December photos/Equine Affaire: On Target Miniature 2012 foals

Castle Rock Miniatures said:

Everyone up and hoovering.....such pretty girls!

With so many girls on cam -- I remember last year asking my son-in-law how I can set up two monitors. So many cams up they fill the screen and overlap each other. I guess I gotta' ask him again. But I know it requires me crawling around on the floor behind the desk and I hate doing that kind of stuff anymore. (He lives in Texas--pooh) Getting old just isn't fun!

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climbing under desks young lady

I have everything crossed for a safe and happy foaling season for you. I must say that Toffee is just stunning.

I second the "oh, to be young again"!!! Have you noticed we have younger (college student) help to clean stalls 4 days a week?

My Marcella just foaled last night at day 316. And the colt is a fully cooked, healthy little begger. I use 325 when I do up my due dates and they rarely go much over that.

2.10 am, Sox and Mira are down sternal and Toffee is out and about somewhere.

3.30 am and all 3 girls are standing quietly

They have all been on cam a lot more lately because it has been raining or snowing here since Wednesday!!! It is supposed to stop before our 4-H meeting this afternoon - I hope. Normally they would be outside at this time of day and of course they have their favorite locations in the pasture too! But where we can still see them from the house.

Just checking in. I see all is under control!

3.00am and all is quiet. Mira is down sternal and has been for quite some time, Sox had to get up to go to she is now stood yawning so I guess she will go back down soon Toffee came in for about 10 minutes but is now outside checking the estate.

Just wanted to update everyone on our 4-H meeting Saturday March 3. All 8 members showed up and because of the mud and snow outside we changed our program a bit. First we checked out Lala's 5 hour old foal that many had already seen. Then we used the computer to calculate the possible coat colors for Toffee's foal: Chestnut, bay, or black (from most to least likely), and either tobiano pinto or solid. Buckshot and Toffee are both tobiano pintos so we could get a homozygous pinto, but alive and healthy is really all we want!!

Then we reviewed all the items in our foaling kit and what they were for, including the sawed-off water bottle to be used for CPR, and the foal blankets, which were a huge hit! We did get outside to groom the minis and included the 3 pregnant mares because they were in the least muddy area! Two 4-Hers groomed Sox and Mira while I groomed un-trusting Toffee, who seemed to love the attention and was not concerned about the 20 people there! The other 4-Hers groomed the other minis. This is only the second time they have groomed, as this was only our 3rd meeting.

Mira:



Sox:



Toffee:



Everyone did great - you should see all the braided foretops and tails on the other minis, plus clean horses and feet!

LOL- We don't have the 4-Hers do our chores for us, but it was a big help yesterday when the minis were all so dirty! The kids will learn how to do chores (learn by doing) but we hire a college student (or 2) to help us out. We started with Ag Science high school students and they hung around after graduation. The college student took some of the photos - I want her to become an assistant 4-H leader. She was in 4-H herself (and FFA) and would be great!

Oh how fun! 4H is awesome. Once we have a real farm I want to get involved and host meetings. Lovely photos of your beautiful mares. Looks like the kids had a lot of fun.

A group of happy kiddies and a troop of clean minis = bliss and an day of good fun = bliss!!

1.50 am and all 3 girls are standing quietly

They are so cute. Just peeped in on them...they look like they are having a slow moving parade with Mira leading the way.

I was in 4-H too - 50 years ago in a 4-H horse club. I have very fond memories of riding my horse to camp for a week in a state forest and I also learned a whole lot about keeping good records!

AnnaC said:

A group of happy kiddies and a troop of clean minis = bliss and an day of good fun = bliss!!

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Amen!

The girls seem content tonight.

Updates on the mares: It was really warm here today so to cool the mares off I finished the foal clip on Mira and did the whole clip on Sox. Toffee was done already. This will make checking their udders easier too. If anyone was watching today around 2-3PM you might have seen some activity outside the stall, which was where we were clipping. Mira wanted to be clipped so badly she stood without a halter while I did her with portable clippers.

And speaking of udders - Toffee is starting to make slight progress, which I will be recording with photos every few days. Here is the udder from last Saturday (3/3):



And then today, 3/8 from the other side:



When I opened the stall window today I also realized there was something else I needed to make Mare Starers aware of: Just outside the stall window (which has sturdy bars on it) - and out of sight of the cam - is our stallion's run. Today he was sticking his head in and 2 of the mares had their heads up to the window to say "Hi". So if you see mares with their heads up against the stall at about 4 o'clock on the screen, that will likely be the reason.

Mira will be at 285 days tomorrow and one day closer to being able to deliver a live foal. I still worry about her aborting like she did in 2008. Please keep fingers crossed.

Thanks for the updates Mary. We're all keeping our fingers, toes, eye, whatever crossed!!!

I have your girls up every night but just don't post their every move, we have time for that once they are closer. Thanks for the update and great pics

Eagle - Thank you so much for watching! I really appreciate it. I know it isn't as much fun with no one appearing to be close to foaling, but this is actually when I feel eyes are most needed. if Mira had aborted during the night with no one watching, she would surely have died. Since it was daytime, and I caught what looked like a colic, we were able to get her to the hospital. Even then, it took a stall full of vets 3 hours to deliver a breech presentation.

Has anyone else noticed that Mira is eating her grain in a different place? You wouldn't have seen it on the camera, but 2 nights ago when I went to grain, her bucket was full of manure! I quickly swapped buckets for a clean one, but I guess she doesn't want to take any chances!