By Eva Best

Can you feed New Forest Ponies?

A question we get asked a lot when we have visitors to our activity sites is “can you feed New Forest ponies?” The simple answer is no and here are the reasons why:

Top reasons you should not feed New Forest ponies...

They can be aggressive if fed

They are essentially wild animals and can bite. If everyone feeds them, they can get aggressive when people don’t. We have heard stories of horses biting passers by because they expect them to have food.

They become dependent on people for food

They are meant to source their own food and are perfectly capable of doing so in the open forest with lots of grazing for them to do. If they start becoming dependent on people for food then they will stop grazing as much, and as grazing animals help maintain the ecosystem this can be a problem for both horses and humans alike.

They end up approaching busy roads which lead to traffic accidents

New Forest ponies tend to venture towards busy areas and roads where they know people will be if they are used to being fed. In 2018, 63 animals were killed and a further 26 were injured in the New Forest. Whilst the numbers has decreased in recent years, we want to reduce it altogether and not feeding the animals is certainly a way to contribute towards this goal.

Ponies have had to be removed from the Forest due to learnt bad behaviour

Commoners who own the New Forest Ponies have had to remove them from the forest due to their behaviour becoming too much of a problem which in turn removes a lovely part of The New Forest and limits the animals from roaming freely.

The New Forest Ponies are beautiful animals who we are lucky to have live freely within the Forest, they are regularly checked by Commoners to make sure they are happy and healthy. They are a key part of The New Forest identity and it is our job to make sure they stay that way. So if someone asks you ‘Can you feed New Forest Ponies?’ the answer is no and let’s work together to keep it that way!