Welcome to our new filly Freya

On Friday morning May 15 2009 at 4:45 am I got a call from my friend Jill in Oregon. Jill had been helping with foal watch during the late hours and that night she volunteered to stay up until 5am EDT (2am her time). “Cori is having her baby and you need to get to the barn.” I woke up Dawn and we headed to the car. Jill called again “Get down there NOW. The baby is out!”. When I got to the barn I hurried inside and heard a loud grunting. Sort of desperate sounding. I thought “that baby is not yet delivered - Cori must still be in labor”. But as I got closer to the stall I saw the foal with the amniotic sack around its head and twisted around its neck. It looked like a person with a white plastic bag on its head and duct tape around its neck. The baby was suffocating and the grunts were a desperate attempt to get air into its lungs.

I quickly reached through the wooden gate and grabbed the sack and tore it open right at the nose. The grunts stopped as the foal was able to breathe in. Another 5 minutes and that baby would have been a goner. Needless to say, I am hugely indebted to Jill and the foal watch team, as well as Edwin, who set up the webcam for us so people around the country could hep with foal watch. What a lucky twist of fate!

Other than that huge scare, the birthing was so routine I cannot believe it. Healthy foal, healthy mom. The vet came the next day for a well baby check and gave a big thumbs up.

Now to the other great news. This baby is so special. First, it is a filly from my 1st premie ster mare. And the baby’s father is Heinse 354 - one of the best breeding stallions ever. At the most there will be only 2 Heinse babies this year, and I have one of them! And a filly! Amazing good luck.

I named the baby Freya. Myth has it that this was the name of a great Friesian warrior priestess. Also the name of a Germanic goddess of love. Possibly the inspiration for the name “Friesland” as well as the word “Friday”. No matter how you look at it, this is a special name for a special little Friesian.

She seems special indeed. This little filly is full of spunk and curiosity, yet seems to really like having people around. Freya and her mom head to Tanbark Acres big farm next weekend for “summer camp” where Freya will learn good ground manners thanks to the intensive training my dad and niece do with the babies each day. I am going to decide about selling her once she goes to her baby keuring in September.

Freya has been running around the foaling stall like a racehorse. Today Dawn and I fenced in a little area behind the barn so Freya and her mom Cori could get outside in the sun and stretch their legs. Here is a quick video of my little warrior priestess. It is followed by links to some photo sets of Freya. Enjoy!

Freya pictures from Dawn

Pregnant Cori getting her feet trimmed

Today is day 339 of Cori’s pregnancy, which means she is due tomorrow. I have expected this baby for a week now and all of us who are staying up all night watching her on the webcam are getting pretty darned tired.

Today Blaine, the farrier, came to trim the horse’s feet. Dahlia went first, no issues. Cori was next and the poor thing had an awful time picking up a foot for him. She is soooo pregnant and soooo heavy that she needed all four feet to hold her up.

Three year old Tara starts training this month so she got new shoes in the front.  I rarely put shoes on the horses since they are not working, bu since she is going into training, she will soon be working and therefore needs the extra protection. She did not like being shod, but for a three year old, she was not too badly behaved.

I really like my farrier a lot. He is good at his job, good with the horses, and a funny and nice guy as well. He and his son are going to help me get Tara into shape by teaching her to pull a work sled (Blaine and his boy have and train work horses). I also love Blaine’s accent.

I managed to capture a little video of Blaine working on the extremely pregnant Cori. Hope you enjoy it.

New foal coming any day now

Cori’s foal by Heinse 354 is due May 13, one week from today. But that mare is just about ready to foal. Last night I was watching the monitor and ran down to the barn at 2am, sure the baby was on its way. But, false alarm. Cori is staring to shuffle her back feet and move around as the baby positions itself. Must feel really awkward. So when will it happen? Not sure, but I have to believe the next night or so.

Meanwhile, setting up a camera in the new barn has been an adventure. My neighbor and ISP provider Edwin kindly came down and set up a radio that wirelessly gets a radio signal from the house. This brings the internet to the barn. He also set up an internet network camera for the foaling stall. One little problem though - the camera does not work in low light conditions and since the foal will be most likely born at night, this has been problematic.

Last night I tried something a bit different. I bought a little laptop webcam, but a really good one in low light - the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000. Hooked that up to a teeny netbook computer and put it all up in the barn, taking my new internet connection and plugging it into the netbook. The netbook is perched on a shelf above the wash stall and the webcam is leaning over the top of the wash stall, peering down into the foaling stall. Pictures below. Click for a larger image.

The Logitech webcam is simply incredible. I cannot believe the quality of the image even in the low light. And there are a number of settings to make it even better.

I was able to use ustream.tv to stream the webcam image to the internet so I could watch it from my house last night. And you know, this worked really well! The image is pixelated - a limitation of ustream - but I may even been able to improve on that.  The point is, I am not able to see my mare in her stall. And anyone with an internet connection and any web browser would be able to see her too.

Let’s hope she has that baby tonight. I would like to get some decent sleep this week.

Scenes from the small farm

Our place is 15 acres in Christiansburg, VA. It is small compared to the 300 acres at Tanbark Acres, 65 miles south. But I like it nonetheless. And it is hard enough to work 15 acres thank you! We’ve been putting up a barn and fencing the pastures for what seems like an eternity, and we have a long way to go. This weekend we were able to fence one small paddock. The larger part of that paddock is getting close to being finished as well. I put some pictures up on flickr.

As a side note, we’re using electrobraid - an electrifed rope - as the fencing material. I like it very much and am quite pleased with it. My only gripe is that there is a lot of electrical splicing because I have so much cross fencing (and therefore a lot of gates, and the wiring has to run in trenches under the gates and be spliced back in on the other side).

A few weeks ago we had a little picnic in the back pasture. I am using that area for hay and a lot of folks never see that area. It is really lovely though. So I took a little video and posted it below. It is rather long, but is quite peaceful.

Ficus goes home

The new orphaned foal, Ficus, has found his nurse mare adoptive mom and the two of them headed for home at the big farm on April 21. Here is a quick video as they leave the hospital and get on the trailer, heading for Tanbark Acres.

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