Saturday, May 2, 2015

Still waiting

The girls are still making me wait.  Cody is at about 343 days now and it is not entirely uncommon for horses to go to 365 days!  I hope not.  Also, colts on average gestate for 5 days longer than fillies.  And maiden mares gestate longer than seasoned mares.  So I'm still being very patient.  Catlow really looks closer than Cody, and has had crusting (not quite wax) on her teat ends the last couple of days.  Either of them could go ANYTIME!  I dream about horses foaling all night long lately, and everyonce in a while during the day, the random thought that my mares are actually going to have foals creeps into my head and I get a rush of excitement.  Most of the time, its just the same old waiting game and I'm not really expecting too much.





I rode Chico the other day.  I round penned him a bit first and he was full of himself (he often almost bucks at first, but this was the most I've seen him do), but he settled down and we had a really nice ride.  I did not notice any lameness from him and he was not lame afterward.  We'll see.  I'll keep riding him this summer and see what we get.  I've been giving him increased omega-3 fatty acids (flaxseed) in an attempt to decrease inflammation in his system.  Maybe it's working.








3 comments:

Shirley said...

I'm so excited to see Cody's foal. Did you ever get her colour tested? She loos the same colour as my Coyote Belle, who was EE Aa Cr. Since AQHA doesn't differentiate between bay and brown they wouldn't let me call her a sooty buckskin, they said black or brown carrying one copy of the cream gene. I always figures sooty buckskin.

Linda said...

Chico looks particularly handsome nowadays. I sure hope those girls drop some foals soon. I can't wait to see pictures.

Kara said...

Cody is EeAaCrcr and the "A" is actually the brown allele instead of bay. So yes, she is a brown buckskin (or sooty buckskin).

Chico is a little less fat than typical this spring. He usually does look really good beginning of summer because I can control his feed intake over the winter, but once the green grass comes in, he balloons up. I tried a grazing muzzle last year, really tried hard, and he kept it on, but became really hard to catch. I would really have to work and chase to outsmart him and get him caught, and half the time be would come up lame afterward from running around. So I would leave him in the smaller pasture when I couldn't catch him. But I got sick of that after a while and just turned him out. Once out, I could catch him again. I hate not being able to catch my horse. It'd be easier to put a grazing muzzle on him this year now that I have the stalls and have been locking everyone in at night, but the grass hasn't come in heavy yet...maybe we'll do that. I just hate the resentment he gives me when I use it. He's my buddy otherwise and seems to think I'm torturing him when I put a grazing muzzle on him!