Feisty Redheads!

Oh my. I think I have a wild one on my hands. At 1 day old, my little rodeo bronc already bucks, rears, strikes, kicks, and throws herself on the ground when she doesn't want to be handled! 

But, that's what babies do. And redheads, especially. And redheaded fillies especially especially! She will learn soon enough.

More up in her pasterns today, they'll be good and strong soon!

No touchey my face!

She had the walleyed Mare Glare down pat and she's only a day old!

Special naughty filly trick - don't like your butt scratched? Just sit down!

Not sure what had P's attention, but she had it in full!

I can't believe she didn't inherit the family jughead!

She did, however, inherit the giant family ears!

O wants to steal this baby! She must think that it's hers, it looks like it should be hers anyway!

Already in the puddles! We've been totally flooded for days!

Cut her head off, but she definitely has found her sea legs!

She is CUTE CUTE CUTE though, despite her extreme redheadedness. We're still brooding on a name, any suggestions? Has to start with a D and can't be something generic/stupid/cliched/boring!

She and P both got an A+ from the vet today. Baby's IgG was well over 800 - not surprising given how late P got her milk in and how quickly baby latched (and promptly started sucking the life out of momma!). P has a minor bit of tearing but it's pretty minimal, and not surprising give how giant this filly was. 

Now if it would only stop raining...! The first Games Day of the year is on Sunday. Given the fact that the horses have been heavily stalled as of late due to all the weather, and O hasn't been worked in about 2 weeks... ehhhh what could go wrong!

Day 351 - Welcome Baby!!

Right after I posted my last little blurb, P went into active labor! First thing in the morning, how great is that? No overnight foal watch required! Right after L sent me the picture of the udders dripping milk, she called to say that P was definitely acting like she was going into labor - getting up and down, sweating, curling her lip. I was on my way to work but I promptly rescheduled everything and turned my fanny around to make the trek back up north. It's a good solid hour drive from where I was, not to mention there was rush hour traffic... I opted to take the back route and I'm sure glad I did!

When I got there, it was 9AM and her water had just broken. We were hurriedly cleaning her stall to ready it for her, but she had other plans - she flopped down outside in her run and in the blink of an eye we had a foot. Presentation was normal - two feet and a nose, good to go! The baby was HUGE so I helped her a bit with the shoulders.

You guys are not going to believe this... but when I pulled off the sac, I found....

A CHESNUT FILLY!
The odds were super small genetically, but apparently the horsey gods decided that redheaded mares are my fate now!

"Wtf how on earth did I end up with ANOTHER ONE OF THESE?"

Poor Pmare got the dirt ground into her eyeball... looked much better after a good cleaning though!

O going, "WHAT IS THAT I MUST HAVE IT"

From water breaking to presentation was about 15 minutes. Actual birth was about 5 minutes, if that - she just popped her right out. The second I pulled the sac off, her head shot up, and she was breathing and sitting upright. Talk about a strong filly!

Within 15 minutes she was already halfway onto her feet - and she had been trying to get to her feet the moment I put my hands on her.

O was very interested!

HUNGRYYYY

She grabbed right onto my finger and had a strong suck reflex. At 1/2hr of age, she was ready for the milk bar and got to her feet, unassisted. Once she was up, she stayed up - not one single tumble. She stayed up for well over an hour! It only took her 10 minutes to find the food - and she latched right on like a magnet, no problem at all.

Meeting of the minds... these two are going to be serious trouble when they get together!

We brought them back into the stall, where there was fresh straw and fewer things to wipe out into. The baby kept going round, and round, and round again, torturing her poor momma who just followed her nickering nonstop. P passed the placenta intact by about 10:40AM.

She has unfolding to do for sure, and she is a bit lax in her hind pasterns, but she'll straighten up soon.

Especially if she keeps dancing like this. 1 hour old and already frolicking around!

Strong latch on both sides!

She is going to be a real handful, I already can tell. As strong as she is and as big and she is, it is already all I can do to hold onto her when she pitches her little red filly fits - which she is already doing. We'll be working with her every day to reinforce the rules with her - we'll definitely regret it if we don't!!

Both momma and baby are doing great. Baby is a super-nursing, meconium-passing machine, and gets up and down easily without assistance. P is super attentive, eating and drinking well. And as for O, she is alternating between talking to the baby, eating quietly, and rearing manically in her stall because she wants to come steal the baby for herself. Typical!

There was something like a 6-12% chance that I'd get a red baby. I also was sure that I was going to get a colt. Who knew!

I had names for a colt but not for a filly, so I'll have to start wracking my brain!

WELCOME BABY!!

Day 351 - dripping milk!!

Day 351 and P is suddenly dripping milk as of this morning! The little bit of fluid she was producing was testing ready, but as I predicted, she didn't get her gush of milk in until the last second.

We're so close now!! Maybe even today or tonight!

Day 350

Pmare is officially at day 350 today. Here I was thinking she was going to go early.... and now we're solidly in the overdue category! 

She is still completely nonplussed by this. She's an eating, pooping machine and nothing will deter her from this routine. I have a feeling she is going to be one that stuffs her face all the way up until the moment when she lays down to pop the baby out, then is going to get back up and go back to the food. 

Her udder is HUGE. Enormously huge, hot and tight and sore. However, we're still unable to express much of any fluid at all - the stuff that comes out is clear, and really hard to get out. The bags are full, but she's probably not going to let down until the baby is here. The fluid we did get out has dropped below the 6.6 mark, solidly into the "anytime now!" category.... hooray!

Knowing P, she has listened to the weather forecast on the radio and heard that we have a strong chance for tornadic supercells today in the afternoon. She'll probably wait until we have a tornado on the ground spinning our way, and then decide to drop it. We'll just have to see!

Day 346

Day 346 has come and gone, and we're still cooking! Her bag is quite full, and her pH is steadily dropping - perhaps we will go in the next week!

You'll notice the change of facilities. The girls are currently bunking with L while we are in the process of moving to our new home. There's some Class A bullhonky behind it, which I won't hash out here in public. If you want to know more about it you're welcome to message me, but here we'll just leave it as it is. The really good news about the whole thing is that Future Hubs and I have finally found the perfect house - we were trying to keep this under wraps in order to keep the current situations from inevitably imploding, but unfortunately it all went down as expected. Ah well... what can you do, besides bolt across a burning bridge and make it safely to the other side!
The house and property we're buying (pending appraisal) is AWESOME. I'll have more on it later - but it has great little horse facilities, and finally my beasts will all be in my backyard again. I've been desperately waiting for YEARS for this, and it's all finally happening. It's really happening!

Pending everything, we're closing May 15th. The timing of this whole thing was well engineered for maximal suffering for both myself and the mares - I obviously would never, ever move an overdue pregnant mare for any reason unless it was out of utter desperation or total disaster. I am thanking my lucky stars that if it had to happen to any horse, it was at least P - she is extremely nonplussed over this sudden uprooting, and is completely fine. We're still watching her like hawks, but she seems perfectly content to keep cooking her tot until further notice.

O is much less happy about the move, but I suppose it's as good a time as any to give her a little break. It's been storming like crazy here, my cart and trailer are now stored at home (our current home) temporarily, and she is back in heat again, and therefore somewhat insufferable. The next show is on the 26th - the first of the games days series. I feel perfectly OK with just pulling her out and heading off to the show after two weeks off, if it comes to that, because she'll be quite fine and capable of handling that show without issue. Everything is sort of floating around in the air in limbo right now - we'll have to play this all day-by-day while we move.

Cross your fingers for us... this is a really exciting time!!!

Front yard, with view of one of the pastures behind it. Cross your fingers!

Day 344

Today is day 344 for P.... and..... still no baby.

She is completely unconcerned by this, and is happy as ever to stuff her face and hang out.

Her udders are nearly full again though - yay! And her pH has finally dropped a tiny bit, from 8.0 to about 7.6. We still have a ways to go until we get into the "imminent birth" pH level, but we're getting closer.

I am *hoping* we go within the next week. But.... maybe we won't!