Brother and Sister

Look how little Tia is!!! This is Tia with her mommy Cricket August 2007.

This is Tia now in April 2009. She has grown a lot and is a lovely little girl with a super presonality!

Tia and Pepsi meeting over the gate....or in this case through the gate, prior to Tia being introduced into the herd.

Big brother and little sister meet for the first time! Both have lovely personalities!

Time to eat! Tia and Ace are both going to be big horses. They are both tall and I think that Tia is actually a little bit taller.

Tia and Foxy Arrive

Tia and Foxy have arrived!!! Tia is the white/sorrel paint filly and she is Crickets daughter. Foxy is the sorrel mare and she is really nice and well bred.

It did not take Foxy long ti find the hay! They have both settled in well. After a quarentine period they have now both been introduced into their respective herds. Tia is with Ace, Pepsi, Buck and Phoenix because she is too young to breed. Foxy is in with Jazz, Cricket and Misty because I would like Jazz to breed Foxy and Cricket this summer.

Foxy is a very small mare, she is about Phoenix's height but thinner and not over weight, which makes her look even smaller! She is a lovely little mare and I am hoping to get out riding her in the next day or so when the weather is not rainy.

Tia is very gorgeous. Some people do not like so much white on a paint, but she has a gorgeous face and the most beautiful long, flwing and crimpy mane I have ever seen! Her mane truly amazes me, I brush it all the time! This is Crickets little girl and Ace's sister.

NEW FARM!

HERE WE ARE!!!! We have all arrived safe and sound to the new farm! :) The horses are particularily happy with the new and vast amount of space they have now! As far as you can see it our fields. We also have the forest and several other fields so they will have lots of grazing and some really nice trail riding areas.

This is Phoenix's field. It is close to the house and we can see her group from the deck and windows. She is in with the geldings and the two young filly's because it was time to seperate Jazz (the stallion) from the boys and youngsters. He has his own field right next door to them with 3 of his mares.

This is a view of Jazz's field.

Buck and Cricket survey the land!

This is Foxy in the new trailer. I will introduce you to Foxy in a later post.

Ah time for a rest! Now that they have checked out the new place and deemed it a good place to live Buck, Ace, Pepsi and Cricket all have a nice nap in the sun.

Ebony & Ebon

Meet Ebon! He is Ebony's boyfriend! They just met so Ebony is trying to check out her new digs for the next 2 weeks.

He is a stud, so he wants to breed, but she wants none of that right now! We took Ebony out to the stud farm today after she had been sheared. It seemed like a good time to do it...then she does not have to move all around, when we pick her up she will be going straight to the new farm.

Kiwi is a little sad I think. He is not used to living without his little sis. Thankfully he is not totally alone, he is with the horses and he knows them well as he has lived with them for a year now. But I think he will be very happy when Ebony comes back.

Yes that is Ebnoy jumping over some logs. They are not very high, she is going into the adjoining pasture area. She certianly can jump though, when I took her off the trailer she jumped right at me and almost landed on me! Thanfully I moved out of the way fast!

Ebony is in a private field with Ebon, but she is checking out the other females over the fence and making friends. In about a year, next April, Ebony will have a little baby of her own! Baby llamas are only about 15 lbs at birth!! SO CUTE! Ebony will be home in 2 weeks, and until then I don't know who will miss her more...Kiwi or Me??

A Busy Day!

We had quite the busy day today at the farm!!

We are beginning to pack up some of the stuff at the farm because we move on Wednesday. We drove the horse trailer into the field so that we could load one of the round bale feeders and the horses we quite intrigued! They all wanted to know what the trailer was doing in the field, lol.

Kiwi and Ebony were also sheared today. That is Ebony being sheared. She does not like it one bit! She was the fussy one this time. She jumped around a lot. But we got it done and they will appreciate it in the summer!

Kiwi was pretty good. His undercoat is a dark grey colour and he always looks sooooo different after he has been sheared!

As you can see, llamas are actually quite a bit smaller when they have no hair!!! Their hair sure does make them look big, when in reality they are fairly small. Well another year of shearing done and so now I say on with the warm weather!!

Ho Hum...

Well here is Pheeny wondering what all this snow is doing back here again?!?!?! Is it winter again already?? Actually today we had +10 temperatures so I think by tomorrow most of the snow should be gone...again.

This picture was taken last year, its Cricket with Tex. Tex is the stallion that Pheeny and Misty are bred to. He also bred Cricket but she did not take.

Here is my boy Jazz. He is going to be breeding Cricket this year and we are keeping our fingers crossed that she will get pregnant. He is also going to be breeding Foxy. She is a new mare that I have not introduced you to yet because she does not arrive until April 19th and I do not have any pictures of her. When she does arrive I will let you know.

He is a handsome boy. In a few weeks both Jazz and Ace will have minor surgery to remove their wolf teeth. Male horses (and some females) have wolf teeth and they can interfere with the bit when you begin to ride them so many people have them taken out. I am planning to have the vet take them out on the week of the 20th. That way the boys will be all healed up for breeding and riding season to begin.

Phoenix is only going to be in this field for another 6 days and then she moves (so does everyone else). She does not know this though. We practiced putting her on the trailer and she got on....but she has no idea why. Ebony leaves in 2 days. They will love the new farm though. While right now they live on about 3 acres, at our new farm they will have 50 acres!!! The will love the space, the trees, and of course me being out there with them all the time :)

Trailer Trials

In preparation for our big move, we decided to load the horses in the trailer to see who is good at it and who needs some work. Here is Ace in the trailer. He is good at loading it. We have a 3 horse slant load trailer, so 3 horses can be moved at once. This will be great for when we move, less trips!

Ace likes to try anything new. He was fine to load the trailer, get tied up and have the partition closed. Buck and Cricket walked right on as well. Phoenix took about 5-10 minutes of looks at the trailer and then she got on it. Misty, Jazz and Pepsi all refused to get on the trailer. It confused me a little, because they have all been trailered before, and I have even seen Misty get loaded. But this trailer is new to them and they are a bit nervous of it. We will just have to keep working at it over the next 1.5 weeks.

Ebony was very very tired! She layed right out and rested in the sun. Compared to the weather yesterday (see previous post) this day was gorgeous! Apparently we are supposed to get more snow/rain tonight and all day monday and tuesday...yuck. Lets hope the weatherman is wrong!

Everyone seemed pretty relaxed this afternoon. Buck, Pepsi and Jazz all had a nice nap in the sun. Ace was also resting right beside Pepsi.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....Jazz was very sleepy today! He was enjoying the nice weather we had, unlike yesterday. I put the coats on yesterday and took them off today!

Spring or Winter?!?!?!

This is Bucky Boy 2 days ago....bright blue sky, sunny and warm.....

This is what it was like today!! Cold, wet, snowy and rain. In fact this is the first time I have had to put blankets on horses in the SPRING who otherwise went through the winter without one!

Misty is wearing the red one and she did wear a blanket for the winter. Ace is in the purple one and he has NEVER worn or needed a blanket before. Pepsi is in the Silver one and she has never needed a blanket before either. She did wear one for a day when she first arrived but that was to protect her from bites, not because she was cold.

These 3 have blankets on now because it has been so warm lately that they have shedded out their winter coats, then it got very, very wet and cold and they began to shiver. So since horses never shiver they must have been extremely cold. But the rain soaked them to the skin and then the temperature plummeted. Tonight they will be nice and toasty warm though in their snuggly dry blankets.

Yikes, this is not the weather I was expecting! It was so warm earlier I was wearing a t-shirt. Now I have had to put blankets on 3 horses! Lets hope it warms up and stays warm!

Water, Vets & Pregnant Horses

Well here is Phoenix at 296 days along in her pregnancy! She has quite the belly! The big day is getting closer and we should be blessed with a little one in the next 4-5 weeks, even as early as 3 weeks from now, but most likely 4-5 weeks.....!!!

As you can see Pheeny is HUGE! Her foal is doing a lot of growing in these last few weeks, gaining about 70-80% of its weight. So Pheeny's belly will continue to expand! I will have to take some pictures of Misty, she is about 7.5 months along and she is getting quite the belly as well.

Another shot of the mommy-to-be :)

Pepsi decided to cool her heels in the new found pond. With all this nicer weather, this small pond has formed in one corner of the field. Pepsi enjoyed a nice dip in the water. She also ate all the grass right along the waters edge.....because its grows the best there!

Mmmmmmm....nice green grass! Well at least I know she is not afraid of water and should be fine to give her a bath in a few months!

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The vet was out today to give Kiwi and Ebony their yearly vaccinations. She said Ebony was a really good wieght and is sound for breeding. Ebony leaves in about 1.5 weeks to go to the stud farm, where she will stay for about 3-4 weeks. And I found out that baby llamas weigh about 15 pounds!!! AWWWWWWWWWW!

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Kiwi was checked too. He is pretty good, he needs his teeth floated (grinded down) in the fall, because he has hooks on his molars, big fighting teeth and his front teeth have grown a lot. He is also a little under weight. This is because Ebony is a greedy little girl and steals his food! In 2 weeks we are all moving to a new farm and at this farm we will have tons more space and there is a nice big barn with stalls, so I am going to train Kiwi and Ebony to come into seperate stalls for their grain.....then Ebony can't steal Kiwi's grain!