Our Ponies

We practice a hybrid of regenerative farming and rewilding and fell ponies are a core part of our farming system, supporting the restoration of biodiversity on the farm.

Our management system on the farm is simply separated by three different areas across the landscape. The lower (in-bye) fields are grazed during the growing season by our herd of shorthorn cattle, using electric fencing to mob graze through the meadows, which allows for long rest and recovery periods for each area the herd grazes. At the very top of the farm, we have a block of fell, Great Meldrum, which the ponies graze for 8 months of the year (March to October). The fell is a mixture of heather and bilberry moorland, alongside boggy and grassy bits. The final area is wood pasture, that forms a strip across the middle of the farm. This is rested during the growing season, with the exception of a small herd of Kune Kune pigs having access. This rest allows us to have a stockpile of grass, which the ponies and cattle have access to during winter.

We currently have a small herd of 5 fell ponies on the farm, three of which are from the Globetrotter herd and we own two. The ponies are key grazers, primarily for two reasons. If you spend time watching ponies, you’ll observe that they have different eating habits to cattle and pigs. Fell ponies are adapted to eat the hardest of plants, such as tufted hair grass, rushes and thistles, that our cattle will only nibble. Having ponies impacting these rougher plants means that no plant will dominate and we continue to have a diverse range of species in our sward.  The second reason is for their dung. Cows are ruminants, which in simple terms, means they have multiple stomachs and a more complex digestive system, whereas ponies are monogastric, meaning they have one stomach. Ultimately this means their dung is different and diversity in dung, which provides fertility in our soil, supports our diversity in plants as well as the invertebrates that feed and help breakdown the dung. Dung beetles in particular seem to enjoy pony dung as it is often drier and therefore easier for them in inhabit. This applies particularly in our system, where the ponies are given no routine medicines which would be harmful to the invertebrates that enjoy the dung so much! We also find that seeds survive better through the digestive system of ponies, therefore their dung acts as seeds bombs, distributing diversity further across the farm.

The small number of ponies here thrive in their natural environment. As they are managed in a system that supports and encourages improvements in biodiversity, they are some of the healthiest ponies we have seen. Spending so much time with the cattle in winter means that they respect and are calm around other livestock, which is a characteristic which is key to our system. Ponies are very intelligent animals, who need a herd structure and plenty of stimulation, which is most definitely what they get here at Gowbarrow.