Help the working and rescue ponies on Gili T

We continue to care for the ponies living on-site at Stud.

Our daily routine involves giving them all a morning groom, dealing with any cuts or scrapes, leaky eyes or runny noses, or giving regular hoof care. There are currently 21 ponies living onsite. 7 of the larger horses are in regular work to earn the income to cover the running costs.

However, since our running costs are high (due to the general lack of horse supplies being readily available to us), and we have 3 times as many horses to sustain than the number of horses in regular work, it is always a struggle.

The working hours of our horses are strictly limited. Every horse gets one day off per week, and we have a strict weight limit policy in order to protect our animals. This sadly is not respected across the island with less-legitimate pony riding operators. Therefore our earning potential is limited, yet our expenses continue to ramp up.

We also aim to provide assistance or care to anyone who asks us for it. There are several horse cart owners that drop in on a regular basis to receive medical attention for their horses, vitamin injections, or to see if we have any equipment that they could use. Of course, if we are able to provide them with whatever we need, we are only too happy to do so, since one of our main goals is to support and improve relations with the local community.

Most of our medication, wormers and riding equipment has to be imported. That means friends and family who are visiting the islands are asked to bring over whatever they can.. this includes wormers, saddle soap and even saddles!! This creates an extra level of stress for us, as when things break (in our tough environment, this is often), it cannot always easily be replaced.

A great success this year is that we are still working together to help improve the education for vets in Lombok. Together with International vets, we help to provide students with a higher level of learning by offering field training not available to them through the veterinary university. In July, we hosted another clinic which included a gelding, horse gastroscopy, drawing of blood and giving the horses tetanus vaccines and any other required medication. We have always believed that we can help more horses or animals in the long term if we can improve education and empower the future of Lombok equine vets.

We would love to see a big drive towards providing more tetanus vaccines for the working ponies. We have seen several cases recently, and despite having dealt with one horse that survived, it is more often fatal. We have found a supply of tetanus vaccines, but the cost is US$25 per horse. There are over 300 horses living in Gili Trawangan alone!

What are our goals moving forward? To continue to build strong relations with the locals. Work together with Lombok Universities to educate local vets, and push the farrier education so that more horses can get good quality hoof trims and shoes.

And none of this could have happened without YOU. Our loyal supporters have not only kept our heads above water in the most challenging of times, but it also helps to spur us on, with energy, passion and motivation to look after not just our own ponies, but to offer help, advice and support to all of the ponies residing and working hard on Gili. 

THANK YOU!

Links:

• Facebook page updated often

Life in the Gilis

It seems that life in the Gilis has returned to ‘normal’! Finally! Tourism is booming, which means that the working ponies are working extra hard.

We now have 23 ponies living onsite at Stud Rescue. We offer horse rides to try to cover the costs of the feed, medications, staff salaries, equipment, and upkeep of the property, but the expenses are never-ending.

Our mission is to continue supporting the working ponies on the island by providing clinics for them and educational clinics for their owners, (luckily, the next one to take place soon, on the 1st July).

We always provide medical care where requested by horse cart drivers if their horses are having any issues. Recently a pony in terrible condition was brought to us with laminitis. His body condition was also not good, so we provided medical treatment for his feet and gave his owner some pellet feed to supplement his diet.

We are often brought ponies with a range of issues including coughs, wounds, or diarrhoea. After seeking advice from a passionate team of remote vets that support us, we will always provide whatever medical treatment we can. However, medicines are not cheap to purchase. Often they need to be imported from overseas. A great deal of our donations from our wonderful supporters goes towards medicines and treatments like this.

Since our last hoof care clinic, we have set up a new local farrier station on the island. We've provided it with better tools and access to good quality shoes and nails. The imported shoes that we have are slowly beginning to sell, and news of their availability is spreading.

Here's hoping this will bring a future of safer, more durable horse shoes for all the working ponies. Along with a more sustainable income of the local farriers that the volunteer vets trained.

What’s Next?

We will continue to push forward with our hoof care education project. We will arrange another clinic towards the end of the year. As always, teamwork with the local horse cart drivers and Koperasi is key. We aim to promote good working relationships between us and the drivers in order to offer better care to the ponies.

We would also like to work together with local vets to promote tetanus vaccines being given to working ponies. We are establishing good relationships with government-supported vets and hope to offer these vaccines in the future.

Once again, we thank all of our compassionate horse loving supporters who are helping us to keep this project alive for the better future and welfare of all Gili ponies.