Welcome to Outeniqua Moon Percheron stud farm
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Outeniqua Moon Guest Farm and Percheron Stud is located on the R328 between Mossel Bay and Oudtshoorn on the well-known Garden Route in South Africa. Here you can ake time out to ride on a cart; to touch and be amazed by the wonderful giant Percheron horses. Delight in petting the foals and stroking the lovely mares |
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Peter and Christine Watt arrived in the Ruiterbos district near Mossel Bay on December the 1st 2000. They had a vague idea of doing something with tourism on the run down farm with only a two bed-roomed pondok Today there is a lovely Victorian-style Guest house, with gorgeous accommodation where attention to comfort is the main priority. Being horse lovers they started looking at the different breeds. On a walk-about around Stellenbosch they stumbled onto Elsenburg’s Percherons. Peter immediately fell in love with the magnificent giants, Christine soon followed suite. |
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| Some research established that the Percherons were rarer than Rhinos. Their huge strength, wonderful temperaments, and economical metabolisms made them the trucks and tractors of their day. When the internal combustion engine came out, people found that there was no more need for these noble horses who had served them so selflessly, and they slaughtered them wholesale. From numbering in the millions right here in South Africa, the Percheron numbers sank as low as forty horses in the 1940’s. Grootfontein and Elsenburg, the government studs, struggled to preserve the breed. |
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The Watt’s realized that if the human race lost these wonderful animals they were in danger of losing something of their humanity and becoming machines like they ones they used. A calling was born and they joined a handful of breeders, preserving the breed. When they started there were only eighty registered Percherons in SA. Today a revival of interest has taken place and there are around 100 registered Percherons in South Africa.
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