Sunday 9th August

 Another hot one today. Ponies munching off the main track. Flies beginning to gather!

8th August 2026

Warm morning and initially no sign of the ponies, but when I got back from the sheep, Hoopy and Doune were in the corral and Kat and Flam a little bit further back along the bottom track. Kat and Flam had lots of flies, but not so bad in the corral. All looked well. 

Friday 7th August

​All the ponies being less bothered by the flies today . All by the entrance in the shade, no issues. Both troughs full . 

Thursday 6th August

A cooler morning and the ponies were out grazing, spread out quite widely, although just about within sight of each other, some 200-300m from the main gate and downhill a little.  They didn't seem too troubled by flies this morning - but no whiffs of garlic detected.  All seemed well. Trough near main gate was fine and I didn't get to the top trough.

Wednesday 5th

9.45, 4 ponies were in the corral, caught a whiff of garlic but the containers were empty. They all looked well, eyes ok, quite a few flies, mainly on Kat. Her forehead looked a little bit mangey. Trough was full. 

Garlic update!

Hi all, I am off on leave for 2 weeks so thought I should update you. I have temporarily stored 3 licks inside the fenced-out enclosure around the water tank at the western entrance. I can't give the ponies full access as they will get through the supply so fast! I am hoping that Tom will give them full access when he runs a work party on Friday 14th but unless you are spending some time on site, please just leave the licks in there for the moment. Do please check that the ponies haven't managed to get in and steal them though!! Hoping all will be ok with the lovely ponies in my absence but you have all the other staff numbers. It is probably best to ring Tom Graham if there is an issue - his number is on the main blog. Thanks all for your continued checks!

Monday 3rd - staff check

I had bought some proper garlic lick holders so thought i'd install 4 in the corral.  It took quite a while in the heat 🥵 with pony onlookers.. opened the gate to let the ponies in and within a minute Flam had ripped one of the holders off that I'd screwed tovthe sode of the corral! It clearly wasn't a good enough job!

Hoopy is the only civilised pony amongst the lot is my conclusion after watching them for 10 minutes! She is happy to just lick a mineral lick, whereas the others bite at them, try to pick them up and run off with them, and try and break the holders!! So my plan hasn't really worked very well and I will have to take the licks off site again.  Still a lot of flies about and Hoopy affected more than the others but all their eyes do look ok.  Carnage in the pony lick area too after the weekend - all their empties were strewn across the site - hooligans! Water supply tooped up today too.

Tuesday 4th August

The ponies were on the hill close to the main gate, and amongst the dry grasses. And covered in flies, especially Hoopy. All seemed well. At the end of my butterfly survey they were back in the corral, again covered in flies. The blue hanging buckets were all empty, not sure if they should be or not. 

Sunday 2nd August

 The ponies were gathered by the corral this morning. They were rather restless and a bit grumpy. Flies less of a bother.

Saturday 1st August

Well, mild garlic-lick carnage! Found the ponies in the garlic-lick area (the first gladed area you come to on the fence line path). Flam had her head stuck in one of the buckets still attached to the fence, coming up every now and then to breath with a frenzied look on her face. I found three more buckets, 2 x blue and one black one. The black one and its contents appeared untouched. The other buckets were empty and partially destroyed 😂. I found one of the licks in the hedge, covered in grasses, so managed to right in and put it back in a blue bucket. Disgusting 😀. No sign of the last remaining lick and the yellow container was empty too, so either they've finished it off or its hidden somewhere in the undergrowth. But they seemed okay, the multiple licks is a great idea and reduced the tension amongst them, so all relatively calm and looking well. And the lick will hopefully keep the flies away, but it definitely keeps me at bay!!

Please form an orderly queue....

is that a face of utter contentment?