Greetings and Happy Holidays 2013

Greetings all.


It's been a busy year - mostly real life things - so I haven't been keeping up on this blog at all and basically been slacking on the horses a bit too - not their care, but my activity in the Mini Community.

The horses are (knock on wood), all doing well and the herd has been stable at 28-30 Minis this year.  We did have one sale fall through, fortunately the mare never left here, so yeah for that! Still have a couple of "fun" buyers that I'm having to chase for money owed - surprise!

A few of our older ladies went off to a wonderful retirement home with Veneta at Galloping Angels Rescue/Sanctuary, where they're getting tons of TLC.  It was hard to see them go, but after Veneta's awesome job getting Woody's founder turned around last year, I have every faith she's giving them top quality care.

We really vacillated on breeding or not this year, but finally did.  We're at a comfortable number (I'd still like to get down around 20, but 30 is a huge improvement over the 55-80 we had for a number of years). So, we did end up breeding late, and gave Oz (Fallen Ash Scouts Oscar)  three weeks - make it or not - with the mares.  Once he got over his joy of having a whole bunch of mares all to himself, he seemed to settle into getting his job done.  So, we're crossing fingers we should have a great foal crop this coming Spring in mid to late May.

I was tickled to get Oz last fall, as I've been wanting to add the L&D Scout line to our herd, and had been looking at grand-daughters/grand-sons, so to get a son, was just wonderful.  Especially one with a National show record and his line already proving to be have what it takes in the show ring here as well as overseas.


We do know at least one mare was pregnant as Valentina (Wesco Farms AToy4Me Brazen Beauty) aborted last week at 4.5-5 months.  Of course a perfectly formed pinto filly....argh!!! Fortunately, Val is healthy and bounced back as expected.  Sad loss, but it goes with breeding.

On a happier note, we will be getting Boo (Wesco Farms Netherstorm) back from Redbud Mini Ranch in January. That should be exciting, as we've had a lack of "color" in the herd the past couple years, while I've been sorting out life.

Boo's baby pic

We do have a few for sale, but not really pushing them as the mares are one's I really don't want to sell, but do need to reduce the numbers down a few more. Decisions, decisions!  Post foaling, we'll definitely be making some decisions/corrections/adjustments to our breeding program as the goal is to have ALL the foals for sale, but I'm sure there will be one I'll want to keep!  So to keep the numbers under 30, if I keep one, somebody hits the sales list!

Other than that, I've been slowly (I mean slooooowwwly) going through all of our equine books, magazines and tack to put things up for sale.  The accumulation of "stuff" since 1999 definitely needs to be pared down!

I'm setting myself a goal of getting more involved with the Mini Community again and keeping the blog/website updated more frequently in 2014.  We may actually even show up at a show or two!!!!

Happy Holidays to everyone and best wishes for a totally fabulous, awesome 2014!

Fall update

Greetings Miniature Horse lovers.

I'm off track again on keeping up on this blog, but life has been busy, so I do apologize.

Part of being busy has been successfully reducing our herd down from the 54 we started with in December 2011 to 33 as of today (November 7th).

We were a bit lower but unexpectedly added a new stallion (Fallen Ash Scouts Oscar "Oz")and two new mares (Half Measures B&W "Bea" and Half Measures Lord of the Dance "Dani" upping our pinto quotient by two black and one buckskin pinto!  We also hadn't anticipated but happily took back one mare because of the new owners real life issues.

Fallen Ash Scouts Oscar "Oz"

Half Measures B&W "Bea"

Half Measures Lord of the Dance "Dani"

Dani's a little thin in this pic but has put on weight here.

We did lose one mare to colic (April) which was traumatic in early July.  Two others, Mardi Gras and Lalique, went into a permanent retirement situation as they are ones we'd taken back from awful situations but neither has the temperament for pet homes.

We're keeping fingers and toes crossed that all the rest are in great places.  You know the kind of  homes we hope for - as in lifer, we love this Mini so much we won't dump it in a couple years and will give it great care -  type homes.  It has been hard letting some of them go (two of them are still here - Jamaica and Vanna - which is going to be hard to have them leave, but they're going to an awesome place in the next few months.

We didn't breed for 2014, but Ringo did have a night out, so we're wondering if we'll have some blue roan or black (the only colors he seems to sire) in April - hoping not, but the stud reports are being filed just in case.

Woody (he's the "W" in Wesco Farms)

Woody, one of our first Minis is off rehabbing with a kind friend, Veneta, as we've been fighting founder with him for two years, and she has a better setup to deal with him at this time and a farrier that is literally a phone call away.  Our farrier, Tomas, is great, but he lives at a distance so is only out about once a month.  We're hoping for Woody to turn around in the next couple months and be able to come home.  We'll just have to keep him off spring grass and monitor his time out. The last report from Veneta's farrier was he was doing well and wouldn't need to be trimmed for five weeks.  We were assuming 2-3 weeks, so great news.

We've also (as I think I'm nuts at times!) added a couple of new varieties of chickens and a flock (only six) of guineas to the mix here.  The new chickens are beatiful and the guineas well - they're guineas!  Chicken Little should have been called Guinea Little - they constantly think the sky is falling!

That's all for this update, I'll try to be more regular about posting, but life is so busy as of late there just isn't enough time!