First of all, because it is officially spring! Although this morning it wasn't very spring-y with temps of -18 C . There was a herd of mule deer does munching near my bales this morning and I paused for a while to watch them- they sure are graceful jumpers as they hopped over the fence to go down across the still frozen river.
The day warmed up nicely though- all the way to plus 3 C- woohoo.... but it was nice enough to head out with the other thing that I am happy about- I finally got batteries for my Nikon with the telephoto lens! So of course it was time finally for some action shots of the mares.
They were pretty lazy in the warm sun, so I led them to the far end of their pasture, and turned them loose. Sure'nuff that woke them up and it was tails up and go time!
Power take off
Old pregnant mares can still give 'er!
Who you callin' old?
One toe balance
Didya get all that?
Deep snow is hard work! Yes we do still have 2 ft. of snow.
Powering through!
Nothing like a good roll!
Love how uphill this mare runs
She's gonna be fun to ride!
The mares are wintering really well. I did the math and all 3 horses are getting about 30 pounds of hay a day; a 1300 lb. round bale lasts me 15 days; I fork feed, not free choice. They are fed twice a day and usually have just a few scraps left between feedings. Beamer gets a half a scoop of oats so I can give him his 2 oz. of camelina oil, and Velvet gets a pint of senior feed with a pint of oats. Hopefully we will start getting some meltdown so that they can slowly get back to grazing; I do continue to feed hay for the first month of grazing so they aren't eating too much spring grass. It's a little different here than the last 14 years where they lived on a dry lot and had minimal pasture- here, it's all pasture so it will be a learning curve on managing them.
The saddle hunt is still on...
7 comments:
Wonderful action shots! I get that reaction when I turn them into the summer pasture out back and they run, buck, snort, and just act so silly.
It is such a pleasure to see though.
Wow, you did great with those photos!
I am also happy you got batteries for your Nikon. Wow, you still have a lot of snow. Makes for great photos. Colors just pop and who doesn't love snow spray action shots. You took amazing photos of your gorgeous girls snow play!! Love the perspective of the second photo.
Thanks! All those photos were taken at full zoom (300) on auto focus so I am pretty happy with them. Interesting that in the second photo it focused on the snow spray and not the horses.
Beautiful photos and movement. Sunshine makes everything okay again! The horses come alive, and so do we.
The cold weather definitely increases the hay bill. We’ve felt it this year because of how cold it got so soon. If I don’t end up building the arena / storage building, which is looking more and more unlikely, I think I’m going to ditch the round bales next year and feed completely by hand.
Your herd looks extremely healthy and happy. Good job getting them through winter. It will be interesting to see how you manage all that grass. We have metabolic issues to deal with, so some of our herd can’t be on pasture until after the first cutting is taken. It’s a pain.
Great action shots. Our temp range yesterday was 14-45 (Fahrenheit) Glad we don't have all of your snow. This was a pretty snow free year for us. Anxious to see you foals when they get here. That will be fun.
What wonderful photos! Looks as if they can feel spring even if it is still a little hard to see.
Great photos of the gals and Beamer too! Fun to see how much snow you have:)
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