Alberta Equest

On May 19, 2019 my gut instinct told me I needed to go out to the pasture to check on Vida. Another mare had foaled that night, in the barn, where she belonged, but Vida had been giving us no outward signs of foaling being imminent. The year prior, despite being a bit early (though plenty "safe"), she did some serious homework because she pretty much followed the book to a T, however in 2019 I guess she couldn't let the other mare steal all the attention because as I breached the hill that looks over the pasture she was in, there was a bouncing baby at her side.  Sigh - horses are one of the many reasons I'm prematurely turning grey. Surpriseeeee The foal turned out to be a feisty little filly who I named Phascinating BRR, and her barn name became "Dory" after the "Finding Dory" movie.  She had a bit of a stressful start to life as V was not impressed with the prying eyes of her herdmates, but we managed to get them up to the barn unscathed and the...

It's been a while since I have made a post about the breeding season, but that's probably because I don't really have much to update!  This post is going to be a little dry on the media front because I haven't transferred photos from my Ultrasound machine recently, but hopefully in my next post I'll have lots to share. We are busy at my in-laws with the TB breeding program, but I have continued routinely scanning Vida so I can keep on-top of any potential issues that could crop up.  At this rate, the money I have saved in scanning V myself would equate to about half the cost of my ultrasound machine already, so I guess that's a good thing - plus I'm getting tons of practice in! To date, V has had two full cycles - meaning she is no longer "transitional" and has ovulated twice.  She's on a slightly quicker schedule than the general 21-Day suggestion, which isn't abnormal, but it's something I wouldn't have known had I not been regula...

 Part of my barn's floor is dirt, and part is railroad ties. Personally, I really like the ties - they're a bit of a pain to sweep if they're going the 'wrong' way from the direction I'm sweeping, but regardless I have had absolutely zero issues with slipping, and so on.  Railroad ties are a little controversial because they're coated in creosote, which is believed to be a carcinogen, but it gives them an oily texture that repels moisture very well.  After some thought, we made the decision to put Railroad ties under the stalls, with a brief layer of sand to 'smooth it out', fill in the cracks, and help with some drainage, followed by mats on top.   As a result of our decision, we wanted to move some ties around to complete 1 side of stalls for the time being while we source more ties, but they are still frozen to the ground.  On a whim, I happened to find some for sale on the Facebook Marketplace in a town 2.5 hours away, which my brother-in-law jus...

 A while back, many readers expressed their interest in hearing more about my breeding adventures , so here we go. You may recall that I decided to also breed Sierra, though I still haven't decided if I'm going to breed her this year or not.  Regardless, Vida (aka "V") (JC: Fastination) is being bred to the dutch Hunter stallion Prototype.  In 2019 and 2020 she gave me two lovely fillies by the dutch stallion Parcival, both of which sold prior to weaning. As our barn reno gets under way, I hope to foal out my mare(s) at home in the future instead of my in-laws, but our barn is not heated.  Between that and Vida now being 2 for 2 for foaling 'early', I'm sitting on my hands until May, but that hasn't stopped me from getting down n' dirty (literally) with my new Ultrasound Machine.  I've been scanning Vida once a week for a few weeks now, so I can track her cycles, get more practice, and get familiar with my machine before breeding season really ...

Following the majority of the clean up ( see Part 1 ), we began with attempting to move some railroad ties from one side of the barn to the other so we could begin the stalls, however we quickly learned that the majority of them are frozen to the ground still.  As a result, we had to adjust the order of intended tasks so we decided to shift our focus to the standing stall conversion first. We made quick work of one standing stall that we simply wanted to use for storage.  Within a matter of minutes, my husband had the hay manger removed and we were pretty much finished with it. The manger took up a fair bit of space within the stall; space I deemed valuable for storage of bales, tools, shavings and a wheelbarrow. The other standing stall however, we are converting into a stock which is taking a fair bit more work.  It's currently also acting as a storage area for some wood and things, so we decided to begin with building the kick plate as we could do that without relocati...