Past Projects - Mundrabilla
Mundrabilla station lies on the Nullabor with the homestead being visible form Eyre Highway. It is the home of a
population of ponies originally introduced in the mid nineties by the then owner Rodger Langford.
His intention was to breed a good kids pony that was bred tough but had a good temperament. To this end he invested
in good stallions, two Shetlands from Pentland Stud in Victoria , and a taffy welsh stallion ....Australian riding
ponies were thrown in to the mix and a good line evolved. The stud was managed but when Rodger left in 1985 to
return to Perth and set up a stud there, taking 70 ponies with him, the remainder were left to run wild.
The station now belongs to Brie and Colin Campbell and they have enjoyed having the ponies there but the numbers
have increased to almost 200 and, as is usually the case, they are competing with cattle for water and feed.
The crunch came for Colin and Brie when a bad drought year saw them carting water out to troughs to keep
the ponies and cattle going. They reluctantly decided that the ponies would have to go and through mutual contact
we offered to try and help out.
That resulted in two expeditions...one to asses the situation and one with some action! Brie and Colin were
generous hosts on both occasions so the mission was more of a luxury holiday compared to previous trips!
There are two dams on the property, one near the road end and one quite a bit further in. We decided
to focus on the former as it made trapping and transport easier, however the ponies living there
were the smaller types, throwing more to the Shetland side of things, whereas the taller ones were further in. Consequently
we weren't able to source taller ponies which is where most of the interest was.
Due to Colin’s swift action we were lucky to get any ponies!....he carted water out the day before we arrived,
and having quite a number of ponies in the yard that night he shut the gate...which was just
as well...as the drought broke that night and all the cattle and ponies that had been hanging around for weeks totally
vanished! They would only come back when the surface water dried up,...and there was no saying when that would happen.
The next day we sorted through them...unable to take heavily pregnant mares knocked a lot out,
or mature stallions...our main focus was on youngsters....so in the end we selected 7 ponies
and trucked them back to the homestead...all this was in the blistering mid-day heat so the air-conditioning
in the roadhouse beckoned and we recovered there and the ponies stayed in the truck under a tree, nodding off
as if they had been doing it all their lives.
The next mission was to deburr the manes and tails as the ponies are in a quarantine area
for certain plants that produce burs that stick in their thick coats. Once yarded, we
kept running them up and through the raceway until they were doing it at a walk, then the next day did the same but
closed the crush gate, one by one until they had been brushed from head to toe...no mean feat!
They handled it remarkably well after they realised we were not going to hurt them...and
I'm sure were relieved to have those massive bangs cut off their tails.
Having accomplished the required coiffure we set off the next day, stopping overnight
in Kalgoorlie to spell them and have them inspected. They all travelled well
and the next day got them to Perth without any dramas.
The majority went to a private property near Waroona from which some have been
subsequently sold. It seems that Rodger got his genetics right as the ponies
have turned out to have lovely temperaments and have adapted to domestic life beautifully.
Colin and Brie have carried on trapping , halter breaking and selling the
ponies, so if anyone is interested in obtaining one please contact them
directly at..
0890393280
or..
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they now?
