Wordless Wednesday

 

Dally plans

 Dally got her vet visit, and all is well. She has some body soreness that may require a chiro visit, but the previous injury she came with, the result of a puncture wound on her right hind last fall, was x-rayed and she has been cleared for light riding. 

She was very good for the vet, who also determined that she should be coming in heat in about 10 days. 

The plan is to take her to be bred to Scooter, Coyote Belle's son. That keeps the Beamer/Belle bloodline going; a Beamer daughter to a Belle son. 

Some photos of him from last year:

 

He is another big soggy Belle son and I am pretty excited for this cross!

Dally is also solid and chunky built so this foal should make a rope/ranch/cow event horse. 

Meanwhile, Tuffy and his mama are doing well; he is friendly and comes to visit me but I do have to be mindful of Happy if one of the other mares show too much interest in him. 

Velvet got chomped for daring to say hi....

Happy may be protective around the other horses but she is a sweetheart to handle for humans. 

She is starting to gain weight again. All the horses are together on pasture during the day, and I bring Happy and Tuffy in at night. So far everything is going smoothly. 

A visit and some fancy moves

 Yesterday, I hauled Gussie to Shayla's, where she will be bred to her stallion Absolute Playboy aka Simon

Simon is a very good minded and quiet stallion who has sired several successful show horses both quarter horses and paints. He should be an excellent cross on Gussie. 

While I was there I got to visit the twins, who are both thriving. They are so cute! Their mama was ok with me checking them out. 

The filly has a star and it looks like she will be grey and the colt will stay black.

Hope is the filly, you can see that she is smaller than her brother Cruiser. 

Those eyelashes! 

I also got to visit Louie, her QH colt who is sired by Simon- he is just adorable and super friendly. He will make someone a good show horse. 

Tomorrow I haul Dally for her vet appointment  so I should be able to determine when to haul her in for the rebreed on the stallion Gussie was bred to last year. I haven't had a lot of time to spend with Dally in the last week or so today she will get a good grooming, gotta have her looking good for the vet!

Tuffy and Happy got some turnout in pasture yesterday, I know Happy was pining for some fresh grass so I gave them the afternoon in the middle pasture for a few hours. 

Surprisingly enough, he didn't get too zoomy out there. But he made up for it this morning! We have a weather front coming in so it is a bit colder today. That could be why he was showing off! 

He literally floats across the ground like he is dancing- and then he lights up the after burners and zooms full speed!

The halter training is going slower than normal- every time I try, Happy quietly moves in between me and her boy, as if to say, no, not yet. I will give her a bit more time to be less possessive of him before I get serious about his halter training.

Zoomies

 One of the fun things about a new foal is watching them figure out their legs and their instinct to run. And with all the speed in the genetics of this foal, he was only hours old before he figured out how to lope. He was born tippy toe like Pistol was, so I mixed up my tendon salve and put it on him twice at 2 days old and that fixed the problem. 

Standing on his tippy toes day 1

Today

He has a lot of speed and sometimes it is more than he can handle!

He wiped out twice, no harm done, all part of learning. 

A good slurp and recharged for the next round!

Today he and mama got turned into a bigger pen so she can have some grass along with her hay. Tuffy still has some unfolding to do on his left front so I want to keep them out of the big pasture until he is a bit stronger. I bring them in at night in the foaling pen though to be safe. 

Happy is doing well, she is a very good mama and makes sure he can navigate going in and out of the barn and through the 4 ft. gate. 

First time in the barn yesterday

She looks a bit thin, but is adding weight every day. I am picking up a special ration for her tomorrow for lactating mares who are hard keepers. 

His registration papers and disease panel test, along with the roan test will be sent off in a few days, I will wait until it is done before telling what his registered name will be- don't want it stolen as happened with Belle's first foal. I was going to test for grey, but that is redundant as you can see the grey circle around his eyes already, a sure sign that he will be grey. 

Wishes

 Sometimes you get what you pray for. I prayed for a healthy foal and a safe delivery for Happy and topped it off with daytime foaling. 

Wishes do come true!

Without further ado here we go:

2 feet and a nose, all good

Around 10 minutes of laying there while taking in the new environment

I did have to help pull, this is a big baby! 41 inches at the hip.

Getting all the mama loves

Standing fairly quickly

So handsome!

It is a chestnut colt, probably roan and born at 5:15 today, May 7th. 

His barn name is Tuffy. 

The winner of the foaling contest is Frank, who guessed red colt May 8, that was the closest guess. 

Being patient

 Happy is still hanging in there so if your guess date has passed, feel free to comment an update on this post.

Her belly is finally v'ing up, should be soon!

Happy looks a bit thin, I reckon because she is putting everything into her foal. She is on feed 24/7 and gets a supplement every morning. 

This is Jess Too Blue,  the sire of the foal

I think the baby will be gorgeous! It should have both speed and trainability.

This stallion's pedigree has top names in the running bred quarter horses as well as going back to a couple of very famous Triple Crown winners : Seattle Slew and the mighty Secretariat. 

I have a couple of cute names picked out which I will tell after the foal is born. 

Dally has settled in well, she is now out with the old girls on pasture. She is the kind that follows me around just like Velvet does, and she is easy to be around, loves brushing and oh my she has a long thick tail that goes to the ground. 

However, she has Beamer's thin mane, darn. 

I have a spy cam on my foaling pen so this year I don't have to sleep in the barn. I have solar lights set up that have a motion sensor on them, they get bright when she walks past them and dimmer when all is still. It helps me be able to see her at night without even getting out of bed! If I see no movement and she is not visible I can shine my flashlight from the mud room in the house and see what she is up to. No more sleeping in the barn- yay!

This is the view from my camera, it does have night vision, and I can zoom right in from my phone. Very handy! But I still wake up every hour or so to check. It is hard to be patient!

One of my own

 Ted and I are coming up on our 30th anniversary next month; and my sweetheart bought me a diamond...

That is ,  DLH Peppys Diamond! That is the only kind of diamond this old lady needs!

Dally made it here just before midnight after over 10 hours journey. I put her in a pen between Happy and the other mares so she would have company overnight. This morning I had a good visit with her and marvelled at how much she is like Beamer  

She has his jaw

and his booty

Apparently she is red mare approved 

She hasn't had any grass yet, as she came from northern BC where their snow just melted. We have grass coming in but not much yet. I moved her to Beamers pen which has just enough grass to keep her busy but not enough to get her laminitic . 

It did my heart good to see a Beamer daughter in his old pen. 

I have her booked in for an ultrasound on May 15 as the plan is to use her for my rebreed to the stallion Gussie was bred to. BC Always Leo, aka Leo. 

Finally, my own Beamer daughter back in my herd. Welcome home, Dally.

Guess again

 Aurora and Leslie, you can put in another guess on the foaling contest, Ms. Happy is still packing her wide load. 

Those of you who haven't entered but would like to, go to this post for details: Foaling Contest

No little extra feet this morning...

Her udder is filling up and baby is shifting a bit so hopefully it wont be too much longer! 

She sure is an easy mare to be around, so I am hoping the baby gets her good mind, size and bone. 

Those of you who follow our page on Facebook will see that Shayla has a Percheron mare who had twins, a colt and a filly. The filly was a bit smaller but not by much. However she has an interesting problem that I have never heard of before but apparently can be common in twins; she couldn't figure out how to get her hind end under her to stand up. So she was assisted by Shayla or her husband and  after 5 days of that she has finally got it all sorted and is getting to her feet without issues! 

She is the one with the star

It is always a worry when there are twins so we are all happy that this set is on the way to being healthy  and happy! Mama is a good mama too.