We have baby!

Antares was born between 12-1 am, June 28th. I know this because I checked them before Midnight and then Kid #2 checked at 2:30, ran screaming back into the house that "Teddy is born!" Theodore Roosevelt would have been "his" name. But we have a filly. Kid #2 is perfectly happy with his Antares, both with being a filly AND a solid.
This is her first pic. I had to use a flash to figure out what she looked like. Foxy had a perfectly good stall to foal in,but she had to be surrounded by the other mares. Belle, Misty, and Lady were all around the run when we showed up. Lady was lying within 4 feet of Antares, but a fence did separate them.


She appears (at the moment, but Lady changed color a bit in the first month, too) Red Dun. According to J'Wayne McArthur's book, Training for the Western horse and rider, a red dun is, "Lighter than a sorrel, with darker red points than the body color. Generally a red dorsal stripe will be present. These horses may have zebra stripes around legs." My first thought was bay, and I am still leaning that way just because the mane and tail do look black at the moment, but when she is in the sun, that red dorsal stripe really shifts my thinking back to red dun.

less than four weeks

Foxy is due in less than four weeks!
Yippee!
We are still a little worried about the flood, but other than a lot of standing water in the moat, we are ok. I found this at the Five Pine Ranch. The comments that are bolded are my personal comments.

According to Five Pine Ranch,

"Current recommendations for the last 4 - 6 weeks or pregnancy are to administer annual vaccine boosters to broodmares to heighten immunoglobulins in the mare's colostrum. Yep, we already did this. Various opinions exist as to the proper time to deworm broodmares prior to parturition, ranging from 1 month to 1 day prior, or the day of, foaling. I am of the 30 days prior and day of foaling on the worming thought process.It is this writer's opinion that deworming every 60 days during gestation and the day the foal is born is most beneficial taking care to use products approved for use during pregnancy. (Growth & Development, 2007; Kellon, 2005)

During this final 4-6 week period, the mare should be introduced to the environment (stall, paddock or pasture) that the mare is to foal. This is all great, but if we flood, then I have to move her. I don't want to move her. I want her to stay right here and foal in her nice big stall. I do need to move Belle out of the stall/run, though. They are both resisting this. This helps reduce stress by sudden changes and allows her immune system to build antibodies for environmental pathogens. Continued exercise is important to help maintain fitness and may reduce the chances of edema in the legs and abdomen. That is why they all get out to pasture every day. Clean fresh water must be provided at all times as broodmares require larger quantities of water at this stage. I have two separate watering troughs available, one in the pasture and one in her run. I leave the run gate open so that she can have access to the shade in her stall when she wants it, too.(Davies Morel, 2003)"

Almost time

Foxy is due in less than 5 weeks. Yikes! I have bunnies due this week. I have barn kittens due sometime this month. I have two more litters of bunnies due on June 11th. I have 20 Turkey chicks arriving this week. A llama is also joining the herd this month. (kid #3 doesn't want a horse. He wants a llama. It might be useful to pack out an elk this year) And we are only 5 days away from the 1 year anniversary of the flood of 2010. We are anticipating it this year, too, but we keep being told that it is a different watershed area that will be the problem.(yeah, right. That's why I already have a moat and Lady has only 2 inches of clearance when she runs through the water)

Fortunately (or unfortunately for my bank account) I am not doing summer school this year. I get to focus on the animals, the garden, and the yard. (I will have to get housework in there too)

My property is an icky mess, so riding has not been a huge activity. I am also moving things to higher ground, like saddles, bunnies are elevated, the 4-H chicks are raised up.
Kid #1 chose the Black breasted Phoenix as her chickens this year.
Kid #2 chose the Partridge cochin
and kid #3 chose the Silver Laced Polish.
They are really cool.

The meat chickens are also elevated and in a bin that floats if necessary (that is what we did with them last year, too. We just floated them up to the house)

The ponies already have a place to go if we need to evacuate. The awesome lady that let them be in her pasture has already volunteered her pasture again. I just don't want Foxy that far away if she foals early.

I will post pics of the giant bellied mare later this week. I need to finish cleaning up my classroom. ICK!!!!!!!!!!!1

Back in the Saddle again

Ok, finally back online. So much has happened. I can't even get my pictures to stay where I put them, so try to navigate this blog and connect the right pics to the right captions. I have already had a cat erase this once today (I then started saving everytime she came near)
Here's Kid #1 and Lady.
She has been riding her a little bit over the winter, but it can be tough when the sun does down so early.


Friday, April 1, We picked up a new horse. She came from Louisiana three years ago. She is thirteen. I am guessing that she might be spotted saddlebred. Maybe not. Her head looks just like Misty from This is the Place State Park when I was doing trail rides. That Misty has long since retired to be a 4-H horse and then to the happy green pasture above. This Misty direct and neck reins. She handles nicely in western or english. She is a little fat and lazy, but then so am I. She will be Kid #2's horse for 4-H this year(probably). Remember that Foxy is due July 4th and she is not a happy show horse anyway. Junior will be Kid #2's 4-H horse from next year on.


So I am on Spring break right now. It's awesome. I have been working the horses, avoiding the lists of housework that I have been putting off 'til spring break. Belle was in such a great mood the other day that while trotting over railroad ties, she took a flying leap over them. I could tell that she was getting ready to do something, but I was expecting her to move to one side. She is not much of a jumper, but she loved it. She kept speeding up and trying to swerve back over to that section of the arena. She wanted more. It reminded me of her and barrels. She loves trotting the barrel pattern. She is terrible with the pattern, but she loves to do it. She can't get her Clydesdale self to maneuver around the barrels like a good Quarter horse. I wonder why? NOT!

Here is a picture of the how Lady sizes up to the big girls. I need to break out a measuring tape, but she is 15.1-15.2 hh. Misty is 15.3-16 hh.

Gestational Progress

I don't remember where I found this, but this is the same picture from when Lady was gestating. Jr. is currently at around 22-23 weeks. Which means that he is about the size of a rabbit. His dad is a solid sorrel, but registered as a paint. (A paint that ain't)
There is a chance then of a paint offspring, but as mentioned in an earlier blog, Foxy has only had the one Paint filly, Lady. The other two fillies were solids.

Cowgirl Up

Christmas Break is a great time for teachers. We get to take the time off, our schools are rarely open to get work done that we really need to get done and we are still getting paid. It's pretty cool. I got to sleep in and play with all of the animals.
The kids were feeling like playing and there was no snow, so Kid #2 laid around on Foxy, just chilling. She is carrying Jr. a lot lower than she did Lady, so he is really hoping for a colt. He has had it with trying to show moody mares. He would really like an Overo colt, but he would be just as happy with a healthy solid filly. Kid #3 hung out with the big mare, Belle. He is not a fan of trying to control her, because she knows that he is a push over. As long as he doesn't try to control her, they do well. I didn't even put a halter on her, they just followed Foxy around (this would not be safe with any other horse, but Belle loves doing this and Kid #3 just laid back or across her neck and chilled out. It was awesome.) Lady and Kid #1 did some real work. Kid #1 leaned on Lady, then laid across Lady. Then She swung her leg over and sat on Lady. As long as I was scratching Lady's eyes and ears, she was fine. The next day, we did it all again, but this time, I led Lady around with Foxy, Belle and Kid #2 and #3 following like a train. It was pretty funny when the barn cats had to follow, too. I was ready to call it quits and said, "Ho," but then Lady had to pop up twice. Kid #1 hung on and calmed her down and we went for another walk. Lady did great after than and when Kid #1 swung down, she then led her around, following the two big mares, until she climbes back on and we did the whole thing again. But without any popping up. Now before anybody gets too bent out of shape over breaking Lady to saddle before she is full grown, please understand that Kid #1 may be 14, but she is built like a stick. She MIGHT weigh 90 lbs. Lady is 21 months old and 15.1 hh. These were not long rides, just teens playing. If I thought that it was going to be a rodeo and Lady might be strained in any way, I really wouldn't have done this. If my daughter was a heavy weight, I really wouldn't have done this. She was nervous, wore her helmet, but afterwards, felt great. Both girls, just had a great time.
It has finally snowed and the temperatures at night are sub zero. The low so far is -26 F. That's cold, so we have put a stop to the riding. We just can't risk sweat at this point. Pics will follow, probably tomorrow.

New Dog, What in the world was I thinking?

So, obviously, I have a new dog. My parents brought up their dog from Southern Utah. They are out of town too much to have a dog. It is a Lab cross. Lab-pit bull, lab-rott? I don't know, but the head reminds me of a Rott that I used to have. She is black and slightly smaller than Shooter. As soon as she got off leash, she jumped the fence into the turkey pen and grabbed Jack. Feathers were flying. We turned Peck out and got Jack out of her mouth, but then he disappeared. The mutt was put into the kennel while we searched for Jack. We put Peck in one of the chicken coops INSIDE the barn to keep the dog from being able to get to her. The 4 separate chicken areas are horse stalls in the barn not currently in use. Belle and Foxy share one stall and run, with a second stall for Foxy to be fed grain while Belle eats her special grain/alfalfa cube mash. Lady has her own stall and run. The Ameracauna chickens have a stall, the Silvers have a stall (Silver Cochins, Silver Wyandottes, a Buff Orpington, and two mutts), the rabbits and the Snow Owl (its a chicken)share one, the two mutt roosters and the 3 4-H bunnies share a stall and the non layers have a stall. We also have a stall as our tack room and one with the train modules that were destroyed by the flood that we just haven't had a spare minute or the desire to mess with. All in all we have 10 stalls. The mutt is now in Foxy's old stall. We just have to baby sit Foxy while Belle eats until we can get the dog trained. Its not the fault of the dog, I really did not anticipate her going over the fence into the turkey pen. Jack came back, just missing most of his tail feathers and many of his wing feathers on one side. He is now resting comfortably in the barn. He is pretty mellow and has no desire to leave the chicken coop. (He used to be excited to go out for the day)
She is very nervous around the horses. She was on a leash the first time that she met Lady. Shooter was chasing Lady and then Lady started chasing the dogs. With teeth bared, Lady went after the mutt. The mutt about drug my Dad trying to get away from Lady. This morning, the mutt followed me into Belle's stall to fill up the water trough. She took one look at Belle and backpedalled out of the stall as fast as she could. She listens well and backed off the chicken doors when told, NO! she just kept going back to a door whenever a rooster would crow (fairly often in our barn) I think that she has potential, she just needs some work. Dad would exercise her by riding in his ATV for 2 miles every morning and the mutt would run along side (Dad used to run marathons. He is now retired and can no longer run, Thanks Chemicals from Afghanistan!) Tomorrow, I will be taking her on a nice long leash run. I worry about her getting loose right now. Shooter has jealousy issues, so when the kids get out of school for Christmas break, I am letting them exercise her! Shooter has let her know that I am his person and he is not willing to share.
Well, enough drivel today.
Merry Christmas!!