Newsletter No 66 Fforest Uchaf Farm. Maindy Road, (Maendy) Penycoedcae, Pontypridd. R.C.T, Wales. UK. CF37 1PS Tel; 01443 480327 info@pitponies.co.uk www.pitponies.co.uk www.sponsorapony.co.uk Open to visitors; May/Oct=Sunday 11am – 4pm. Weekdays 10am – 2pm. Closed Saturdays Nov/April= by appointment, Adults £4:00 OAP/Children £2:00 or £10:00 per car. Groups/Schools/Clubs by appointment. Specialwww.visitpitponies.co.uk needs visitors please telephone to discuss your needs. NB All visitors it is always advisable to telephone 01443 480327 or 07798584735 before you visit.
PROVIDING TENDER LOVING CARE TO NEEDY HORSES & PONIES
A picture appeared on Facebook in May with the story that the pony was “free to a good home”. This is a picture of the last so called “good home” he was in. It was not good at all, more of a pony prison. Poor little Lightening was homed from pillar to post around the South Wales area all his life. He was a full stallion. No-one would invest the £200 odd pounds to have him gelded. He is a very quiet and friendly little chap. His current home is with us thanks to a lady called Sue (who sometimes wears a cow one piece suit). She was moved by the stories going around and bothered herself to track him down to the grotty little yard you see in this picture. The folds of skin especially around his lower neck tell us he suffered dramatic weight loss recently. Being a stallion has meant no-one wanted him? He is not good enough quality to use for breeding, (by any-one who cares where their foals eventually end up).
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Here is Lightening pictured just after arrival at the Centre. He has just been seen by the Vet and micro-chipped for his passport. Hence the indignant look. Since then he has been gelded by a vet thanks to another lovely lady who made a little money on some shares. The picture left/below shows him meeting some sweet fillies for the first time in October. Of course he had company all along but not fillies. Soon after this he went out with the entire herd. He has settled in very well and has lots of four legged friends. Mostly female our geldings seem to have very little time for him. There is always a possible problem with gelding a mature stallion that they will change in nature. Lightening is still the sweet gentleman he was and is usually seen with a little group of ladies about his size. The picture inserted above/left is of Lightening in his stable with three little ladies for company and the other four are just over the wall next door for his winter. Well done Jools & Sue money is very useful when helping the needy.
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When a dog has a nice tasty bone to gnaw & chew and a mother hen and her chicks is after it too. Who wins? (See page 7)
The Grand Bonfire night prize draw raised £2516:00.
Thank you all who took part
and sold tickets to friends & family. The lucky winners were. 1 prize £250:00 went to Ms Moncrieff in Scotland. 2nd prize £50:00 went to Mrs Brown in Guernsey. 3rd prize £25 gift voucher went to Mrs Turner in Hampshire. Of course the real winners were the Ponies after printing costs and prizes £2022:34 went to the general fund for Feed, Vet, and Farrier etc. That will buy a good bit of winter feed. Your Grand Saint David’s Day Prize Draw tickets are enclosed please do your best for the ponies you have until the end of February to sell out. If you want more books just let us know. st
We have just had the first load of feed for this winter.
It will last about 3 to 4 weeks depending on the weather. The bill is £1690:00 that does not include Hay, Straw, and Shavings etc.
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Watching wild Ponies on the bleak & barren commons last winter.
Rosie, Candy, Caramac, Rhona (front), Sapphire (behind), Bluebell and Geraldine.
7 Littlies you will doubtless recall came to us after having been dumped in a local Cemetery. They came through our Local Authority via the Dog Warden. Trading Standards were aware of their movement and we are assured all the necessary legal checks were taken. We informed the Police in October 2012 as we wondered if they had been stolen with intention of a quick profit. We had a read receipt but no reply. Sometime later when we had the Vet at the Centre we had them scanned and were surprised to find they were all micro-chipped. Armed with the chip numbers we contacted DEFRA and the Passport Issuing Authorities. Quite a while later a gentleman phoned from the Welsh Pony & Cob Society and asked for more details and later confirmed the chips were from a batch supplied to them. We asked them officially for help with replacement passports in June 2013. To date we still don’t have them. The Welsh Pony & Cob Society has been truly unhelpful and as difficult as possible to deal with. Trading Standards even told the previous owners where the ponies were. We had just popped up to see Angela’s mum when our daughter who was Farm sitting for a few days phoned early one morning to say some aggressive people had turned up demanding to see our ponies saying they were looking for theirs. Our daughter who has a baby in arms to care for as well as run the Centre was quite frightened by the incident and we had to drop everything and come back to the Farm. However it seems it was
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all just a smoke screen of pretence that they had been searching for their ponies, to try to avoid any legal action from Trading Standards. One year on, these little ponies have had the best of care and so there is a fair sized bill to pay for anyone who wants to claim them. It would seem the Horse Passport regulations are a farce. Horse owners are threatened with a £5000 fine for having a un-pass-ported equine but no-one seems to enforce it. . It appears DEFRA have no idea who owns any pony via the microchip. You have to write to all the authorities with the chip number hoping someone will recognize it and bother to reply. The National Equine Database is defunct. We were all sold the idea that if we had our Horses micro-chipped and they were stolen a simple scanning would reveal our details and we “Bluebell”. & Patricia getting her would get our Horses back. used to people and being ridden. It now seems we were sold a pup, and if anyone finds a Horse in another part of the country it will take a lot of effort and searching for them to be able to contact the owner. The regulations say if a horse already has a passport you can’t re-passport it. However if (as in our case) you have horses that are micro-chipped but someone else holds the passports and won’t pass them on? You can’t get passports for them. DEFRA don’t want to know. The Welsh Government seems to be doing nothing different for Wales.
Bonnie is Puzzles mum.
However Star has muscled in and almost taken over. Puzzle goes to Bonnies for milk but spends a lot of his time with Star. When we have to separate them she behaves like his mother whereas Bonnies seems quite at ease with it all. We have recently taken puzzle away from his mum as he is now six months old and Bonnie needs to build herself up for winter. Star has taken over the mums role and is quite protective towards little puzzle. He is busy making new friends in the Herd here at the Centre.
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Special Volunteer Patricia is pictured here de-lousing the last of our herd, “Star”. The entire herd has been done several times this summer. She is such a hard worker. According to her all the ponies had lice. The lice powder is good for the ponies and keeps them free of all the other pests anyway. She has now at last gone to Specsavers for an eye-test. Could be a TV ad in that? Below some of the Littlies having a nice cool drink from the spring fed top pond. We had some visitors this summer with a very hairy and hot Newfoundland dog he is also pictured enjoying the pond in a different way. He absolutely loved it and swam up & down for ages cooling off before and after his walk. No bother to the ducks & geese just enjoying a cool refreshing time.
Mrs Yeo has been busy again this summer and donated another £67:00 from her craft work sales. She also came to Roath Park Festival with Roy and helped on the stall all day. She donated a lot of handmade children’s face masks. They went down very well and many scary Monsters, Pirates, Tigers, Clowns etc. helped many small children enjoy their day out. Arnie, Deana, Dylan (behind) and Sandra drawing the winners.
The hen.(from page 3)
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A Little taste of Wales.
Llanddarog Fair Cakes Traditionally sold as “Fairings”. These little cakes from Carmarthenshire contain beer and are topped with dried fruit. (Alternative suitable for vegans & vegetarians) Ingredients 6 oz self-raising flour. 2 oz caster sugar. Pinch of sea salt. 3 dessert-spoons of beer. 4 oz butter if not vegan. (Solid baking fat for vegan alterative) 1 oz sultanas 1 oz currants. Method. Set oven to heat at 375 F/ 190 C or gas mark 5. Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl, then rub in the fat until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar, and then add the beer and mix to a soft dough. Roll out on a lightly floured surface to almost ½ inch/1.25cm. Cut into rounds with plain cutter. Mix the sultanas & currents together and press into the tops of the rounds. Bake for 15 minutes in your pre heated oven and then cool on a wire rack. Serve plain. Mwynhewch y pryd! (Enjoy your meal)
Thank you all who are saving & sending Stamps for our Charity you sent sufficient stamps to The Pit Pony Sanctuary C/o Fords Farm, Horsey, Norfolk. NR29 4 EP to raise a further £22.62. Please keep on telling you friends, work colleagues etc. At £6 per kilo its money for old rope. However it may not last forever so get them sent soon. That first feed bill of £1690:00 could have been paid for with 282 kilos of old used stamps.
Interaid charity shop in Crewys Road Cardiff and working hard and recently presented a cheque in late June for £1000. Also customer Nicky Askins saved loose change and raised £30.95. A mystery man gave £10 and a little competition raised a further £15. Well done Chris & Co. Miss Lynfa J Evans wrote that her sister Susan Evans of Orpington sent £50. The cheque was from Lynfa & Mr Fred Edwards instead of presents for her 50th birthday. Well done all & Happy Birthday Susan from us and the Ponies.
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Donations have recently been received in memory of; Sylvia Wilson, Duncan Lyon, Mrs Thurman’s father in law Bob Mr David M Rees, Mrs Jean Cooper, Miss Edna Riches, oO-0-Oo
Letters from Friends of the Ponies. N.B, Not our words, thoughts or opinions and printed as written warts & all.
Mr & Mrs Lovell from London wrote. “Sorry no computer-still getting used to sliced bread! That gave us a laugh as we know how she feels! Mrs Margaret Clinch from Darwin Australia wrote; I have just had one month in the UK and was looking forward to visiting your Pit Pony refuge and meeting some of you. However I was on the big highway and past Pontypridd before I knew it. It was raining, and so I weakly travelled on. Hopefully next time I will get to see you. I have a special interest in your particular area. My great uncle was from Devon but went to Pontypridd to look after Pit Ponies. He had previously worked at the Naval College at Dartmouth. I think he was actually a Farrier rather than a miner. In about 1948, I was taken over to Pontypridd from Devon with my mother to see him. He was living in a terraced cottage in a street with a long slag heap on the other side. He was probably in his 90’s then and I think he died soon afterwards. It is a happy memory. It does not help that his name was William Smith and I do not know what colliery he worked at. Of course I would be delighted if anyone knew of him. He had a sister called Elizabeth Smith living with him at one time. She was a midwife but she was also very elderly by then. She was my Great Grandmother. That is my connection. Hopefully I can visit another year. Mark Chaldecott from Cambridge wrote; I first found out about you a few years ago through a poster on the notice board of Addenbrooks Hospital – giving information about your work and asking for any CD’s, DVD’s etc. that you could sell to raise funds for your work. I am hoping this is still the case and am enclosing the DVD of “Hanna” 2010 staring Kate Blanchett. Mrs M A Everton from Suffolk wrote; don’t take away our independence. I am told there are still 6-7 million of us not on the computer. Let there be choice! Choice is freedom! Jen Hughes a teacher from the Phoenix Academy near Telford who worked with her pupils to help them with their English language and often used idea’s from our little Centre as teaching aids and organised things like a Lucky Dip one lunchtime. Year 9 pupils went on to sponsor Star and often wrote about her. Jen retired recently and we wish her well.
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