Whew! Lots happening here since our last update. Sorry for the wait, but we sure have been kept on our toes J

You probably have heard already, but we have two new babies here and are waiting for Fanny’s. We kept our eyes on Roxy, sure that she would go first with the enormous udder she had. Then, just like that, Spice cam on strong and foaled a beautiful loud-colored colt around 2am on March 18. For her first foal, all went pretty well. We stayed up all night watching the two of them to see if he would nurse but you could tell that Spice was not crazy about that idea. She wasn’t ever trying to hurt him, just pinned her ears a lot, but we wanted to make sure nothing bad happened. At 6am he still hadn’t nursed so we called the vet to get some help. He arrived about 6:30 and together we tried and tried to have the colt nurse without any success. Finally about 7:45am we decided to take them both into the vet clinic where they had more people and tools to get them together. Once we got there they milked all the colostrum from Spice and gave him a good drink. In addition they had some colostrum in storage that they gave him. His Igg test after that was 1400, a very good score. Finally at about 3pm we got a call that he had started nursing on his own. though Spice was not taking an interest in him. We decided to keep her there until the morning so that they could continue to bond, hopefully.

Over the last week things have not progressed very well in that department. We have tried numerous things to get Spice to let “Finnegan” nurse, including building a chute for Spice with an opening near her teats for the foal to stick his head in and nurse without getting kicked. We also looked into getting a nurse mare but, for several reasons, we don’t think it’s the best option. So Bill will be hand feeding the little guy several times each day for the next four months with a replacement formula and we will socialize him as much as possible with the other horses. There’s nothing more we can do to convince Spice to do what’s needed. Many have told us that this is sometimes a one-time, maiden mare deal and she could be her normal sweet, loving self next time.  We may decide to breed her once more, to find that out.  Then if she does not take good care of her baby a second time we’d not breed her after that.  We still have to talk more about that though.

In the meantime, Roxy had a beautiful, colored colt as well! And on the same day as Spice, so she became a mom AND a grandma on the same day!! Roxy is an old hand at this baby thing, and has done a remarkable job with her little one. All is above normal and the little guy is thriving. He is very spunky and reminds us a lot of Bips. We can tell Roxy will have her hands full for sure!

The other exciting thing that happened was that Cookie and Chief went on their trip down to Texas. They will be living at Destiny Ranch outside of Tyler, Texas, about an hour from Dallas/Fort Worth. We will miss them terribly! They loaded up like champs, Chief into a box stall and Cookie into her space. It was a big 18 wheeler. The driver had a little hard time getting turned around near the barn, but luckily the ground was nice and frozen so he was able to turn around the big old tree.

Thanks for watching.