A Leopard With No Name

When last we spoke, I was sitting up all night with Jetta, waiting for her to foal. That was on May 6th, she finally foaled that next morning at 9:30, after keeping me up all night.

We turned her out of the foaling stall that morning, so I had to go outside and around the barn to see her. I had just checked her at 9:00 and nothing seemed to be happening, so I went back into the house. For some reason I felt that I should check her again five minutes later.

When I went out she was down, her water had broken and she was in hard labor. I came back in the house, called my DH at work and told him how worried I was that she might have twins and if she didn't have twins, it was going to be a really big foal. He said that he would come home. So, I hung up and grabbed my foaling kit.

I had been watching her the whole time that I was on the phone and she didn't seem to be making any progress. There was no white sack visible and that made me more nervous. When I got into the pen with her, I looked inside and saw the white sack, so I was somewhat relieved.

Finally a leg appeared but just one, not just a foot but a leg. I was relieved once more because it was a huge leg and I knew that it wasn't going to be twins. Jetta kept getting up and trying to reposition things but it wasn't working.

I tried pushing the leg back in but couldn't get it done, so I went in and found the other foot. I pulled on it and it pull back, I pulled again and it resisted, just like a horse! Finally, I just kept pressure on it without pulling hard and with Jetta's next contraction, it popped out.

At this point, I had both legs and the nose had presented itself, so I started pulling. This was a big foal and Jetta was going to have to have help. She did great! She didn't quit pushing and I didn't quit pulling. Finally, his shoulders slid out and his hips followed. If you have never delivered a foal or seen one born, then you might think that is a funny statement. Normally the hips do follow the shoulders but sometimes a foal will get stuck at the hips and that is no fun.

I pulled open the sack and removed it from his head, then towel dried his face and went to find a place to sit down to wait for my Husband to get home to finish the job. I was exhausted but not as exhausted as Jetta, she didn't even look at the baby or talk to him. She just lay there and rested, totally dazed.

When my DH got home, he got the big boy up and rubbed him all over with towels and put iodine on his navel. Jetta came out of her stupor and
started talking to the boy. I knew he was a colt without looking. Fillies just have a more delicate look about them and they aren't as obnoxious.

I still have not named him, he was born on one of my Granddaughter's sixth birthday, so he will be named for her on his registration papers but I don't know what to call him yet.

Here are pictures of Sissy and Jetta before they foaled, this is why I feared Jetta would have twins.

 

Here is Jetta's Leopard Colt. Name suggestions would be appreciated!

Foal Watch

I'm sitting up watching Jetta, our ApHC Black Broodmare. Her milk has turned white and tasted sweet this evening. She should foal tonight, she is pacing in her stall. I'm hoping that she goes early so that I can go to bed at a decent hour.

Our Oops Foal Is Born

Derby was born on Derby Day. She arrived at 10:30 Saturday evening. I was online when I heard her mother lie down. I woke up my DH and went out to see how things were progressing.

One leg was not in the right position, she had an elbow hung up. My DH helped reposition her and then assisted with the next contraction and she popped right out. Mom did everything right after years of experience. She let my husband dry Derby off and she just remained lying down and resting.

My DH was sure that she was a colt but I said that she was a filly. He finally ripped the sack off of her hind quarters and looked, I was right.

These first two pictures were taken right after Derby was born, when she first found her feet.

These next pictures were taken today at one and a half days old. Excuse the muddy stall and foal. We had so much rain over the weekend that the barn and stall are flooded.

This was an unauthorized breeding and normally an "oops" baby is stunningly colored but poor Derby is just Bay with a large star and white on all four feet. It has been suggested that perhaps Jazz, our Appaloosa Stallion, was trying to disguise the fact that he is the father.

Sissy, the mother, is an AQHA or Quarter Horse mare. I did wonder if maybe she had gotten with Badger (our AQHA Grullo Stallion) instead since this mare has always produced loudly blanketed foals from Jazz.

Then my Husband discovered white hair on Derby's rump. Nice try, Jazz!

Derby won't stay this color. Jazz is a 100% color producer, so if his babies are born solid or nearly solid like Derby is, then they roan and always end up being roan with spots.

  

Ridin' Ranger

We went riding on Monday, swallowed our pride and paid the $10 for a one day ride at Blackwell Horseman's Camp in the Hoosier National Forest, otherwise known as the Charles C. Deam Wilderness area. We have been riding there since we were kids and now we have to pay to use the trails, it just isn't right. I was riding there before it was even a horseman's camp.

I took Ranger and my DH took Darth, they both did well but Ranger was awesome. He doesn't shy from anything. He walks through horse swallowing mud holes and didn't even notice any of the horse eating stumps or fallen trees.

He doesn't scrape your knees against trees unless there is gravel in the trail, he hates gravel, we will have to shoe him for the next ride. Who puts gravel on horse trails anyway? The thing that really grates me is that we are paying for the stupid gravel with our $10 per day.

The thing that I really love about Ranger is he puts his nose to the ground and he doesn't stumble, he is super careful on rough and steep ground. Flies don't bother him either, even horse flies. I don't mean that he doesn't mind them (which he doesn't) but they don't like his color. They did land on the saddle and pad though. Darth got the bites but the flies really weren't that bad.

Darth had to go twice as far as Ranger went, because he kept having to turn around and come back down the trail to make sure we were still coming. Ranger is very slow and does not mind being left behind, there is not a buddy sour bone in his body. All in all he is a perfect horse, just needs to learn some neck reining and maybe to speed up his walk.

 

 

We only rode for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. I didn't get too sore but my back was demanding that I get off and walk awhile. We had ridden a few weeks ago down the road to check on some young horses that we are pasturing at a friend's place. I rode Leroy that day and my Husband rode Heath.

We were about halfway to our destination when the sky cut loose and engulfed us in a ferocious thunderstorm. We had heard the sound of distant thunder but we didn't think that it would find its way to us. All of the sudden there was lightening flashing all around us. The flashes were scary enough without the sound of the ground shaking thunder. We were all ducking.

When the rain came it was large stinging drops that were being blown horizontally. My DH tried to turn back but I talked him into going on in search of shelter. We finally found a barn with easy horse access. We rode into it and waited and waited for the rain to stop.

The hard rain on the tin roof made it hard to even talk, so we waited some more. I tried to clean the water off of my glasses but neither of us could find anything dry to wipe them with.

Here are some more pictures of poor Ranger after our little ride at Blackwell. We met some other riders on the trail, three ladies on cell phones (you get a strong cell phone signal in the Deam Wilderness), they called my horse fat. They didn't say that I had a nice looking horse or a pretty horse, they just said that I had a fat horse. Here are some pictures of my fat horse and his saddle sores after a three and a half hour trail ride.

 

 

Terrible Tuesday

What started out as just a normal miserable Monday, ran over into a terrible Tuesday. It was just one thing after another yesterday. First, I was sitting at the computer when I first woke up and I heard the sound of a Stallion outside of his designated area.

It is a distinct sound that only people who have more than one Stallion would recognize. A horrifying sound that makes your blood run cold because you know how much damage can be done in a very short time when one stallion gets directly across the fence from another stallion.

Stallions who live in the same town, state, country or even on the same planet hate each other with a passion and having to live on the same farm with each other is nearly unbearable. They dream about the day that they can get nose to nose to prove who is the master of the universe.

Jazz, our Appaloosa Stallion had figured out that his electric fence wasn't hot. He really doesn't care much if it is hot or not, he will still lean into it to get the greener grass on the other side. Some things are just worth it. When it pops him good it just makes him mad and he shakes his head and stomps his front feet at it as if he is going to whip it into submission.

So he accidentally leaned too far into it yesterday morning and low and behold he found himself outside his area without even breaking a wire. Once he was out, the green grass lost its appeal and all he wanted to do was kill Badger our AQHA Grullo Stallion. There was still another electric fence separating them but neither of them cared.

As soon as I heard the sound, I was out the door grabbing the first rope that I could get my hands on. The lot that Jazz had found his way into was uninhabited so the grass was tall and boy was it ever wet with dew. They were squealing, rearing, biting and bleeding and one strand of fence was already history.

I yelled at Jazz to stop it and he does listen and obey but then Badger would say something that he just couldn't ignore and they were back at it again. We ran back and forth, and back and forth. Finally, I threatened Jazz in such a way as to become a bigger threat than Badger. He could tell that I was really tired of running and I was soaked up to my knees in the wet grass.

So he stopped and started eating, pretending that he had done nothing wrong. Badger continued to badger him but he was focused on me and my anger at this point. He stood perfectly still while I put the rope around his neck and listened carefully to all of my lecturing.

That was just the start of the day, the whole day continued on like this, just little annoying problems like fences to fix and working out the glitches of the electric current.

In the evening when I was just starting to relax after a tough day, I stapled my thumb. It's true, I was reaching for the stapler and it shot me right in the thumb. I screamed at the very thought of it, ran into the kitchen without looking at it and held it out to my dear Husband, saying something like, "Get it out!". He got a good hold on it and pulled it out in a quick motion. It had gone all the way in to the bone. My thumb is still sore but it was at its worse about two hours after it happened, very painful, like a smashed thumbnail, throbbing.

I was happy when Monday ended but then Tuesday came...

Gnawing Guilt

Awhile back I posted a teaser of all of the things that I intended to blog about in the near future. I did post a couple of them but have had this terrible guilt about not being true to my word and blogging about the other things on that list.

Here is that post:

Coming soon to this blog! Don't miss even one of these exciting posts.

* Updated Pictures of Calico and Paris (how many do you think they will have?)

* Husband brings home an Orange Harley Davidson (complete with photos)

* Bantam Hen Prolapses (and what I am doing about it)

* High Blood Pressure!? (Doctors are only practicing)

* Updated Photos of Sky

* Pictures of Calico's New Kids (hopefully arriving soon)

Here are the posts that will relieve me of all of my guilt:

1. I did post pictures of Calico and Paris before they kidded. So I can check this one off.

2. This one is a big one. My DH did bring home an orange Harley Davidson. All of my friends gasped and I wondered how long it would take our kids to call to get the details. They never did!! They just didn't really believe it because they know how their Dad is about money and they know how I am about motorcycles. My eldest Son did finally ask, "What is up with the Harley?" long after I had posted.

So here are the pictures for those who have waited with baited breath to find out whether my Husband has lost his mind or not.



When I mentioned to my neighbors that my Husband had bought an orange Harley, they both were disturbed but didn't lecture him. I had forgotten that she had told me about a dream that she had where my DH had a horrendous wreck on a motorcycle.

When the truth finally came out about the bike. She confessed to nearly dying with worry about the whole thing. This made me feel pretty bad beacuse I should have told them the truth sooner.

My neighbor is a bit eccentric and I hate that I worried her so. Yes, she does have lavender hair and an orange VW.

3. My Bantam hen who had the prolapse did not survive, that may have been the reason that I didn't post about it. I did learn a few things about prolapses though. If I ever have another one, I will clean it, cover it in Honey, put the hen in a clean environment, start her on antibiotics, then wait. I won't try pushing the prolapse back into place again.

4. My Doctor diagnosed me with hypertension on my last visit. I have never had high blood pressure before and they always comment on my great BP when I go in. I was a bit swollen that day and I am sure that with the stress of going to the Doctor in the first place, this was the reason that it was high. Well, it wasn't really even high 138 over 89 but this is high for me.

He slapped me on BP pills and wrote Hypertension on my chart. I took the pills for two days and got dizzy, so I quit taking them. I took my blood pressure for several days after that and it was never high again. I am still taking it occasionally and it remains low. As my Dear Husband likes to say, "Doctors are only practicing."

5. Here are more recent pictures of Sky:



6. I did post pictures of Calico's babies, so I can check that one off as well.

Now that this post is done all of my guilt is gone and I can hold my head up high again.

It's a Filly!

I had a plan, was looking forward to working the plan but Jetta didn't want to cooperate. I stayed up with her all night on Tuesday night. I had the new Mary Higgins Clark book, so I sat in my lounge chair out in the barn with my headlamp on, reading. She was anxious and nervous all night. This is just not her character, so I thought that she might be in early labor. We had tasted her milk, it had turned white and was just slightly sweet, so it was possible.

She had calmed down by morning and by around 10:00 a.m., she had waxed.When my DH got home from work he put her back out in the dry lot, so he could clean out her stall. I decided to take a nap to prepare myself for a long night. Before I laid down I took her picture eating some hay.While I was napping, my DH came in to get something to eat and the next thing that I know he is waking me up saying that it is a filly and she is already dry. I jumped up feeling cheated and mad. I wait all year for this and then miss it because I take a little nap!

If this had been twins we would not have been there to get the second one out quickly and since we knew this one was going to be really big, she probably could have used a little help. It helps to get the baby out as quickly as possible because they just get up faster and learn to nurse easier. With slow, hard labors the foals can have dumb foal syndrome and just have a little more of a struggle in the beginning.

This is what I found when I arrived on the scene...I named this filly "Sky" on the spot because of her unusual eyes that were the first things that I noticed about her. She is very large and didn't want to nurse as quickly as we would have liked but with my Husband's great skill at getting a newborn foal to nurse, she was nursing within a couple of hours.

She is a dark brown or bay with roan mare and tail, blanket with black spots and she has partial blue eyes. This is the first blue eyes that we have ever had here at Pintura Springs other than Grandkids.The above photo was taken as she first found her feet.



There will be no running under Mommy's belly to hide from danger with this big filly.
And last but not least a Family Picture that includes Sky's sire who came to look her over and pass out cigars.
It is dark and rainy here today, so Sky and her Mother are still in the stall and it is too dark to get any new pictures unless the weather changes.

Horse Flies

There are many things in this life that I wonder about, I suppose that the good Lord allowed us to have some things just to teach us patience and endurance. But some things just seem to have no purpose in this world.

No matter how much I try, I can see no purpose for mosquitoes or wasps, other than to test your reflexes and speed. I can tolerate flies for the most part and at times enjoy a little swat practice.

However, there is one thing that I am appalled by more than mosquitoes and wasps, that is horse flies. Just what is their purpose? If I think real hard and am generous with my horse fly evaluation, perhaps I could say that they make enjoyable entertainment for sadistic horse gazers.

My Grandson and I were watching our Grullo Stallion yesterday who was being pursued by an average horse fly. This horse fly was no more intelligence than any other horse fly that I have known. All horse flies are brilliantly clever. They know just where to land on a horse's rump in order to stay aboard for the maximum amount of time.

Poor Badger was doing all sorts of calisthenics, stretching his neck as far as it could reach, while stretching his legs out straight in front of him and he just couldn't get it.

He did a series of bucks, twists and jumps in the air, but that didn't work either. So he finally ran to just the right spot and threw himself on the ground and rolled in the mud. That did the trick, the problem was that as he was getting back on his feet the fly just landed again in the same spot.

Badger is not a slow learner, the next time he rolled, he jumped back up on his feet and was out of there. He ran as hard and fast as he could, trying to outrun the horse fly, but to no avail. My Grandson and I didn't really enjoy the show that he was putting on but we did watch it.

When our Appaloosa stallion gets a horse fly on him, he runs to the fence and waits for me to whack it with the broom. If you whack a horse with a broom at any other time of the year, they take offense at it. But during horse fly season they love it.

It can be very dangerous to go into the herd during horse fly season, which usually just runs through the month of August here. The horses will run under each other's head and neck in order to scrape the offending fly off of their backs. They will also run right towards you and quickly turn their rumps to you and if you are not quick enough with the slap, they will continue to squirm and buck right in close proximity to you. Horses tend to forget about respecting your space during horse fly season.

Another thing that I guess you could credit the horse fly with, is teaching trail riders better horsemanship skills. While some horses do not lose their minds when a horse fly lands on their rumps, some go ballistic. I have one of the ballistic types myself. I haven't ridden him in a few years, because of my back but he and horse flies are the reason that I have a hard time understanding why Cowboys don't like to ride bucking broncs in rodeos. It was easy enough for me, a Grandmother.

My AQHA gelding, Dan, always was super sensitive and overreacted to horse flies on his rump. If I heard the fly then I could prepare myself for the bucking that would ensue but if the fly did a silent landing by using their sophisticated stealth mode, then I was caught off guard.

Riding a bucking horse while trying to turn around and swat a horse fly should be a rodeo event. At one point, I could possibly have made it to the rodeo finals and might even have been the world champion bronc buster/swatter.

Dan never bucked me off but then he never bucked the horse fly off either, so I didn't get the point. He did manage to get me off one time but not by bucking and not by a horse fly.

I was riding third in a string of three riders, the first rider startled the yellow jackets, the second rider made the yellow jackets mad, Dan and I were the object of their wrath. I didn't know what was happening, he just turned into a quivering mass under me. I could sense that he was about to explode. I baled off on his right side when I saw a yellow jacket on his neck. I ran as fast as I could through the woods, the problem was that he didn't know what to do, so he ran as fast as he could after me.

I managed not to get stung or ran over somehow. After we were far away from the nest, we stopped and regrouped. We picked several dead yellow jackets out of Dan's mane and tail.

I am prepared for horse fly season this year. After trying several horse fly traps that didn't work, I am taking a different approach. I researched horse flies on the internet and found that you can attract them with the color blue. It has to be a pool blue, I know this is true because they love my swimming pool. I ordered some sticky goo last year on ebay, I forget what it is called but you can smear it on something that is swimming pool blue and the horse flies will land on it and get stuck.

The article that I read said that you can get a child's blue sand bucket and put it on a stick and walk it through your horse herd or put it on a vehicle and drive around the horses. You can even get a hat that color and smear it with the sticky stuff and walk through your herd.

I will try it out when the flies get to be more of a problem here and post my results in a blog.

Perfect Horses

We currently have a large herd of horses, and have had many horses pass through our gates in the last several years. We have not had very many perfect horses, some have gotten close but just didn't reach the level of what I would consider a perfect horse.

Several years ago we purchased an appaloosa mare and an ugly sorrel gelding along with everything that went with them, even the trailer. The family just didn't have time to mess with them anymore and had lost interest. They did a lot of trail riding and camping with friends but they weren't really horse people.

They told us that the mare was wonderful and that the gelding was good too as long as you didn't separate him from the mare. He would follow her on the trail but that was about all he was capable of. Well, the gelding was just impossible and we were lucky to find him a home but the mare was nice, she just didn't seem to have any flaws. We advertised her as a great trail horse because that is all that these people did with her.

We only had her for about one month. A lady contacted us from a therapy riding facility and we talked about her a few times by phone but she was being careful and we ended up selling her to a young local girl to show in 4-H, just in time for the season to begin. Her 4-H leader was just overwhelmed by this mare and called to tell us so.

The lady from the therapy place called me back when she seen that the mare had been sold to ask me is she was as good as we had said that she was. I told her, "No, she is much better than we thought she was." She asked me how much we sold her for and I told her $1200, which was fairly good at the time for an unregistered horse. She wanted us to call the girl who had purchased her and offer her $2400 for her. We did and she refused.

This girl went on to win every class that the mare was entered in that year and every year after. She was passed down to other girls after her owner was too old for 4-H and got interested in cars and boys. She is an old mare now and is owned by the 4-H leader's timid daughter.

I am going to talk some more about perfect horses that have passed through my life in coming blogs, so stay tuned...

Indian Shuffler

This is my horse Ranger, he is registered with the ApHC or Appaloosa Horse Club, he has a 90+% foundation designation and is eligible for registration with the Colorado Ranger Horse Association or CRHA. Ranger is a gaited appaloosa called an Indian Shuffler, he does the Indian Shuffle, this is a very smooth gait but I have still not been able to ride him, maybe someday.

He is a palomino few spot although the Appaloosa Horse Club registered him as a red roan, we argued this point with them on his full brother who was a palomino leopard, he had large palomino spots and they wouldn't take our word for it because they are so much smarter than the rest of us. After many phone calls and extra pictures we finally got them to change him to a palomino, the only reason that we bothered was because he was so obviously a palomino that his papers just didn't match him saying that he was a red roan.

When Ranger came along and we sent his paperwork in, we marked his color as a palomino and again those superior, intelligent people at the ApHC sent his papers back as a red roan. Since Ranger is mostly white and we were planning on keeping him anyway, we didn't bother to argue.

This past year we had a chestnut leopard filly born, her spots are dark chestnut with no white hair in them, she is out of a chestnut AQHA mare. The ApHC sent her papers back as red roan, we called and argued, they let us know how color blind we are. They have never seen this filly but it is us who do not understand horse colors. Even our Vet agreed that she was a chestnut with no roaning in her spots.

We had a similar problem with the AQHA or American Quarter Horse Association two years ago with a line backed, red dun colt. They sent his papers back to us as a chestnut because it was impossible for a chestnut stallion and a gray mare to produce a red dun foal. We called and talked to the man who takes care of this sort of thing and he looked at the pictures and the bloodlines and said that those bloodlines did produce red duns, so he changed his papers to match the colt. This colt's dam was born a grulla and turned gray as a two year old, so to say that a grullo and a chestnut could not produce a red dun was ridiculous. The AQHA treated us with respect and was reasonable.

You would think that since Ranger's dam has produced many palominos and our leopard filly is out of a chestnut mare that the ApHC would be reasonable too. But the end result is that we have two registered ApHC horses whose papers do not match them.

The Poor Horse

I have been reading many horse articles lately, I have a search set up through Google that brings up the hottest horse topics. It is so sad to see some of the stuff that I am seeing. The animal rights people are calling for an end to horse racing, rodeos, trail riding, and horse ownership.

The anti-slaughter people want all breeding stopped to control the horse population. I have written other blogs about how I feel about end of life issues with horses, so I won't go there again. But it certainly is a sad day to be a horse, the horses haven't won any victories here. They have just lost their value.

We received a questionnaire from the Appaloosa Horse Club of which we are members, wanting to know why we didn't register a foal or foals that we had sent a stud report in on. I don't know which foal this is talking about but it must have been from last year, probably one that the mare just came up empty.

We do register all of our horses that qualify. But many horse owners have stopped this practice. The foal crop from last year and probably this year as well, will consist of many pure bred horses that will just not have their paperwork done or fees paid.

I can fully understand not registering a foal, because when a weanling will only bring $10 - $25, with or without papers, and you have already paid out lots of money to feed it, plus Stud, Vet and Farrier fees, it doesn't make much sense to spend $50 to $80 to do DNA and registration papers. Unfortunately we have arrived at a time when registration papers just don't add much to the value of the basic horse; that is, the horse with no training or with mental or physical problems.

This survey asks if we would register these foals if registration fees were lowered. Then it asks several questions about the reasons why we aren't registering our foals. Some of the answers that you can check is "Cannot afford at this time" and "Waiting to make a decision regarding foal's value".

When the basic horse has no value and all breeders stop breeding, which is already happening because of the price of hay and grain, has anyone thought this through to an end conclusion? Well trained horses still do have value even if it is somewhat deflated, but young stock, old stock and horses with problems are facing a bleak future.

A foal in today's market has to be really special to have any value at all and breeders have to keep their foals at least three years, train them and find a buyer in order to even hope to break even. It is little wonder that horse breeders are becoming a thing of the past, an endangered species. That should make the anti-slaughter people happy.

Since the Government is getting so good at breeding and selling Mustangs, maybe one day all horses will be raised on factory farms just like cattle, hogs and chickens are now. All small farms and ranches will be a thing of the past, like the decaying wooden barns scattered along the countryside, just a memory of when you played in the loft as a child.

Twins

We put Dandee in the stall last night, we knew that she would foal soon. My DH had checked on her at around 3:00 AM and had come back to bed, he said that she wasn't doing anything. At around 3:20 I heard her lay down, so I got up and looked out and could tell she was in labor. I woke my husband up and we both got dressed. Under normal circumstances, we usually have plenty of time to dress and gather needed supplies but not tonight. By the time we got out there she had already delivered a normal sized black filly.

Dandee always gets very heavy in foal, she always looks like a blimp but she had been blimpier than usual this year. But we never once suspected twins, I was just afraid that she would have a very large foal.

When she kicked that normal sized (but smaller than she usually has) filly out on the ground and didn't even look like she had foaled, I said that maybe she was going to have twins, to which my husband replied, "Well, I didn't want to say it." Anyone who breeds horses knows that twins are a very dangerous and rare thing in horses.

Mares will normally abort twins or one will be still born prematurely and the other will be carried full term and deliver as a normal single but usually both foals will die and sometimes you will lose the mother as well.

Dandee was due yesterday, so many things just didn't add up here, she was full term and had a normal healthy foal but she was obviously still in labor and soon a bubble of placenta presented itself and I ran for a kitchen knife. My DH cut through the placenta and another bubble appeared immediately with two more feet in it. The second baby was born normally and quickly with no problems but is smaller than the first.

Both of our new foals are fillies, the first born is coal black with a blaze, two hind socks and two partial front socks. The second is solid bay with no markings whatsoever. The bad news is that they are Appaloosas with not one spot between them. But the good news is that our Appaloosa Stallion is a 100% color producer, so they will both roan out into colorful, spotted ApHC horses.

The second filly is small and a little on the weak side, she did stand and walk quickly with some assistance from my DH. But we did have to milk the mare and give her a bottle because she still has not nursed on her own.

Of course, Dandee has not been a problem in the least, she is a great mother that nurses other mares babies, so having two of her own is no big deal. She has tandem nursed before with a foal on each side and one of them was just a thief.

Dandee is a Quarter horse mare, a few years ago we had bred her to a paint stallion. she had a loud dun paint filly. One of our Appy mares had a Leopard colt, so here was Dandee, a solid bay mare with a loud paint foal on one side and a leopard foal on the other, that was quite a sight.

Here are the first pictures of our twin foals born at Pintura Springs.

The Wait

The wait has begun, both Giselle and Cinder are making nice milk bags. Giselle looks like she could go at anytime. Morning still is not bagging up and doesn't look as heavy in foal as she should, so we may have her due date wrong. She was our stallion's pasture mate, so it is possible that she was bred later. Dandee is already making a milk bag, she always bags up early and gives gallons of milk. We always get extra colostrum from her to freeze in case of future emergencies.

Here is the schedule of events:

Morning (the injured Black Tennessee Walker mare) Due - March 12th (Walkaloosa Foal)
Giselle and Cinder (Does) Due - sometime around March 19th
Sissy (Chestnut AQHA Mare) Due - March 28th (AQHA Foal)
Dandee (Bay AQHA Mare) Due - April 1st (Appaloosa Foal)
Collette, Paris and Calico (Does) Due - sometime after May 11th (if they are bred)
Quizzy (Sorrel AQHA Mare) Due - June 17th (Appaloosa Foal)

Sleepless nights, flashlights, batteries, alarm clocks, homebound, nervous, anxious, impatient, cell phone, kidding kit, foaling kit, towels, iodine, enemas, tetanus shots, tail wrappings, shovel, straw, manure fork, lounge chair, blankets, long underwear, heavy socks, face mask, gloves, carhartts, I LOVE SPRING!!

Our First Casualty of 2008

We have only 5 mares bred this year and the first one due to foal was Jetta, our black ApHC mare. She was due to foal at the end of February or the first of March. Yesterday was January 19th and we certainly were not expecting any mares to foal on the coldest night of 2008 so far. I think it got down to 4°F here.

My husband went out to find a dead black leopard colt this morning, it was out of the sack and was clean, we don't know for sure what happened but assume that it was just premature and not viable. It was small and the mare had just started making an udder. By the look of it's feet, it never got up.

This may be the result of the quality of hay that we are feeding, a result of the drought this past summer, normally we would have had the mares separated and on good alfalfa before now but we just didn't have enough good hay to put them up as early as usual.

We are very disappointed because we have never gotten a black leopard from any of our own mares before. This mare has always had bays in the past.