As soon as we got to the Corolla Wild Horse Foundation (CWHF), we were assigned to Mike, our "tour guide", and we loaded up into a big SUV. The only way to get to the wild ponies is to drive across the beach, so as you can imagine, the sand can get pretty deep at times, which makes for a fun ride! After driving down the beach for a couple miles, Mike shouted out, "Hold on...We're gonna ramp over a sand dune!" And sure enough, he stepped on the gas, and we ramped off of a huge dune. No wonder he said the cars out there only last for two to three years!
One of the first things that I learned when we got there was that the wild ponies travel in little herds called harems, which usually consist of one stallion and two to three mares (females). Mike also said that the stallions are not the harem leaders; the lead mare decides where to go and what to do...not too far off from real life, eh? I also learned that this particular herd of wild ponies consists of about 100 horses, but the CWHF isn't sure of that because there are 75,000 acres that the ponies can roam, so it's a little like finding a needle in a haystack. That was a little different from what I was expecting. However, we got lucky and saw around 25 ponies in total--about six different harems! The most common colors of the ponies are black, bay, and chestnut, but the majority of them are bays (brown body with black legs, mane, and tail).
The first harem we saw consisted of six horses--four mares and TWO stallions. I asked Mike why there were two, and he said that one was still young but would be kicked out of the harem soon by the lead stallion. One thing that I noticed is that these horses are so desensitized to people and cars that they didn't really care when we pulled up in a big SUV. We were about 20 feet away, and they were as calm as could be.
There is not much on the outer banks to eat right now (in the summer the ponies graze people's lawns), so the first harem we saw was eating acorns off the ground! I've never heard of horses eating acorns, but apparently they are high in calories. However, the ponies almost always eat off the ground and because of that, they consume a lot of sand (which we were able to see in their feces). For some reason, though, they don't get sand colic often, but it still can't be good for their system to be consuming that much sand. One thing that my mentor Paul noticed was that their BCS was astonishingly good: they weren't underweight, but they weren't very overweight either. It'll be interesting to see if parasites play a role in that.
Ok, now for pictures--lots of them!
Eating the acorns on the ground
You can see the sand in the middle!
From left to right: Paul, me, and the two college/grad students
I guess that fence didn't work too well...
How would you like to wake up to horses right outside your window?!
Enjoying the sun :)
A harem of four
This horse was enjoying the sun totally sprawled out on the sand!
You have to watch out when you're driving or else you could hit some horses walking across the road.
A little yearling
This mare had a significant limp when she walked.
Eating more acorns!
We are going into the lab tomorrow for a little, so no day off for me, but I'm not complaining! Well, I told Mary that I would be done in three minutes, and she's currently counting, so I better go!
Grace, your winterim sounds amazing so far! It's very cool that you're able to work out in the field first-hand with the horses. They are unbelievably cute, and that's just from the pictures. Hope your second week is great, and can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lauren! I've actually been reading your blog, too, and it's really interesting! Hope you're having a great time.
DeleteI forgot to add last night that Mike was talking about how they use PZP in their herd! It was fun to be able to apply something that I learned early in the week to the herd that I was going to see. He also said that it was very effective and that they were only expecting one foal this year. Amazing!
ReplyDeleteVery exciting! Your post makes me think of lots of questions. Where exactly in the Outer Banks are you? Acorns? Really? What else can they find to eat this time of year? How many pounds of food a day does a horse need to eat to sustain itself? Did you drive all the way back to Raleigh or are you staying on the island?
ReplyDeleteWe were on the Currituck Banks, which is very close to Corolla. We saw some horses eating grass, but it was brown and I'm sure had very little nutritional value. It definitely depends on what they are eating, but I know that a domestic horse needs to eat about 2% of its body weight every day. Since acorns are higher in calories, I bet it is less than 2%. We drove all the way back last night!
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