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!

Unofficial

The unofficial word is that our trainer, Mark Burnette took 4th place in the 2008 Extreme Mustang Makeover in Fort Worth, Texas. No word on how much money his horse, Hoof Hearted brought at auction. I will post it here when I hear from Mark.

As a side note, we currently have three horses left that were trained by Mark, so you had better buy them while they are hot. Leroy, a bay ApHC leopard gelding, Zana, a sorrel AQHA mare and Heath, a red dun AQHA gelding have all had 30 days training with Mark Burnette. Joe, a Palomino gelding was also trained by Mark during the winter months and was not touched all Spring or Summer, he recently sold for $2500, he had not forgotten any of his training after sitting idle all of those months.

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.

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.