Saturday, May 16, 2015

A GIRL! Ribbon has a Girl

We had more rain during the night but I didn't hear a thing. That bed felt so comfortable it was hard to make myself get up this morning. Zalena and her filly needed to be brought over from the cabin field to the stalls as there was someone coming look at the filly.  As Zalena was being brought over it was obvious she is in her foal heat. The mud was cleaned off of them and they were stalled opposite Emma and her colt in the other foaling stall. Ribbon was checked and no baby. Once the stalls were cleaned and mares fed I went in to cook Mark breakfast.
After breakfast Philip brought the big flat bed trailer and truck over to haul the skid steer to their new house. Mark went with them to run the skid steer. Anna planned on bringing the girls over at noon. As I was heading up to the barn both sets of geese parents were up grazing. Both sets have 5 goslings each. The older goslings were closer to the fence-line grazing and the younger ones closer to the water. Both pair were keeping a close watch over their offspring.
 Above is the older and below are the younger, the eggs hatched just a few days apart.
The goslings are adorable. I was glad when they came up close enough to get a few pictures.

While I was taking the pictures, all the way across the pond up on the hillside I noticed Ribbon was laying down. I thought she was just enjoying the sunshine but when she stood back up something else stood up next to her. About then I realized Ribbon had delivered her foal. They were left there while Zalena and her filly were moved to a small stall then the stalls cleaned and prepared for a new baby. Next was that long hike across the saturated fields, across the muddy dam and up the hill to bring Ribbon and her big brand new filly in. They were almost to the paddock when Mark got back from Philip's and he helped by opening and shutting gates. Just as I got them in the stalls the company arrived to see Zalena's filly. They were more than willing to wait while I got all the horses situated. We took Zalena and her filly into the indoor arena so they could see her movement. Hopefully when Emily gets back we can get updated pictures of all 11 of these gorgeous foals. Since the camera had been left at the house I used my phone to snap the 2 pictures below of Ribbon's filly.

This is the first filly Valiant has thrown so far in 2015. She is very tall but is so well built that the pictures don't show how tall she is.
Mike came over to help get the mares covered this evening. Flower was covered by Evan and Zalena was covered by Valiant. We are hoping that Zalena will conceive without having to be artificially inseminated this time. I was feeding Kensly her bottle while rocking on the front porch watching Braelyn and Taegan. Mark decided to take a big box to the burn pile and offered to take the girls with him. After they dropped that off they went to the playground. When it came time to cover the mares Mark was given all 3 girls and told to take them on a long golf cart ride until we were done.

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