Happy End… kind of. :)

I thought I can not end the blog with a sad post. ;)

The whole sad incident happened almost 3 months ago. Right now everything is way more positive!!

I began to ride Bella again. It was my big goal to start with her at a huge fun show about a month ago.  We had lots of fun there and I was even placed in the relaxation test AND in a Western class open for any riding discipline. Really cool! In the dressage lessons she is doing extremely great as well. She is now even better than before her pregnancy. (though she is a bit chunkier now *lol*)

Oh, and another good news: her broken tooth looks better and doesn’t need to be removed. The vet sad it was alright as long as I let him check her teeth regularly.

And another great update: I bought a colt last week!! :)

I did not plan to buy a foal at all. But I found him!! And I fell in love! :)

He is Zidanes half brother but that was not the reason I bought him. It was only the reason I found him as I googles other Zauberfürst foals. ^^

This little guy has got a fantastic personality, couraged and sensitive. He has got extraordinary good gaits and has god a very correct conformation. AND the cutest head ever. He is now 4 months old and I have so much fun teaching him everything lie picking up hoofes or just hugging him all the time! :D

Maybe I need to start 2 new blogs. One for my dear Bella and one for my new little guy. :)

Nobody can “replace” my Zidane and I will never forget him. Ever!

But right now it doesn’t hurt anymore and I feel really lucky because my mare is doing so so well!! It could have ended worse!! O.o

And because I have a wonderful little colt with the greatest personality now! :) Now I can live my dream to teach a horse everything from foal on and I am so much looking forward to our future together! :) I am sure he is going to be a fantastic riding horse and that we will have a very happy time together!

Maybe I will start 2 new blogs soon. One for Bella and one for my little cutey!!

Zinedine Zidane

Yesterday I made an allbreedpedigree entry for my heavily missed little colt:

Zinedine Zidane

He was just perfect: black-brown without any markings.

Yesterday I thought wether it would have been better not to follow my dream and not even try to let her cover. Or wether it would been better if she never took last year, or lost the foal in the first 100 days.

But then I thought: hey, if she did I would have never known what a great broodmare she truly is and how beautiful her colt would have looked like. Now I know for sure. And I truly feel like a breeder. A breeder who has lost the very first foal she bred. But a breeder who did tons of research, who tried to make everything perfect and who even cleaned toilets at Burger King after university to make this dream come true.

And in between all the sadnes and helplessnes this makes me feel proud too. It has just been unfair.

This is the end of my dream though. And the end of this blog.

My fairytale gone bad :(

I’ll just copy and paste this from equichat.com as I don’t find the strength to write all this again:

Dear equichatters,

this morning I got a call from my barn owners. Bella is fine, her foal is dead.

The vet was already there. She foaled without any signs before. Though we checked her from time to time during the night. at 6 am there was nothing. And at 7am the foal lay there, dead.
Everything must have gone so quickly. Bella is fine, said the vet. We should only check her temperature every day to make sure nothing's getting infected or so.

Her foal came on earth being very very small, like a twin, but looked "complete" and like it had been able to live, said the vet. He said there are no signs it had already been dead before birth and no signs for an infection. It must have died becaus it wasn't strong enough to get out of the placenta (right word??) and breath. And this is what makes me so sick. It could have been alive if somebody had helped.
My barn owners said though that no one knows wether it had been strong enough to survive the next days. Because it was really really small. :/ But who knows?

The whole family is very very sad. My barn owners are too.
And I know all of you had been looking forward to seeing her foal as well. So I'm sorry I have to tell these bad news.

The most important thing is that Bella is fine though. She seems to be not sad. She didn't really recognize what was going on. She didn't even sweat, it must have been a super quick birth.

The foal was black-brown and a colt without any markings. He looked like I had always seen him in my dreams.

No I’ll have to add that Bella is still fine. Her temperature isn’t rising or so. She isn’t sad as long as she’s in her box and seeing her friend’s colt. But when you take her outside her box she is screaming and prancing and so on. :( :( I feel so sorry for her!!!

I broke down at the barn yesterday. I felt so guilty… I dreamed last night that I was there to help my colt and that he survived… :(

My barn owners told me that nature can be cruel sometimes. If he didn’t make ist out on his own he might have been so weak that he died hours or days later… or would have become a horse who tends to become sick. Who knows. It’s not easy to understand for me that everything worked perfect in pregnancy for her, birth worked perfectly for her, the colt was just perfect looking and than he died. :(

I’ve been registering her in an orphan foal registry on tuesday. But there wasn’t an orphan foal for her.

I won’t let her cover again though my vet encouraged me to. But I think there was a reason why the foal was that small. Maybe she couldn’t give him all he needed in pregnancy, though she was in good shape, almost a bit too fat. And maybe this was because she was 16 already and still a maiden. Who knows? But if this was the fact it won’t get any better next year. And I won’t risk another hole in my or my mare’s hearts. And I won’t risk my mare’s health.

Not tomorrow yet ;)

There are no changes from yesterday to today. ^^ My barn owners believe she won’t foal until the end of the week.

There are great news in spite of that though!  Bella’s friend Lena foaled this morning! She gave birth to a bay colt who sleeps a lot still of course and is extremely handsome and cute! :)

:D Not monday

It was a misunderstanding. They thought Lena would foal on monday, not Bella. :D

So here’s the update for sunday: her udder has become a bit smaller but is extremely hard now. There is more wax hanging from it and I could even see that there had been some milk dripping on her leg. But there are only tiny little dried milk spots on her leg. There are no other signs.

I think I’ll have to wait a few more days. ^^ Maybe she waits until weekend… weekend would be a nice time to foal I think! :D

Monday???

Funny! My barn owners are both experienced breeders.

He predicted that the X day will be friday.

And I just heared from a friend over facebook that she predicted that monday would be the day!!! O.o

Let’s see…. :)

There is some wax

Weee… she has got a tiny little bit of wax on her udder since yesterday. There are no other signs yet so it will still take some days. It’s nice to see a development though! :)

Her four legged friend Lena has got way more wax on her udder yet and shows other signs as well. I guess she might foal the next 2 days or so! :) So exciting! :)

Haven’t updated for a long time…

But it doesn’t mean that Bella got her foal yet! :D

Everything’s fine. She has got milk already but is not dripping it or showing any other signs of a soon too come birth. She has got 4 days to go officially but my barn owners think she needs one more week to go. :)

I have been a bit busy lately with university stuff and with the riding club we founded a few weeks ago. But I will update the blog daily from now on, I promise! :D

Finally I’ll post an update pic and a vid I took last week.;)

This is her unflashy but cute “Spanish Walk” :D I thought she needed something for her brain to work at during pregnancy. ^^

Zauberfuerst placed in 3rd level

Zauberfuerst, the stallion Bella is pregnant from got his first placing at his first start in 3rd level dressage for young horses! He is 6 years old and I think that is quiete an achievment! He placed 2nd! :)

Source

No trouble with the other mare

Oh good!! I was a bit concerned Bella would be trouble when let out ont he paddock with the other pregnant mare. She has become a bit aggressive againt other horses recently because of the hormones. But the two big ladies just stood there being bored and ignoring each other. Good! :D

Now they are used to each other and hopefully won't make any trouble on the pasture together when they will have their foals. They will be let out with two other mares and their foals so that there will be 4 mares and 4 foals overall. :)

I bought a foal halter

:) Only 22 days left!

Yesterday I bought a cute little foal halter. I was a on a horse festival in Schwäbisch Gmünd. There were little shop tends standing around the arena. Some also had foal halters. I wanted to bux a noble leather foal halter bur none of them had leather halters for foals. So I decided to buy a normal one first and a leather halter later before I go to foal inspection. So I'll be able to try if it fits. This makes sense as leather halter are a bit more expensive. ^^

So I found a really cute black one with silver horses on it. They also had really cute pink and light blue foal halters. But as I don't know for sure wether it's going to be a colt or a filly I don't want to buy something like this yet. ^^

I also bought a foal training DVD by Linda Tellington Jones. :) I love her TTEAM and TTOUCH methods and I already used it to train my mare. I'm absolutely convinced that this mehtod helps horses to think about their actions and become more self aware and self controlled. So I absolutely want to train my foal the same way. :)

29 days left and my mare is crazy

Arrrgh… my crazy mare fell down on asphalt today! A friend of mine, who is a vet, examined her and said she and her foal were alright. Crazy girl… Usually she is soo soooo calm and well behaving. She always respects my space. Today she didn’t. She got frightened, slipped, jumped into me, I fell, she strumbled over me and fell herself. *rolls eyes* Oh dear… I can’t believe how much might have happened to her, her foal or ME!

Good news are that my vet looked at her right before the incident and said she looked really good ans sporty for her stage of pregnany. Weee! :)

She is already developing a little bit of an udder. Weee!!

My barn owners said I should get her used to another pregnant mare she doesn’t know yet now. She is supposed to share her pasture with that mare and her foal in spring and summer. So we should get them used to each other before the foals are born. I hope the mares will let the other mare live and won’t fight. Hormones are making them a bit more “aggressive” already.

17th birthday

Today is my mare's 17th birthday. It's the first birthday she celebrates being pregnant. ^^ Let's hope for many many many more birthdays for her being that fit and healthy. :)

No hoof shoes and it works! :)

Uff… honestly, I really had nightmares about taking away all 4 hoof shoes from Bella. Taking away the 2 hoof shoes on her hind legs has been a disaster in autumn, so that we had to put hoof shoes on again.

But this time it really worked! :) I learned from my mistakes in autumn. I use hoof hardener 3 times a week from the very first day on. I don’t let her walk on hard surfaces at all if possible and she’s not on the pasture every day yet. And I use hoof polish twice a week and pic her hoof put as good as I can.

She walks around as if nothing happened. You don’t see any difference in the indoor, even not in trot or canter. And she walks on hard surfaces really well too. She has got really good hoofes on her front legs, which is most important. The hoofes on her hind legs could be better, they are a bit small and have some little holes on the sole… I hope they will become a bit better in the next weeks.

Update pictures! :)

 

I think it’s time to post some new pictures of my pregnant lady!

OMG… she looks round like her ball in this one!! O.o … and the foal still has got 8 weeks time to grow! How huge will it be?? (it can’t be twins, my vet checked her for twins already months ago)

PS: She seems to get along without any hoof shoes pretty well this time. I only move her in snow or in the indoor. No hard grounds at all. And I use Keralit every second day to harden her hoofes.

Month 10!!

OMG! Time flies away!

Today months 10 began! And my lady is still very fit! She cantered around on the lunge line like crazy as a little cat jumped into the indoor arena. Whooo... cats! Scary! They eat little foals! ^^

On monday my farrier will take away all 4 hoof shoes... hope it works out...

Month 9!!

Today month 9 began! Weee! :)

I feel her foal move every day now! And I already bought I night view barn cam. So I’ll be able to watch her foal from the tack room without having to disturb her. ^^

Update pictures

 

Today was a sunny day and I thought it was a good idea to post some

update belly pics. :) Enjoy. ^^

PS: Did you know that there are some people who think that if a pregnant mare’s belly is more thick in the centre it’s going to be a filly and if the belle is more thick in the hind leg area it’s going to be a colt? If this is true I’ll get a colt! :)

PPS: I added a countdown ticker to this blog. :D I’m so excited already!

  

Happy New Year! :)

Hey everyone! I wish you a wonderful year 2010! :)

It took me until 4pm today to get rid of the influences of alcohol! :D Let’s just say I had days at which I felt way better!

Afterwards I felt ok again and was ready to go to the barn. To celebrate the New Year I made the Lucky-New-Year-Jump with Bella today. Or well, it was a ground pole! ^^ But I hope it counts for pregnant ladies. I officially had my last ride on her today. She was so lazy and you can see that’s not too much fun for her anymore. So I’ll just let it go.

I felt the foal move today!! What a great feeling! :) Bella has become huge! I really need to take pictures tomorrow.

I hope everything goes well for her and the foal. I carried a hoof shoe of Bella’s yesterday the whole night. I hope it brings us luck! :)