Excursion Day 1: Merfelder Bruch
Friday, September 25th, 2009 02:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mothwingWe left Hamburg in the early hours of the morning for our excursion to the Merfelder Bruch, home of the last remaining herd of wild ponies in Germany. While other herds did not survive because their feeding grounds became scarce as cultivation increased, the local Herzogs protected a part of the horse's habitat and the herd, which has been living in the area since the thirteenth century.
In contrast to other herds of wild horses these are all female, for there is not enough room to accommodate a herd with both males and females. The colts are caught once a year, some of them are sold and tamed, only two stallions returned and the rest of the colts that are not sold sent to live in a separate area. To prevent inbreeding there have been projects in the past decades to exchange colts with similar herds of wild ponies in Poland.
We heard to rather interesting talks on the horses, the area and projects to support them, and were lucky enough to have the horses really close by, up to five meters from us, feeding and dozing.
During bad weather, they sometimes withdraw to the more foresty parts of their reservoir, but usually prefer the open unless it's absolutely necessary.
Horses grooming each other.
Dozing horses. The stripe as well as the dun colour is an indicator of their primitive origin, although the variations in colour as well as the texture of their manes shows that there are clearly some other influences in there.
Dozing horse.
Both the stripes on the legs as well as the long, dark stripe on the back is an indicator of their primitive background.
Forester giving a talk about the horses. As you can see, they're not particularly bothered by humans, seeing as they know that they won't do anything to them.
Pfeifengraswiese, abundant in molinia.
In contrast to other herds of wild horses these are all female, for there is not enough room to accommodate a herd with both males and females. The colts are caught once a year, some of them are sold and tamed, only two stallions returned and the rest of the colts that are not sold sent to live in a separate area. To prevent inbreeding there have been projects in the past decades to exchange colts with similar herds of wild ponies in Poland.
We heard to rather interesting talks on the horses, the area and projects to support them, and were lucky enough to have the horses really close by, up to five meters from us, feeding and dozing.
During bad weather, they sometimes withdraw to the more foresty parts of their reservoir, but usually prefer the open unless it's absolutely necessary.
Horses grooming each other.
Dozing horses. The stripe as well as the dun colour is an indicator of their primitive origin, although the variations in colour as well as the texture of their manes shows that there are clearly some other influences in there.
Dozing horse.
Both the stripes on the legs as well as the long, dark stripe on the back is an indicator of their primitive background.
Forester giving a talk about the horses. As you can see, they're not particularly bothered by humans, seeing as they know that they won't do anything to them.
Pfeifengraswiese, abundant in molinia.
