Mr Raffles
A big warm welcome to the lovely Mr Raffles (top picture), who arrived at Redwings late in November. He is a 15.1hh Chestnut gelding with a beautiful white star on his forehead.
Mr Raffles was found abandoned on National Trust land in Gloucestershire. His owners, who were never found, left him amongst a group of ponies that graze there. The owner of the group of ponies had been feeding Mr Raffles every Winter, but he hadn’t been getting any routine care - like having is feet trimmed. The National Trust became very concerned for Mr Raffles and decided to ask Redwings for help.
Our welfare team went off to collect Mr Raffles in our special Horse Ambulance. He was an incredibly good boy and marched straight up to them. He hopped straight in the Horse Ambulance and made the long journey back to Norfolk!
Mr Raffles now lives at one of our closed sites with a big herd of horses. Hopefully one day he will learn how to be a ridden horse then go out into a Guardian home!
Happy New Year!
Everybody at Redwings would like to say a big THANK YOU to all you Young Redwings for being such brilliant supporters over the past year.
2009 was a very busy one for us… You will be able to read all about it in the next magazine, which will be arriving on your doorsteps in March. Yippee!
We hope you all have a very happy 2010 and that you can come to visit us soon. Enjoy it!
Ponies in the Snow
Red would like to reassure you all that our ponies are loving the snow, like little Jade who is pictured to your right! Ponies are naturally equipped to live outdoors, especially ones that are native to Britain - in the Winter they grow big thick woolly coats to keep them warm. They have waterproof oils in their coats too which help them to keep body heat in.
If you have read the Winter Warmers article in the Spring 2009 edition of the Young Redwings magazine then you might have heard this before… Imagine a snowflake landing on your hand. It melts within a few seconds doesn’t it? This is because heat escapes really quickly from our bodies. However, if a snowflake lands on a horse’s back, it will stay there for hours and hours. This is because their bodies are so good at keeping heat in.
All of Redwings’ staff are working really hard throughout the day and all through the night to make sure water tanks aren’t frozen over - and that all of our ponies have extra hay to munch on, as it can be pretty hard to get to the grass under all that snow!
