Updates…

Texas weather has been very kind to us so far – pretty mild, lots of temps in the 70′s…very workable.  We’ve been able to move forward and the training of some of the horses; making strides so to speak.

Reina is doing very well; her roundness work is coming along nicely and she is turning into a calm, reliable mount.  Amada is advancing in her workouts; easy going as ever and developing a lot of good stuff under saddle.  We’ve started some new projects, including Cha Cha (Lusitano/Kiger) out of Leza, and getting some good groundwork done with her.  I really like this mare and plan on keeping her and breeding her to Gringo in the next couple of years.  Electra, or Lexi, our little Paso cross filly is beginning her journey into getting under saddle.  She is a little spitfire and a ton of fun to play with.  Soon to begin working toward getting under saddle are Fabio, Cora and Nali.  The other coming three year olds, Chiva and Luna, I will most likely wait until summer or fall to start with.

ChaCha…getting so tall, already 15’2 and still a ways to go:

Gringo is getting back to work under saddle.  He sure is one heck of a horse!  I enjoy him so much.  My main riding horse, Rev, is being focused toward Working Equitation.  We are starting a chapter here in Central Texas for the competitions…looking forward to training for these events.

Rev, enjoying the sunshine:

We recently sold two of our horses; Baila (a Chilli baby) is now owned by the Huppe family.  10 year old Emily is her main care giver and riding companion.  It is great to see Baila finally have a home, not to mention such a perfect one.  Baby Zerlina, was a surprise Xmas gift to long time client, Haley Turner.  I am looking forward to watching them together doing great things.

Broodmares are due to come up soon…getting big and slowing down some, coming into their last trimester.  I think Leza and Joy have boys in there – which is way too exciting for me!  Speaking of babies, last years group will have some changes coming soon.  Troy and Max will be separated and moved to their own pasture – Troy is all boy lately!  Our new filly from the Kiger adoption, Zuri, will be moved into the filly herd – which she will be excited about!  The mare, Raz, is about to officially begin her training around here; lots of pictures and videos to come!

Babies in January…

well, not so much babies anymore!  Getting big and growing well.  It is almost time to separate the boys…Troy and Max are getting obnoxious and Troy is starting to figure out he is all boy!  Some picts from yesterday…

Deja Vous, Nivea, Vida and Troy:

Zerlina:

Vida:

Nivea:

Max…fuzzy, fluffy, messy Max!

Vida and Deja Vous:

Troy, irritating MisTika:

Troy and Zerlina:

Countdown to Babies!!

With the new year here, the first thing that comes to my mind in new foals!  Always a favorite time of the year.  Four due this year and they all are going to be dynamite!

The mares come up in about a month, they are still on the hill with the Wild Bunch.  Since we’ve had such a drought and crazy weather this year, I’ve been more worried that they are getting all they need out foraging.  Today I brought them some free choice minerals and was excited to take it out to the pasture to share with them.  I put up a feeder and most of them started right up the hill to see what I had.  Tasa, of course, was first…

Tasa is bred back to Gringo for a full sibling to Zerlina.  She is the third mare due on May 2.

Mari came up but hung back to see what was going on first.  She is due last, on May 11; bred to Hawk – his first foal!

Joy then pushed her way in, sending Tasa off.  Joy is bred to Charro and due April 30…we are very excited for our first foal from this lovely mare!

Leza, in typical Leza form, declined any involvement and waited patiently at the bottom of the hill for the alfalfa.  She’s not much into wasting energy!!  Leza is bred back to Charro for a full sibling to Vida (everyone do the colt dance!!), she is due first on April 22.

Not to be left out of things, Nesa came up beside Joy (they have a love/hate relationship!).  She was not sure what this was but had to find out:

She had to give her opinion:

And just in case I did not get the message the fist time – she gave it to me again…

Pretty Tasa!

Every once and awhile…

we have a trauma here at the ranch. Yesterday morning, everyone in the barns and most of the outside guys were fed; babies turned out.  I was sidetracked a few times, so we were late feeding the Wild Bunch on the hill.  Mostly we were late because my golf cart decided not to run the day before, so feeding takes way longer.  We come around the back of the barns and Cali is first to see a light bodied horse laying over the fence into the Wild Bunch area.  Flat out, not moving and leg twisted in the fence.  It was Max, one of the colts from last year.

I was very concerned because that road is littered with very large rocks and I was hoping he did not hit his head.  Thankfully he was okay but we still had the foot in the fence to deal with.  He was laying on his left side, with his right front foot up and caught in the fence.  I tried to get him out, with no success as Cali ran for fence cutters.  Max only tried to get up once, I talked calmly to him and he was instantly still again.  Luckily, a friend that was hunting in the back, was just coming up and had his Leatherman, so I was able to quickly cut the fence.

Max stood up, a little dazed and slow as his foot was probably numb.  We opened the gate and he walked right out and up to the barn all on his own – with a few pats on the rump for encouragement.  Once he went into a stall, I looked him over – not a scratch!  That boy did not fight to free his leg at all.  He just calmly laid there and waited for help.  That my friends, is none other than breeding.  I am so proud of him and so happy to see Gringo throw that great disposition.

I am also happy the Wild Bunch did not decided to try to “help” him and was just standing around him in a large semi-circle being a calm  and comforting force.

Max’s leg was ever so slightly swollen under the pastern but he was sound on it walking around in the stall after about an hour.  I rubbed some clay around it to draw out any soreness and gave him some Arnica for any pain.  My best guess is that he and Troy were rough housing too close to the fence – they’ve been getting pretty rowdy lately.  Boys!

Catching up…

After a horrid drought this year, I believe it rained all of November and December!  We still have standing water and lots of mud but I sure am grateful; which I remind myself every time it takes 30 minutes to brush out a horse…

Since hay is a scarcity in Texas, Eric is driving all over to bring it in for us.  Costs are skyrocketing – locally squares are up and over $15/bale and we had a client just buy a roundbale for $170…(gulp!).  Grain has also almost doubled from two years ago.  Speaking of which, when a customer tells me they are feeding processed feed and paying $9/50 lbs., when the same amount of plain oats is almost $14/bag and corn is $12/bag – I have to ask them just what they think is in the $9/bag feed…???!!!

Things are going good here – horses doing well.  Babies are not so much babies anymore and broodmares are filling out, getting ready to come up in the next month or so.  Can’t believe baby time is right around the corner!  The two new wild ones are doing super.  The filly, Zuri, just wants to be loved on and when I bring her grain in, she has to come over for lovies and kisses before she eats.  She puts her nose up to my face and wiggles it – so cute, what a doll.  The older mare, Raz, is getting tamer all the time.  I am not pushing anything and letting her make her own way about it as every day she tries a little more just in daily routines.  All in good time.

Zuri last month…it’s a tough life!

 

Turned Loose!

This afternoon, I let the two  new Kigers out in the little grass pasture next to the barn.  They played and jumped – happy as clams!  Then they enjoyed a few hours of good grazing.  I could see how much the older mare, Raz, enjoyed herself.  She gets a longing look on her face when she sees the Wild Bunch come up the back hill for breakfast and water.  They are calming down quickly and I hope to have the young filly, Zuri, out with the other babies in another week or so.

Raz, surveying the land and keeping an eye over Zuri:

She can sure move!

Zuri is the cutest girl…she has quite the strong hindend and can really push off with those long legs.

New Friends…

The new filly, Dulzura, had a meet and greet with Zerlina this morning.  I let her into the aisle to explore and Zerlina acted the most interested of the babies to want to play with her.  They got along wonderfully – no fuss at all; like they’ve known eachother forever.  Dulzura even wandered in and out of a stall I left open.

Since Charro has not been able to take his eyes off of the new mare, Raz, I let them hang out some today.  She was thrilled to have a stallion with her – you can see it seemed to take some pressure off of her being so guarded.  She followed him around and mimicked everything he did.  Charro had a nice calming effect on her.  Plus, he’s in love!  He rubbed and kissed all over her; you could tell she enjoyed the attention.

Dulzura had figured out pretty quick where grain lives!  Both she and Raz have only been picking at the grain but today I put some herbs in there and they sure gobbled the whole thing up right away!  Guess it smelled a lot better than plain old oats!

Charro and Raz, enjoying each others’ company:

New Additions

Almost fully recovered from our long trip to Oregon.  It was great to see all the Kigers that have been rounded up and available for adoption.  I went there with my eye on one particular filly, number 1191, which I was able to purchase.  Even though she is not the “right color”, I saw her in some pictures first taken when they were brought in.  The family groups were still hanging out together and this filly was with two mares that are spitting images of Nesa – the mare I got from the last adoption.  She looked like she belonged to the older mare and there was a younger mare (about 3) that had a small colt with them.  I knew from having Nesa and now having her foals, what a great disposition this filly would have.

I also had my eye on a young colt but there were others bidding on him, so I let it go.  It was nice to see most of the horses got adopted, even the bays and browns, which usually get passed over due to color.  The total for the adoption, 88 horses in total getting adopted, was just over $76,000.  The high selling colt going for almost $10,000.

After the first round, they take a break, then have a second round for those horses who did not get adopted.  Mostly they are the older horses because they are much harder to tame and work with.  I have a soft spot for the older ones, so I purposely left, went up to the truck, made a pit stop and then went to stand in line to pay for my filly.  A friend came up and let me know that the little, older grulla mare did not get adopted in the first round.  I knew she would not get adopted the next go’round either because not only was she small but 11 years old.  Plus, this was her first time being rounded up, so she managed to not get caught the first two roundups she should have been in on.  Pretty wiley!

Needless to say, I had to go to see if anyone would pick her up in the next round.  Of course, no one piped up, so she is now home with me.  I figure she’ll make a nice companion for Charro – he’ll be happy as a clam about it too.  I think he already knows.  She is in a pen close to him and he quietly watches her all day.  He’s been acting mild and laid back since she came into the barn.  When I looked back at some early pictures of her and went through all the foals, she is the only older mare that did not have one.  She was also in with the yearlings that of course, had no foals.  There was one foal that died during the round up, so my guess is maybe it was hers.  Here she is at the day of the adoption:

She looks like her head is big enough to be on a full sized horse, so my guess is she is stunted.  The Kigers are usually a pretty good size and she is a tiny thing.  Either she was born to a very young filly or an older mare and did not get the quality of milk; or she was rejected be her momma and an older mare took her in and the milk quality was poor.  I found a picture of a mare that looks like her on the range from last summer and she had a young foal with her that was just about her size – so I would think she may have normal sized foals.

She is wild as a march hare – I’m calling her Montaraz, which is an adjective for “wild”, Raz for short.  The filly, who is a total pocket pony and I can touch her all over and she comes over for lovies all the time, is rightly named “Dulzura” which means “sweetness”.  Here they are the first day home:

 

Freedom!

Before I left for Oregon, the babies were weaned and had to stay in the pens while I was gone.  Today was their first day back out with Tika and Kahlua.  It was fun to watch them romp and play – not to mention since we got RAIN there was some nice grass coming up with lots of good things to nibble on.

The crew taking off:

Zerlina, Nivea and Max:

Vida and Troy:

Deja Vous:

At the adoption

Been out at the corrals all day viewing the Kigers.  There are some very nice horses out there, even though they are a little poor looking from the stress of it all.  Have my picks and looking forward to bidding!

Here are some of the young boys getting rowdy:

A beautiful young mare:

A grullo colt, just born three weeks ago: