Nicky guest blogs for us this week. She has spent the spring keeping an eye on the broodmares and helping with the new foals. Her fun stories will give you more insights into foaling season at Vista Verde.
We have talked about having some pregnant broodmares this year with our own studs Whiskey and Gunny. We bred five of our broodmares to Whiskey and two of our broodmares to Gunny. We first started our breeding program with 5 foals in 2010. In 2011 we just had 2 foals, and now, in 2012 we decided to go all out and have 7 foals this year. WOW! That makes for lots of playing time with foals this year! I love it when it comes spring time because we have foals on the ground and we get excited because we all start a betting pool on what broodmare will have their foal on what date, and try to also guess what color and gender as well.
If you remember from one of Steph’s past blogs, Marilyn, one of our guest at VVR, got the best experience ever to witness MJ deliever her foal in February.
So MJ (Mary Jane Reyn) was the first broodmare to foal this year. She delievered a filly named “Bailey” around 6:15am on Feb 18th. MJ was bred to our stud Whiskey this year so Bailey is going to have red roan hairs on her predominately chestnut body. She is the smartest out of the other foals we have so far. Bailey was excited to have a friend to play with finally when Hopalong was born.
Sunday was the second broodmare to foal. This was Sunday’s first time to foal. She delivered a colt named Hopper (also called Hopalong) around 5: 30am On March 27th. We name him Hopalong because he hops every time he takes a step to move. He is the strongest so far out of the four and loves to play with his new friend Bailey and get lots of attention as well since he was the only colt for a while. Sunday was also bred to our stud Whiskey as well.
Then came along Flicka, who was the third broodmare to foal. This is Flicka’s first time to foal. She was bred to Whiskey. She delievered a colt named Rocketman around 5:30am on April 18th. If you have seen the cartoon Looney Tunes, then you’ll understand that we named Rocketman after the character of roadrunner. Rocketman is also going to be a roan as well.
Chex was our fourth broodmare to foal. She was also bred to Whiskey. She delievered a colt named “Chisholm“ on April 25th at at 10 pm. Jess and Reid got to witness the delivery. Also Jess got to video record the delievery as well and you can watch it on the Vista Verde Facebook page called “First steps”. Chisholm is the sweetest out of the five we have so far. He also is the tinyest little guy I have ever seen. He, too, will be a roan.
Lokota is our fifth broodmare to foal. She was bred to Gunny. She delivered a filly named Moonshine or Moonlight Dancing (still debating on name) on May 5 at 10pm, the night of the super moon. Moonlight is a paint who looks just like her mother. She is the cutest little paint I have seen.
We are just waiting on Rachael and Sassy to decide when to deliver thier foals. We are excited to see what colors and gender the mares will surprise us with. We are just excited for you all to see our new babies this year. I love them all.
So this year Whiskey ruled the ladies, but both boys will have a good harem for the 2013 foal season.
We will keep you posted once the rest of the mares deliever thier babies as well. So get excited because we will have lots of play time with these foals in our weanling clinic we offer in the summer.