Dülmen Pony

Dülmener horses Merfelder break

The Dülmener horse, also Dülmener wild horse is a pony breed, predominantly in Dülmen in Westphalia Merfelder break, a 350 -acre nature reserve, lives. In the wild horse railway is currently home to around 300 horses with little human intervention. Outside the site live horses are not designated as Dülmener wild horse, but as Dülmener. The counting of the oldest German horse breeds and originally Dülmener Brücher mentioned horses are out on the red list of endangered breeds of GEH since February 1994 and are in the risk category I, ie risk than extremely classified. The horse was Dülmener (GEH ) explained by the Society for the Conservation of Old and Endangered Livestock Breeds for 'at-risk livestock breed of the Year " in 2014.

The Dülmener wild horse is from a biological perspective, no wild horse. The name refers to the half-wild lifestyle.

Background information on the evaluation and breeding horses can be found at: exterior, interior and horse breeding.

Exterior

The Dülmener wild horse is a breed of horses originally looking of mostly brown or Grauf alber coloring, which has the typical wild horses dorsal stripe from mane to tail. It dun come in all shades, but occasionally other colors except white horse before. Foxes are very rare. Based on previous breeding but dominate graufalbe and braunfalbe animals with dorsal stripe and rarely a shoulder cross. On the legs can cause dark stripes, reminiscent of a zebra. The so-called zebra stripes are also wild drawings, they also will often occur at Fjord horses and other dun horse breeds. White markings are undesirable.

The Height of Dülmener horse is 125-135 cm, the body is rectangular with little pronounced withers and the shoulder angle. The neck should not be too long and slightly curved, with a slight negative neck may be present. The provided with a broad forehead head is medium in size, the ears are small and the nose straight or slightly concave. The hindquarters are muscular and well developed, the hooves should be small, hard and round and the string is not too pronounced. The Dülmener and their descendants have a strong hanging on the chains. Also, mane and tail hair is very pronounced.

Interior

The animals are considered to be extremely robust and durable, this highly trainable as good-natured, friendly and with appropriate treatment as. They are very frugal and good food recyclers.

Breeding history

The first mention of Dülmener horses dates back to 1316, when Herman de Merfeld and John de Lette guaranteed the right to hunt, fish and wild horses.

Through progressive agricultural intensification previously under-utilized areas in the 19th century, for example, by the drying up of fens and meadows, restricted to the habitat for wild horses a more and more. Probably the Dülmener horses could not have been obtained unless Alfred of Croy 1847 twenty wild horses would be captured and on the 132 acres ( about 33 hectares) would have provided large area of wild horses train Merfelder break for their preservation. Added to this was the entire remainder of the Emscherbrücher horses, was captured after the dissolution of the local wild and transported to Dülmen. The rapid multiplication of the herd of horses brought by and by an expansion of the area to its present level of around 350 acres with it.

In the first half of the 20th century, the Dülmener horses were less uniform and occurred in different colors and with different badges. To minimize the consequences of inbreeding in this originally very small population and to obtain the intention of the race the breeding goal accordingly as a small breed of horse was started Einzüchtung of other pony breeds. Initially, we used Welsh ponies, ponies later from Mongolia and from Exmoor and Hutsul and especially from 1957 Polish Konik. Since 1984 only graufalbe stallions are crossed, this color has greatly increased in the portfolio.

Lifestyle and attitude

The Dülmener horses live - largely unaffected by humans - and relatively free all year Merfelder break. Only in severe winters they are supplied there with additional feed of hay, straw, and possibly also of silage.

The breed is however strictly regulated in order to obtain this breed as possible unchanged and stable. This implies that on the last Saturday, the young stallions are caught and sold at a much -attended event by hand in May of each year. The stallions live only in the period from May to September when the herd to control the birth dates of the foal. The herd itself is divided into family groups consisting of related mares and their foals and will be led by a mare.

Outside the wild Dülmener be estimated as diverse small horses, the use predominates as a riding horse for children. They can live in year-round open stable and need not take up valuable grazing ground. While the small horses were often used in past centuries as pit ponies underground, the Dülmener are now often used as riding and horse family.

Since the Dülmener protected against all potential predators live, so old and weak animals are not killed by hunters, the most common cause of death is starvation, because old animals can take due to the heavily worn teeth barely feed.