Fortunately she had a beautiful bay colt. I keep looking and kinda hope he'll grey out, as I've never had a grey foal before, but if he doesn't that will be good to, as we don't know yet how strong Topper's greying gene is, as the two fillies don't appear to have it.
He's very leggy, pretty Topper head and short back.
Definitely all boy from the screaming at one hour old, while running circles around his dam. I've yet to figure out why colts (in general) are so much more active at birth than the fillies. But I've had some that are just 'all that'!
So the third and final foal for 2011 foaling - Wesco Farms TC Up All Night OTG. I'm thoroughly enjoying getting to sleep again too!
His two sisters, Wesco Farms TC Ascended Allure (Bailey) and Wesco Farms TC Defiantly Different (Cricket) are both doing well. Bailey is already pending for sale, which is good. The intent is to sell ALL foals this year and likely next too.
Bailey is shyer than Cricket, but they've finally reached the age where they're starting to play together. Very cute to watch as they're so closely marked.
My big question for Topper though - two pintos out of solids and a solid out of the pinto - why? If Val had a bay filly marked like these two I would have laughed and really wondered WTF??Don't ask me where the ranch names came from either, they just pop into my head. The colt I've been calling Goober so I hope something else 'strikes' me soon! I have enough oddly named colts as it is, a Goober we don't need. Now to get photos and DNA to get the trio registered!
Rose (2010 filly, Wesco Farms Chance Encounter), has been in with the pregnant mares and now foals, as I had nowhere to store a yearling filly. If Chiclet was a more concerned dam, I might have left her out with the mare herd, but Chiclet tends to let them grow up and away without a backward glance. So Rose has been in with the pregnant gang. She's a good babysitter, and not aggressive.
Rose with 'he won't be called Goober'
Tomas was out and we got all the stallions and colts trimmed/dewormed. Then sorted them for breeding. It was quite an orchestration getting them moved around while considering where to house each one. As Dance (Buckeye WCF Dance All Night) was the primary one I wanted to use this year, I have him where I can see him all the time. Ringo (Wesco Farms Buckerowdyroo) I've had request for his daughter by Una, so we're repeating that breeding. Demon (Little Kings Dream Demon) is for sale, so we bred Dipper to him (double bred Buckeroo mare) as we've always loved the Supreme/Buckeroo cross. Then there's Hollywood (Bells Hollywood Heartbreaker, that is visiting here from Imperial Acres.
(He's already dropped weight running the fence in this pic)
Hollywood is a Half Measures GM Mega Bucks son (who's get have been doing so well out here) and a Grandpa's Gambling Man grandson, out of one of the Bell's gorgeous mares. He has some movement on him, so we bred him to the ones we're hoping we'll get movement and the highest chance of color.
Although as both Hollywood and Dance are new to pasture breeding, and my mares are only in with stallions thirty days max, I'm expecting a fairly low cover rate - watch them surprise us though! Either way will be fine. I did breed a few more mares than intended, but when we had the whole group of mares locked up, there were so many that we did NOT breed again, it's kinds of a shame, knowing that so many of the mares won't have foals until 2013 or 2014 at the earliest. Wish I was breeding hamsters at times!
It has been a good week on the sales front. Libbe, Honeybun, Baroness, Bre and Gemini will be off to new homes post breeding season and Unique (Wesco Farms Unique Toy4Me) came back as a trade for Gemini.
The downer of the week, Tomas trimmed Woody and he's not improving in any way. No matter how we're trying to manage his founder he's getting progressively worse, so he's likely taking his trip over the rainbow bridge in the next few weeks. I'm really sad about that as Woody was one of our first Minis (he's the W in our ranch name), but I can't see making him suffer. He's foundered six times in the past year and a half regardless how we feed, keep him and trim him. As he's only 12 this has developed into a chronic problem even having dropped weight, careful feeding, etc. UC Davis said it's not Cushings when I had him checked, but he's just not improving in any way.
So, a good and bad week, but as to be expected. Right now it looks like it may actually rain, so need to go feed the gang!
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