Has a lead on a pony (well a horse)

I finally got out of the barn today and spent some quality time there.  It was still on the 'too cold' side to ride (-17C plus windchill which google tells me works out to like 1.4 F for all the Americans out there).  Its just too dang cold to strip off mine and Oscar's layers to go ride for 15 min until we are both frozen.  It is warming up today to about -2 tomorrow, so after chores tomorrow I'll ride.

One of the kids cam over this morning and we took both studs to the out door pen and took a bunch of photos of them to send to the people looking to breed.  We were hoping to get some video as well but, again it was just too darn cold.  We took the poor boys outside with out any blankets and they were more than willing to go back inside after 10 minutes of picture taking.

I talked to C about the wanting to show thing and she suggested that I might be able to use Lucy again.  They are hoping to breed her later this spring, and getting her out and showing will only make the coming baby and Chilly more valuable. So we will wait and see what spring will bring at this point.  Oscar's mom is coming back in Feb for a week on spring break so I might get Lucy out then and give her a spin.

Added some pics of the boys below

Chevy eating hay

Rusty eating hay

Quality isnt good as I was on the other side of the paddock trying to take this shot

Rusty's bum

Looking for treats

so cute, and so much hair!

Stallions, and breeding season.

So in about a month we will be starting breeding season at the farm, my most favorite time of the year!

Our first mare (who was breed to Chevy, Chilly's sire) isn't due until the end of January but from the looks of it we are praying that she makes it past January 1st!  The other 3 mares are breed to foal around the end of March and all are doing well.  (One is breed to Chevy, one is Chevy's dam breed to No Doubt I'm Lazy, and the new Potential Investment mare is breed to Special Invitation (APHA).   It will be fun to see how all 4 of the babies compare to each other as they grow up.

Both Chevy and Rusty got lunged with saddles on today, vacation is over!  Over the next 2-3 months they are going to have a lot of visitors as people wanting to breed start looking for a stud.  The extreme issues that local breeders have had with getting shipped semen over the border and to our remote area means that having stallions that are quality animals with quality bloodlines is a big draw to locals who want to breed their mare.

Unfortunately D and C do live cover which can be dangerous for the stud, mare, and humans that are involved.  But again, finding a vet that is competent to do AI in mares can also be difficult.  I have heard of a vet who dropped several thousands of dollars worth of frozen semen into hot water to defrost them, like you do with bull semen..... killed all of it.