand up, its length, and its thickness. Moth’s coat shines when it’s not covered in frost!
Fell Pony Stud Colt Globetrotter Moth in his paddock with lots of features to help him stay warm in winter.
The picture of my stud colt Globetrotter Moth in his paddock shows a few of the other ways that I support the ponies’ strategies for staying warm in winter here in South Dakota. His paddock is large, and you can see from his tracks through the snow that he makes use of its size to move around. He can easily go at a canter or gallop if he wants to; I’m grateful for this stallion-housing here.
Another difference from Colorado is wind direction. Our typical winter winds are from the northwest. Moth has a shed where he can get out of the wind. It’s just behind where I took this picture. But Moth prefers to stand out in the weather, as most of my Fell Ponies do. His favorite place to stand when the winds come from the normal direction is at the end of the barn near where he’s eating in the photo. However, unlike where we were in Colorado, winter storms can come not only from the northwest but also from the east. Providing cover from both directions, then, is always on my mind when I have ponies in paddocks rather than out on the hill.
The photo shows that when the wind came from the east, Moth used the west side of the shed (note all the hoofprints in the snow near where I took this picture) to protect himself from the wind. The summer sun shelter shown at the bottom of the paddock that I bought after moving to South Dakota is designed to be moveable and for its roof to be dropped so it can be a wind screen. After experiencing this recent storm, I may drop the roof and move it seasonally for Moth to give him options for seeking cover when winter wind blows from the east.
Another thing that I began doing about a decade ago to support the ponies’ stay-warm strategy of movement was how I feed hay. In the first photo from twenty years ago, there was a pile of hay for each pony. In Moth’s paddock recently in contrast, you can see that there are small piles spread out to encourage him to move as he eats, just as he would if he were grazing a pasture. Whenever I feed hay now, I spread it out in as many small piles as there is space for, each pile being 1-2 pony lengths apart. If you’re familiar with Jaime Jackson’s Paddock Paradise and track systems, this is my adaptation of that idea (you can read about my Alpine Pony Tracks by clicking here and here.)
I am grateful that my Fell Ponies have all come through this recent cold snap so well. I am sure that I will continue to tweak how I steward my herd in winter as new support strategies come to me. And I know my ponies will continue to teach me how I can better support their natural abilities to stay warm in winter. I also admit that after this last cold snap, at least for the moment, I’m thankful that winter here doesn’t last as long as it did in Colorado!
Morrissey, Jenifer. Fell Ponies: Observations on the Breed, the Breed Standard, and Breeding. Willowtrail Farm and Amazon, 2013, p. 120.
© Jenifer Morrissey, 2024
