The ponies food would be sent down daily and only the horse keeper would feed them. Their feed consisted of corn, nuts, hay and wheat straw. A delicacy for many ponies was tobacco. Miners were not allowed to smoke in the mine, so they chewed tobacco. When they had finished they gave the chewed tobacco to the pony. The ponies liked it so much that miners could hold the tobacco in their mouth and the pony would actually take it from his mouth.