2009 foals

[Michelle Clarke]

Her barn name should definately be "Legs"! What a nice looking filly.

Our weanlings are getting cranky with eachother lately, all seven still are kept together over night and go out during the day with the five coming two year old fillies. The boys are starting to pick their "girls" out of the older ones....almost time to move them out! The weanling fillies also get irritated with the boys more amorous behavior and bickering is getting to be common place. Soon the coming two year olds get kicked out into the "wild bunch" and the coming yearling fillies get moved out of the barn to make way for the broodmares...I am getting a little excited about foaling coming up in May.

[fantasykiger]

sbutter, congrates on this latest filly...WOW ..legs is right and what a striking gray girl she will be, if she indeed takes after Daddy.

[kigerfan]

her legs are almost as long as her mom's legs!

[sbutter]

The Mardi Gras baby is doing a lot better and the pasterns are coming up! Kate was a little depressed after she foaled ( she still thought the world of her filly though) so we have been monitoring her and the baby and turning them out for twenty minutes each day so she can get some exercise and perk up. So far it seems to be working. We don't want the filly to be putting to much stress on those long legs and we want her to develop properly, so we monitor the turn out periods for about another week and then they will be able to have a small pasture to themselves. For now they have a nice open pen that is in our sales barn area ( 8 big pens under a barn roof). It has a great view of all the hustle and bustle on the ranch and they can still socialize with the horses around them.

We are hoping to be able to get through this year without having to use a nurse mare like we did last year. There was a mare that foaled a really big baby, so understandably she was sore for the next couple of days, but something didn't seem quite right. We told the vet that something was off (it was a weekend) and they told us to monitor her and let them no if she got any new symptoms. She had been passing manure fine and was still eating but she layed down a little longer than we would have liked. This all happened over a course of three days. We took her to the vet first thing Monday morning. That was when we heard the bad news that she had torn the lining inside her and the manure had started to leak into her system and make her septic. The surgery to fix it was to much for the owners to afford and the chances of her surviving was slim. So they put her down and we brought the baby home.
We immediately jumped on the phone and started calling around to see if someone had a nurse mare. In the meantime we had put the baby in with a very maternal mare that already had a baby at her side so the orphan could socialize at that very young age. The other baby did not want to share mommy with the orphan and would guard its mother. Thankfully, some one caught wind of our predicament and had a mare that had foaled a still born that morning. He said that we could take the mare for as long as we needed. He really liked the mare and felt torn up about the foal that she had lost. So we brought her home and crossed our fingers. The first time I saw her was when she was being unloaded off of the trailer. Talk about a depressed mare! She hung her head and quietly walked off the trailer like nothing in the world mattered anymore. We walked her strait into the barn where the baby was and the baby nickered. The mare's ears perked up and she saw the baby. We led her in the stall where the baby was and we had a small barricade of hay bales as a precaution when they met. She immediately started her little momma motor up and couldn't stop talking to the baby! The match was perfect! From that point on no one could tell that they weren't actually related! The man that let us use the mare was so happy that it worked out, because she was such a sweet mare. I think her name was The Heart Rules.

[sbutter]

Tempting Variety just foaled a colt last night! That makes 3 fillies and one colt! I will try to grab some pictures today. After Michelle's post, I wonder how much the diet controls what sex the foal will be?

[vtkiger]

Sbutter, what a nice ending for the poor mare last year who became your nurse mare. Was she rebred for this year?

[sbutter]

The man ended up just turning her into a riding horse. Since she had such an awesome personality.

Kate is also feeling better and her filly is running around and exploring and tasting her surroundings.

[DianneC]

How fun! That black/grey filly is really tall. She can't squeeze under her dam!

[juslyn]

What a sweet story about the nurse mare! Thankfully I haven't had to experience that yet. I do know that my Arab mare raised her orphaned brother along with her colt. Her dam had raised a few orphans and rejected foals in her time and obviously passed that along to her daughter. Hopefully I'll be able to breed her again this year.

[ctxkiger]

HERE ARE PICS OF MY BABY AT 22 DAYS OLD THAT I WANTED TO SHARE:

[kigerfan]

what a cutie!!

[canadiankigers]

WOW!!!!
What a gorgeous foal and look at that dun factor!!!! I can't wait to see how this one matures!!!!! Who are the dam and sire?? Please keep us updated!!!!

[dunbnwild]

What a cutie-pie!!

[fantasykiger]

The sire is the Kiger Stallion in his avatar I believe and one of his QH mares is the dam.
She is an absolutely lovely filly isn't she ;D I sure would be proud of that grulla darling. Has she been graced with a name yet? Sorry, I could not remember if you named her already.

[vtkiger]

What a gorgeous foal!! Do you think he will shed out grulla?