Goings On

Ebony decided to get some sun. We have been having fairly nice weather.....warm and generally dry. We are in for some rain and cooler temps but since it is almost April it should start to get nice soon and we should start to see some GREEN GRASS!

Kiwi was sunning himself too....and giving me a funny look in the process......they are scheduled to be sheared on April 11. Should be fun!

Phoenix is still growing a big belly. She is in the last month or so.....so her baby will be getting big and strong in these last few weeks. Phoenix herself is a little lazy and tired.....lol I am sure she would like to settle into a nice fluffy stall....in a few weeks she will be going into a stall each night.

Misty is licking busy getting some vitamins and minerals from the vit/min block....good thing too....she is growing her own foal. It so exciting!

Pepsi and Jazz model their new halters. While they share a nice cold drink.

Ace and Pepsi are up to their usual shenanigans.....chasing and play fighting with each other.

Pepsi is a fairly active young horse and likes to run and play almost as much as Ace!

Look at me no feet on the ground!

Quite the buck. She was jumping a playing with Ace.

Spring Fever

Well with all this nice weather and sunshine the horses are getting playful and active. I know they are enjoying the warmer and sunny days as much as I am! Pepsi and Ace were very playful and they were chasing each other around the field.

Pepsi is a beautiful horse with beautiful movement. She also has a very loving and gentle personality. She and Ace have both been booked into a training program at then end of June. It will be a lot of fun to get these little guys going under saddle.

Ace loves to run aroudn the fields. He is by far the most active horse I have. I wonder what his siblings are and will be like? I bought his little sister and she should be here in about 1 month. Also the foals are both his half siblings as well, so it will be interesting to see how similar and different they all are!

Dirty! Pepsi rolled in a big muddy area and covered herself in mud. We were waiting for the farrier to arrive and she was wearing her new, clean halter.......its not so clean anymore! Everyone had their feet trimmed and they were all good, some more than others but everyone was managable. The farrier will be out again on May 13.......just around Phoenix's due date! So maybe by the time he comes back there will be a new little baby foal in the barn!!!

Pheeny is getting closer to her due date. She is about 6 weeks away from giving birth, so we are all starting to get excited and a little nervous about the big day :) I can't wait to see what she has, a son or a daughter and what colour it is. It should be a paint, maybe a bay a white one (Pheeny is bay). Who knows! We'll just have to keep waiting.

Speaking of pregnancy Ebony is scheduled to leave for breeding on April 11. She will be out at the stud farm for about 2 weeks. The stud is black like her and get this....his name is Ebon, lol Ebon & Ebony are going to have a baby llama. How sweet!

MUD...

This is what happens when you have 36 heavy horse feet stomping around on the rain sodden ground......MUD. Mud, Mud, Mud everywhere. The horses have stomped the life out of the grass that was TRYING to grow! With all the rain we have been having, this early in the year, the ground is saturated with moisture and very soft. So in a matter of days this is what the horses have reduced the field to.......

I hate mud. Any horse owner will tell you that mud is a horrible, messy, pain in the %&$# to deal with. It gets all over the horses feet; they lay in it and get filthy and if you do not clean out the horses hooves and apply a antifulgal agent for thrush weekly, especially in this kind of mud, then the horses can get a really bad case of foot rot. But, anyone with horses will also tell you that in the spring, with a number of large animals there is no avoiding the mud. I call my winter fields, sacrifice fields, because they look like this when winter is over and they can't be used again until later in the summer. I seed the really barren spots in the spring once the horses are out of the field, harrow it to break up all the messy stuff in it and by July this field will be green and beautiful and full of grass. Then you can put some animals in it for a few weeks again to graze. But until then its a pain in the neck.

Off the mud and onto the young stud ;) Jazz is growing into a very handsome and stocky young stallion. He is a sweet boy and is very well behaved. If he does get a little pushy all he needs is a gentle reminder and he settles right down. He will be breeding his first mares this summer so we are looking forward to his first foals next summer. He will be breeding Cricket and a new mare named Foxy who arrives in April.

Doesn't he look cute in his yellow halter?? He has grown so much that he grew right out of his green halter. This is one of Phoenix's old halters, I was not sure if it would fit, but surprisingly his head has grown big enough to fit a 'grown up' horse halter ;)

This is Jazz's thing: eat all the grain and then immediately tip the bucket over. Sometimes he actually picks it up in his teeth and throws it to the side! He is looking for more grain....sorry buddy, you ate it all!

What a dirty girl!! Pepsi is a lovely palomino....however this means her coat gets very very dirty! She was out trying to eat the little bit of grass that is growing. Another thing about spring and mud is the horses are always dirty! When they lay down...its in mud!! The summer and fall are nice because they stay much cleaner.....with a few grass stains mind you. But I will take a grass stain over mud any day!

Recognize This Little Lady?

Well recognize this little lady??? If you look at the post below you will see that this is Crickets most recent foal! (Gracie)

She is a big girl now. She will be 2 in July. And.......she is coming to live with her mommy! She will be arriving in April, in about 6 weeks. We purchased this lovely young filly a long with a 4 year old sorrel mare. They will both be here next month.

It will be pretty neat to see how this little filly and Cricket get along when they meet each other again. Cricket will recognize her foal, a mother never forgets. I am going to change the filly's name, I already have a horse named Gracie, so stay posted because I will let you know what I come up with ;) (Right now I am going to call this post 'Jewels' because that is part of her mothers registered name).

This filly is a half sister to Ace. They both have the same sire. And both of these youngsters will be half brother and half sister to the two foals coming (Phoenix & Misty's) as they are also by the same stallion.

It will be a very exciting day when this little filly and the other mare arrive at the farm. It will be neat to see Cricket with her foal again and see how they act together. What a day that will be! I will keep you posted for sure!

Yep, She's A Mommy

You all know Cricket, she has been on this site a lot. She is my girl, a lovely trail horse and friend. She will be 17 in April (the 15th to be exact) and we are planning on breeding her to our young stud Jazz. This got me thinking about all the other foals Cricket has had (11 in total) and I thought I would introduce you to some of them. She has had 8 fillies (girls) and only 3 colts (boys).

This is Crickets daughter Bella. She looks a lot like Cricket. She will be 4 years old this year and is a really beautiful black mare. All of Crickets babies are very friendly. All of these daughters that I am going to introduce you to are by the same stud that Ace is by and he is the father of the two foals that are due this year, so all these girls are sisters to Ace and the foals coming.

This is Memphis. She is a pretty girl too. You will notice that all of Crickets babies, at least these ones, have a lot of white on them and they all have white legs, tails and manes. Cricket is a homozygous paint (she cannot produce a solid) and she throws a lot of chrome (white) to her foals. Incidently Cricket herself has very little white and a lot of black....

This is Bree. She will be 3 this year and is very sweet. I have met Bree and found her to be very pleasant and gentle. She definitely reminded me of her mom. Bree has one blue eye and one brown one.

This is Gracie. You can see Cricket in the picture with her. Gracie was born in 2007 and is Crickets most recent foal. Gracie by far has the most white on her of all her siblings. She is a sweet little girl too.

This is Gracie last winter, much bigger and older than in the above picture. She is a pretty cute little filly. I like her. She has a cute face.

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As you can see Cricket has produced some very pretty foals and has always been a good mother. I am hoping that she will get pregnant this year and bless us with one of Jazz's fisrt foals next summer. There are 7 more foals of Crickets but I have not been able to track down any photos of them. I know that she had 10 daughter and 1 son. I know that her son's name is Rocky. In any case, Crickets upcoming 17th birthday just got me thinking about her and her foals so I thought it might be fun to introduce some of them to you. They are sweet (I have met a few of them) just like their mommy. In just about 2 months I will be posting about another new mommy, when Phoenix gets ready to give birth to her first baby who will be a half sibling to all these lovely girls here.