Star Dancer

A mother Chincoteague pony nuzzling her newborn foal on Assateague Island. 

i noticed somewhat of a trend of radio collar ids for wild canines so i looked into it. But since they are not as popular for wild horses i propose something else: Freeze Brands

They are used by the american BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and are actually an 8-digit ID;

The last three digits narrow the location even more down. A pdf with a lot of those "herd codes" can be found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161227055746/https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/statistics/2005/FY2005_Stats.pdf

Obviously this isn't a perfect solution, but i really liked the idea and wanted to share my take on it.

Since i am not american but my country doesn't really have any actually wild horses (just some in nature reserves so there is no real need for monitoring) i adapted it a bit:

i think something cool that us domestic horses could do is create a symbol for themselves! heres some info about what different placements and common symbols mean from the American Quarter Horse Association.

"The Chincoteague Pony Association was run by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company (CVFC) from 1994 to 2012. All of the stallions and mares in the feral herd were assigned a number. From 1994 to 2008 the auction numbers were the dam's number. It wasn't always reliable, but usually if you know a foal's auction number from those years then you can identify the dam. The ponies in the feral herd when the association was founded in 1994 were branded with their number, usually on their shoulder. Accompanied by an F, for the fire company. The stallion numbers were S with a number. This was also when all of the feral ponies received names. Friendly Girl/Witchkraft was the last living pony in the herd with that brand. Ponies after that usually just had the birth year branded, like they do today. And occasionally with an F. Thanks to a lot of hard work over the years the pony community has figured out many of the numbers. There's still some we know the name and number but haven't figured out which pony it goes to. Others we know the number and the pony but not the name. Or we know the pony but not the name or number."

"National Park Service assigns numbers to Maryland Assateague Horses. These numbers are called Keiper numbers after Dr. Ronald Keiper who devised the system. The number identifies and tracks the maternal line of a pony. Dr. Keiper gave each herd a letter in 1975 and then each pony a number, such as N10. A letter is assigned to each birth year starting with A in 1976. The example pony N10OY descends from the original N10, who then had N10O born in 1990, who then had N10OY born in 2000. Horses having X numbers had unknown parentage at the time they were recorded. Some lost their X designation and were renumbered thanks to a genetic study performed in 2005."

"F means the pony is/was a feral pony living on Assateague. All Maryland feral ponies have this designation. Only some of the Virginia feral ponies do. If the pony is not a buyback (or not known if they are) then they have an F rather than a B. Some ponies were simply kept and thus don't have a buyback donor. Others were donated back to the herd later and have a donor but are not a buyback. B means the pony is a buyback and was/is a feral pony living on the Virginia end of Assateague. A buyback is a pony that was donated back to the CVFC by someone(s). The buyback donor usually selected the pony's name. Occasionally we never found out what name the donor selected. The name of the donor is listed in the record whenever possible. We thought that having both F and B on buybacks would be redundant. M means that pony is a descendant of Misty of Chincoteague. Their relationship to Misty is listed in the notes of the pony's record. H means the pony is a half Chincoteague Pony. Only one parent is shown on their record, their Chincoteague parent. The name of the non-Chincoteague parent is listed in the notes and their pedigree is linked to whenever possible. Half Chincoteagues that were part of the Virginia feral herd are considered full Chincoteagues and do not have this designation."

"The Chincoteague Pony Pedigree Database is the official database and studbook of the International Chincoteague Pony Association and Registry (ICPAR). The CPPD was founded in 2015 and then partnered with the ICPAR at its founding in 2021. The partnership provides an online studbook for the breed association, something that's common with many horse registries. The CPPD is a separate entity."

i noticed somewhat of a trend of radio collar ids for wild canines so i looked into it. But since they are not as popular for wild horses i propose something else: Freeze Brands

They are used by the american BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and are actually an 8-digit ID;

The last three digits narrow the location even more down. A pdf with a lot of those "herd codes" can be found here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20161227055746/https://www.wildhorseandburro.blm.gov/statistics/2005/FY2005_Stats.pdf

Obviously this isn't a perfect solution, but i really liked the idea and wanted to share my take on it.

Since i am not american but my country doesn't really have any actually wild horses (just some in nature reserves so there is no real need for monitoring) i adapted it a bit:

i think something cool that us domestic horses could do is create a symbol for themselves! heres some info about what different placements and common symbols mean from the American Quarter Horse Association.

If you are a fantastic horse, happy friday