Catlow's baby

All along I knew I was going to have Catlow bred too.  I'm almost more excited about her baby.  I feel she has more positive attributes to pass along to a foal that I couldn't get out of quarter horse breeding.  She has stout bone, big feet, and a very nicely balanced body with a big stride, and to top it off, she has a beautiful head.  You can't find quarter horses with stout bone and big feet anymore.  I've looked.  I'm sure they are out there, but they are not the ones that are being advertised and siring dozens of foal.  Catlow is often mistaken for a quarter horse with her very balanced body and big hip...and I think it is a shame that her foal could not be registered as a quarter horse.  I think she could do a lot to improve the breed.  I fear quarter horses are going the way of thoroughbreds...such a limited gene pool.  It didn't start that way; quarter horses had a very diverse beginning, with mustangs figuring prominently into their foundation stock.  But now, after generations of selective breeding, many of them do not resemble their founders at all, not to mention being plagued with some genetic issues due to "line" breeding (another word for "inbreeding"). 

Years ago, when I was first toying with the ideas of breeding my special girls, I considered a gaited horse for Catlow.  She almost moves like a gaited horse sometimes, and she has a big overreach with her hind end.  I think she'd match well with a gaited horse.  But, I am a bit stuck in my ways and just like the way quarter horses look.  IF I ever decide to have another baby from her (unlikely, but I can't predict the future), I might go with a gaited horse.  I of course get a lot of insight into gaited horses from my "heritage" Tennessee Walker breeding neighbor.  I think I would look into a Rocky Mountain Horse first, and Tennessee Walker second....but that's beside the point....right now Catlow will be having a foal sired by Rawhides Slvr Bullet!

Not only is he a wonderfully built stallion with a solid reputation of having a good temperament, but he is also a well known reining stallion that was successfully shown...and grullo on top of that!

Of course I've played around with the color genetics (I was a geneticist in my former life you know...)

Offspring Color Probability (Catlow X Bullet)

25.0% - Red Dun
25.0% - Chestnut/Sorrel
12.5% - Black
12.5% - Bay Dun
12.5% - Bay
12.5% - Grullo

I'll be using the baby as an all around horse, and mostly a trail horse.  It's crazy to think that my special horses are almost in their teens.  Catlow is 11 this year and Cody is 12.  By the time their babies are ridable, they will be 15 and 16!!!  I think it is a good time to think about replacing them someday, not that they could ever be replaced, but the timing is right.  By the time the girls are slowing down, their young'uns will be developing into solid horses themselves. 

It's kinda funny spending time with the herd now.  The mares are definitely starting to "show" and are 7 months along (only 4 months left!!!).  They are slowing down.  I can sense the fatigue in them.  They just aren't peppy and almost act like sometimes it is too much work to get moving from a standstill.  Don't get me wrong - they are still plenty agile and I see them galloping in the field and cavorting still (saw Cody rearing up and picking on Chico the other day), but they are really taking resting seriously these days.

 Catlow

 

 

 

Cody

 

 

The weather has been above freezing the past couple of days and Stormy has needed a trim for a while, so I brought her into the new barn and got her done.  I just think she looks gorgeous tied to the wall that will be my tack room eventually!

And I might as well show more shots of our barn/garage/shelter.  It has it all and is PERFECT!  Aside from the fact that it is not finished yet.  But our builder does quality work and I will not rush him.

 

Front side - this building will double as a haul in clinic for horses and some small animals eventually.  The garage area will be heated for large animal exams, and there will be a small side room that is also heated with water that will serve as a small animal exam/surgery room.  There is clear panel instead of tin above the stalls to allow ambient light in so that the barn will not need to be lit at all during the day.  It works really well.

From the back.  The horses will have access to the shelter area at all times, and the stalls will be only for bad weather, and feeding supplements (mostly the stalls are for me.  My horses have never had them and never seemed to want them.  But I will have fun being able to still visit them when the weather is bad)

 

The stalls area.  Just got the first door on today.  It is all rough sawn oak.  The builder's father saws it from his own woods.  We got a great price on it.



Mid-winter pregnancy

Chico

 



Stormy

 



 Cody

 

Catlow

 

 

You cannot imagine how excited I am to see these babies.  Yes, Catlow is expecting too.  I was afraid to tell you because I know the internet can run wild with people's opinions on breeding horses, especially mustangs.  But there is no way I am going to be able to only show Cody's foal and leave Catlow's secret just to avoid other people's opinions. 

 

 

To be honest, I think Catlow's foal will be nicer than Cody's, but I guess we'll see.  If Catlow has a colt, her foal will probably be placed with a close friend, otherwise, it is mine forever!  I love Catlow to pieces and I want a piece of her to carry on.  I have plans for these foals.  I am so excited!!!!!

 

Cody is due beginning of May.  Catlow is due mid-late May.  Expect more foaling updates as the time progresses.  Right now the girls are right around 7 months along.  We are getting closer!  And I think my barn will be finished just in time to get them accustomed to their new stalls for foaling.  I'll show pictures of it at a later date.  The new barn is more than I ever imagined I'd have in a barn for my horses.  We are all so spoiled.

 

Stormy says she doesn't get why the other girls are getting spoiled and she's getting left out....she doesn't like it one bit.

Actually, they all get fed supplements together and so Stormy isn't actually left out at all, but after everyone else walks away when they are done, Stormy sticks around hoping to beg more out of us.

 

Someone is happy to oblige.  While I feed the horses, my daughter is busy concocting her own mixes of salt, rice bran, and alfalfa pellets.  Mostly it is salt, but as long as their are a few pellets in it, Stormy will eat it happily.

 

My supplements right now consist of beet pulp, a little rice bran pellets, alfalfa pellets, Purina Enrich Plus pellets, and top dressed with salt.  Sometimes I mix in a little hoof supplement for the biotin, but not every day.  I am hoping that Catlow will not lose any weight this winter, because she can't...she needs to work on growing a healthy foal.  Her teeth were addressed last spring (nothing wrong with them), and I'm doing more free choice hay rather than rationing them this year.  Chico of course doesn't need that, but I don't want to separate him from everyone else.  And so far, this winter has not been as cold or snowing as last winter.  Last winter was extremely harsh and is why all my horses lost a little weight, but Catlow the most.  But this winter is not over yet...so I shouldn't make any predictions yet.



Darkness

I've been missing my horses.  I've spent the last week at home, but I'm gone all day on my latest externship and I leave early and don't get back until after dark.  So it's been over a week since I've seen my horses in the daylight.  Without a barn with lights, it makes it hard to really check on them...but they are all there and upright for every feeding.

And this weekend marks the last cram session for an exam that I hope I'll ever have to do.  I take my national board exam tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

And I'm going to post the transition collages I made for Chico and Catlow that show their progression since I adopted them as yearlings until now.  Can you believe they are 9 years old already!?

Together at last (2)!

 

Cody trots to catch up with Catlow, who moved down the valley to graze.

After separating Stormy out, Chico hurries to catch up with Cody and Catlow.

Stormy makes it back down to the others after I shoo her away, and Chico right away sets in to chase her.  She's not to happy about it...with a swish of her tail.

All the activity gets Catlow riled up too, so she launches into a gallop!  If Catlow is going to run, the whole herd will run!  I love the power in Catlow's launch!

They are all feeling a little sassy!  Well, Catlow and Cody are...I think Stormy is just trying to stay out of Chico's way!

 

 Catlow is really digging in!



Sassy!

My dogs think they should chase the horses as the horses run past and my poor cruciate ligament tear/repair dog, Jasper, trips himself up in the grass and goes head over heals!

Don't worry, Jasper is okay.  It just hurts to see him so debilitated.  I'm pretty sure catching Lyme disease set off his cranial cruciate ligament tears.

The horses get separated.  Stormy ran into the lower pasture and whinnies pitifully to her separated friends.

So they all head down to be together.

Once together, they are still riled up!  I love the tails in the air!

 

 Then they settle down, with Chico and Cody standing side by side, like they used to.  Stormy looks on like she'd really like to be next to her Cody.



I do think that Cody missed Chico.  She touches him affectionately here.

Stormy decides she's had enough of them for awhile and trots up to visit me again.  Sure, maybe she thinks I'll feed her, but she really does seem to be bonding to me!  Every time I come outside, she looks up and stares at me with this penetrating look.  None of my other horses do that!  Griffin used to always notice me and acknowledge me too.

Together at last!

This will be a two parter, just because I have lots of photos to share.

And because I know that it is probably hard to tell all my dark horses apart , especially since they all get darker when their winter coats come in, I'll describe them all quick before we get into it.  Catlow is the easy one...she is the sorrel with the big blaze face.  Then Stormy is the only other horse with any white - she is dark brown (seal brown) with a small crescent on her forehead, a snip, and a white right rear pastern.  Stormy has the darkest coat color and true black mane and tail.  Cody is very similar in color to Stormy except she is more of a smokey color (due to the cream gene on seal brown) and her mane and tail are very dark chocolate.  She is also bigger than Stormy and has no white.  And Chico is the simple bay with no white.  He is actually a little bit of a sooty bay, but compared to the others, he is quite light.

Chico's wound is really healing nicely.  It's hardly even thickened around the fetlock anymore.  It has a nice scab over the ever-shrinking granulation tissue.  I'm so pleased at the stage it's at.

 

So I decided to turn the horses back out together.  It's easier to manage them when they are together.  As it was, the two out in the big pasture weren't getting any mineral because the mineral feeder is in the barn.

 

I knew there would be drama, and of course there was, but not nearly as much as there was the first time I turned Chico out with them all.  That time he was also full of energy from being cooped up in the barn.  This time it was much less excitement, but still a lot to see in the herd interactions.

 

Stormy has this disgusting habit of peeing at horses when she is kicking at them.  I thinks it's a bit of submission thing, but she also tends to show extremely strong heats, especially to horses she hasn't been with.

 

Here she is kicking at Chico and peeing at him at the same time, as he threatens to kick her.

 

Chico tries to go down and chase after Stormy, again, but Cody (dark chocolate colored horse) steps in front of him and cuts him off, threatening to kick him.  Remember, Chico and Cody are usually best buds.

 

 

I love Cody's face in this and Chico's reaction.  She is clearly telling him to back off. 

 

And he does.  Cody is the boss mare afterall.  He behaves himself for a few minutes, following Cody apologetically.  This picture is good for showing the colors of the "dark" horses.  Stormy is furthest in the background here, then Cody (you can really see her smokiness), then Chico last.

 

But that doesn't last long.  He's back to chasing Stormy again.

 

He tries to keep her on the outside of his herd, while Cody looks on with a watchful eye.  Catlow couldn't care less what was happening.  She was just happy to be out in the big pasture grazing (she was the one in with Chico in the little pasture).

 

Chico succeeds in isolating Stormy and she looks at me hoping I might save her.

 

Chico takes off at a strong trot to catch up with Cody and Catlow.  You can see his leg really doesn't hinder him much at all!  I'm so excited that I might actually have my riding gelding back when he's all healed up from this.  I don't think this ruined him!

 

 He's catching air here.  Someone said that he probably is okay because mustangs are tougher than other horses.  I sort of had to giggle at that because really, Chico was just one lucky horse.  Lucky that he happened to miss all those important tendons, joints, and everything else down there!  And I like to think he had good care.  Without all the bandaging, he certainly wouldn't have had this good of a cosmetic effect, and it may have scarred bad enough to hinder motion in his fetlock.

 

After Chico isolated Stormy, she came right over to hang out with me.  She just stood next to me and walked beside me in the pasture as though I was leading her.  I finally shoo'd her away telling her to go interact with the others, and as she left, she stopped and looked back at me with this expression "Do I really have to?"

 

I'm really becoming quite attached to the newest member of my herd.

Unexpected herd behavior

I played with Chico a lot today since he's so bored locked in the barn.  He got to graze in the yard and I took more pictures of his wound.  I'm pretty disappointed in how slowly it is healing.  Here is a picture from the 29th (+ 27 days).  I'm consulting with the vets at school about further things to do.

 

This picture and the following one show how much the bottom part of the wound moves.  This is the part with the deepest cleft where I worry that there is something in there preventing closure (more serious issue that is causing drainage).

Because Chico needed a new round bale moved into the barn where he's being kept, and he has been so bored, and I was also a little frustrated wondering how much longer I was going to have to keep him confined, I decided to let him out into the pasture and see how he did.

I was hoping he'd take it easy and just mosey around eating grass, but of course that is not what happened.  He hasn't been in with Stormy yet.  The day she arrived was the day I noticed his big wound. 

Now, Stormy settled in with just the mares really well.  There was only a little bit of violence and that was almost always centered around them getting some pellets during Chico's medicine feedings so they didn't all feel left out.  Stormy is a little pushy around feed and so would get in Cody's face and that's never a good thing to do when there is food involved.  Cody would kick her a few times and they'd be back to being friends.  Cody even lets Stormy snag feed from her bucket as long as she doesn't want her head in the bucket at that moment.  Catlow too showed Stormy that she is the boss.  She often turns her butt to her to threaten with kicks and Stormy gets out of her way quickly, but Catlow rarely actually kicks her.

Out in the pasture, the three mares are almost inseparable.  And interestingly, I often see Cody and Stormy grazing more closely together now than Catlow and Cody (though Catlow is usually the outsider and watch mare in any herd). 

Now, throw Chico into the mix.  He seemed to ignore Stormy at first.  He has of course met her before on rides and for the last several weeks has gotten to know her over a gate.  Once he was settled into the fact that he was back with his herd, he had to immediately show Stormy who was the number 2 horse in this herd and remind her that she will in no uncertain terms be the bottom!  He was very aggressive about it, much to my dismay after hoping that he wouldn't race around on his wounded leg.  He walks with no limp, but trotting, I can see that he is off a bit.  However, he will race around at a canter and gallop with no worries.

At one point, Cody trotted into the round pen (I've left the gate open from the pasture side into the round pen so they can keep the grass grazed down and play in the sand since it is not being used much this year).  Stormy followed Cody, and when Chico saw Stormy following her in, he raced in there to get after her.  That was when I saw the most amazing thing.

As Chico would get after Stormy, Cody would get very aggressive and get after Chico.  So it was really mass confusion as Chico was trying to be all aggressive toward Stormy and stay out of Cody's way.  They all left the round pen and moved out into the big pasture.  There, the same sequence of events was repeated.  Chico would aggressively chase Stormy to bite her on the butt, and Stormy would double barrel kick at him with her heels high in the sky and run away as fast as she could.  Then Cody would run in and bite Chico and spin to threaten to kick at him.  In between attacks, Cody would stand sort of all puffed up and calm.  Stormy very quickly realized that Cody was protecting her and would try to keep Cody between herself and Chico at all times.

I was really just floored.  I never would have expected that kind of behavior from them.  Cody was so obviously protecting Stormy and telling Chico to knock it off with his behavior.  Catlow through all this seemed to get after Stormy a little more than usual but not really aggressively.  I think that Chico was very confused at first.  Here he thought he was chasing this new mare away from his main companion (Cody and Chico are usually the inseparable ones in the pasture), while Cody was telling him that Stormy was not to be treated like that and was Cody's new companion too.  In between attacks, Cody would graze head to head with Chico, but she absolutely would not tolerate his behavior toward Stormy. 

Poor Stormy was pretty confused.  She wanted to be near Cody, but being near Cody is what set Chico off in his aggression toward her.  Cody was her protector, but she couldn't prevent the attacks all together.  For part of the time, Stormy just stood on the outside of the group to stay out of Chico's way. 

Shortly after this, we got the new round bale in the barn and I put Chico away.  He really doesn't need to be running like that while we are trying to treat him and his wound.  I'm sure with more time, they'd sort it out completely, but they really didn't have the time to.  Next time I'll be ready with my camera to document this amazing behavior among my new herd!

Pony time

I had a very good friend whom I haven't seen in 2 years visit this past week.  I've been off classes on spring break, and my friend came to do horse things with me!  We had the best weather...60's and 70's (insane for March in WI!!!!).  We trail rode every day (except the 1 day out of 5 that it rained), drank wine and ate goat cheese every night.  It was great and exactly the kind of break I needed!  My friend rode Cody pretty much the whole time, except for when we brought horses into the round pen to mess around with (trying to mount from the ground bareback and cantering bareback).  I rode Catlow the first trail ride, but it quickly became apparent that she needed to rest...she has a cough that I've noticed before.  She had it last winter too, but generally not in the summer time.  I'm unsure what it is...it's some sort of chronic thing.  I will be investigating though it seems like a fairly mild sporadic, cough, unless she is worked really hard. 

We trailered my horses a few miles down the rode to a sandy county road that connects with many trails through a remote oak/pine forested area.  We rode for many hours each day, making sure that we were sore by the time we got back.  We trotted and cantered a ton!  It felt great!  Cody was extremely well behaved for my friend.  Chico was good, but we did discover some holes to work through.  He needs some more work riding at greater speeds keeping his attention on me and not the other horse.  He wanted to be in the lead, so when we were behind, he wanted to catch up and pass.  When we were in front, he was better, but the first day he was very fast and very difficult to get to respond to cues well.  By the last day of our trail riding saga, he was actually doing much much better.  I could let Cody pass us at the trot or canter without Chico even thinking about breaking from the walk.  And we could canter or trot to catch up with control.  I think he needed some reminding about how to listen to me and not his boss mare, Cody.  It was great to ride with a friend and get some training in on my horses at the same time!  And now, my horses get to recover from their week at work too.

I wish I had more photos from the past week, but we were busy riding, plus my camera batteries were low.  But enjoy the few that I have!

We encountered a boggy area and lead the horses through it.  Chico fell in a bit of a hole and splattered me with mud on his way out.

Oh, and here is a photo of goofy Kachina.  I'm not sure how she managed to get herself a hay wig, but it stayed on for quite a while.  She acted as though she was purposefully wearing it.  It didn't bother her at all.  She never shook her head to get rid of it.  It eventually blew off when they came out into a more open area with wind.

Griffin is handsome and the rest of my horses look on.

Kachina comes to the fence to visit.

The rest of the horses came too.  I think that Chico is saying Kachina looks ridiculous in her hay wig.