This is Herb’s Knight, and we call him “Herb.”

We always have a strong urge to do a “greater good” with our stewardship of equines, with our stewardship of God’s Creation.  We’ve adopted, owned, and gentled wild mustangs in the past.  We have a miniature mule who really serves no real purpose other than the vast amount of entertainment value that he provides to us.  He also does a fine job as a companion animal to our three Tennessee Walking Horses that roam our property.

We have big hearts, and we want to feel good doing things that serve a higher cause.

Running a breeding farm for horses as a business comes with a lot of the negative aspects of the industry.  The feeling of loss that we have when each of our horses finds a new home is balanced out with the joy that they provide their new owners, but there’s always pressure to make sure that we run the business for profit lest we run into financial situations where we cannot continue to do the things that we love.

We wanted to do something that “gives back” to the horse breeds of the world without it being business-related, and we wanted to focus on something more firmly rooted in North America.  While we had wild mustangs in the past, we now find ourselves at an age where that sort of risky behavior just isn’t well-balanced for us.  One bad injury, and we pay for that for the rest of our lives.  Mustangs are a young person’s game.

The desire to do something more led me on a journey of examining all horse breeds.  There are a lot of horse breeds, but I combed through many of them.  One thing that endears us to the Gypsy Horses is their unique human-friendly personalities.  For a long time, I would say that the Gypsy Vanner Horse is the only breed of horses that have temperament and human-friendly dispositions written into their breed standard.

That search led me to Newfoundland Ponies, the second breed that I know has their friendly temperament written into their breed standard.

Newfoundland Ponies led me to Herb’s Knight.

For a long time, I was an active member of The Livestock Conservancy.  I did a lot with poultry (the other half of the farm name of “Horse” “feathers”).  We’ve personally owned poultry from over 150 individual chicken breeds and I still have a lexicon of chicken knowledge in my head.  We still maintain a smaller flock of about 25 chickens for eggs for personal use (nowhere near the nearly 200 that we had at one time when we were commercially licensed to sell our free-range chicken eggs).

I may get involved with The Livestock Conservancy once again, since Newfoundland Ponies are on their list of critically endangered equine breeds.

My greatest joy with horses comes from caring for and nurturing them and doing the same for their offspring.  This time of year, right now, is the low point of the year while mares are cooking up this spring and summer’s babies (which is why I’m writing all these horse introductions right now to catch up to where we are until foal watches start and then I don’t get to sleep for 3 or 4 months straight).

Newfoundland Ponies offer me a break from the pressures of breeding for conformation, matchmaking for specific outcomes, and breeding for marketability, since the goal of breeding Newfoundland Ponies is to “breed all that you can” to preserve genetic diversity and propagate the recovery of the breed.  It doesn’t matter how they look (even when, overall, they are beautiful)…all of them need to have their genetics preserved.  They also fit the profile of the smaller horses that we enjoy working with on our farm.  Additionally, they have a marked lack of genetic diseases common in most other equine breeds.  They don’t come with the baggage of extreme amounts of grooming requirements for mane and feather.  And then, if all that wasn’t good enough, the ponies that emerged out of the equine stock brought to Newfoundland in the early 1600’s have a basis in the pony breeds that were also the same progenitor breeds that went into nearly half of the making of modern Gypsy Horses (which explains some of the personality traits being the same).

Herb needed a new home.  Herb was located on the island of Newfoundland.  We wanted Herb to be a herd sire for this next chapter we’re opening in the history of our farm.

We took our time examining the fit on our farm.  Our climate and topography up here on the Cumberland Plateau several thousand feet above the nearby valleys and flatlands seems especially suited to Newfoundland Ponies.  We investigated the importation process.  We made the decision to move forward.

It was not the most ideal time of the year to import a horse from the Maritime Provinces of Canada.  The last ship out off the island of Newfoundland was leaving mid-December, and if Herb wasn’t on that boat, then he likely would not be able to leave until sometime in March.

With a bit of urgency then, we acted quickly to get things arranged.  We had a whole lot of help from very good people all along the way (Herb’s owner, transporters, stable owners, veterinarians).

Herb made it to us before New Years’ Day, and we drove him the last four hours home from Lexington, Kentucky to where we live.

Herb is what is known as a “radical changer,” which is something I learned about with this breed.  It’s like roan but think of it like “super roan.”  They often have four completely different coat colors, one for each season of the year.  Herb is already starting to show a little bit of light flecking on his hind quarters as we’ve been warming up from our January lows.

There is just a tad over 1,000 Newfoundland Ponies that are registered with The Newfoundland Pony Society.  Birth records for the registry go back to the late 1960’s, and, approximately, 400 that are registered are no longer with us.  That leaves 600.  Of those 600, only an estimated 250 are either not gelded or are of the proper age and soundness to be considered for breeding.  Only 10% of Newfoundland Ponies are “radical changers.”  I honestly didn’t know how special this was until Herb was on his way to us.  Herb is such a special boy, and we are deeply honored to have him.

Herb, much like his barn partner on the other side of our barn, Bruiser, is a young stallion with a lot of fire in his blood.  He’s ready to be a full stallion.

There are many differences between Gypsy Vanner Horses and Newfoundland Ponies.  The ponies at much lighter weights are much better than their draft horse cousins at jumping fences.  We have springtime infrastructure modifications being planned to make extra spaces for Newfoundland Ponies to live in that are safe for all (that will keep Herb from fraternizing with other horses).

Once the infrastructure is completed, we will be looking for Herb’s future wives.  We’ll also likely be looking for one more stud as distantly related to Herb as possible to cross over their future offspring one to the other.  This other stud could be very young, because we have years before any of Herb’s offspring might be suitable to be bred over to this new colt.  We would love the opportunity to welcome another young boy to our farm…but…one thing at a time.

Herb’s quite a character in the barn when I greet him for his twice daily care.  He’s adjusted his diet and routine quite well to how we do things.  He drinks very little compared to most of our Gypsy Horses, though.  At about 13hh, he drinks about the same amount as our 11hh Miniature Gypsy Horse, Bruiser (who probably weighs close to the same as Herb).  Some of our larger Gypsy Horses can drink in excess of 15 gallons of water per day, but Bruiser and Herb drink less than 5 gallons apiece.

I can’t wait to put some of Herb’s foals on the ground.  The eventual plan would be to hopefully repatriate some of them to Canada or move some of them to other concerned breeders who would be interested in continuing the work of preservation and recovery.  In the meantime, though, these would be my horses with no concern for making any kind of profit from them.  Just green pastures full of little hooves.  We would eventually like to set up a not-for-profit to get a little bit of help for them financially, but money wouldn’t be a primary consideration for our Newfoundland Ponies.  It would be the charity that we provide from our other jobs and operations to support something that we see as good and worthy.

Herb has a bright future as a part of Horsefeathers Farm.