Monday, 28 July 2008
This is why he loses condition...
Chocolate is kept in overnight to ensure he eats, but as the end of his covering season approaches he gets frantic when turned out, this morning he galloped (yes galloped) round his paddock for around 15 mins in a fury headshaking and stopping to rear sky high to show his rage.This is because he can see a mare and foal across the field (he's got her in foal anyway) and can't actually touch her.
As it's so dry here there were clouds of dust which really made him cross.
He then turned to knocking over any jumps in the field with his nose!
At the moment he is on three conditioning feeds a day plus lots of grass and haylage when he's in, but sexual frustration takes weight off a chap as you can see by his ribs..
The good side is he's very fit... he easily makes the time XC and barely sweats.
Leo Freedom after box rest
as you can see his legs have improved radically. We're hoping he will end up OK.
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
Galileo
He's been on box rest with his dam on restricted food (old hay) as his ligaments were too tight. He is vastly improved so we thought he could have a little play, though not quite the mad whizz about we actually got. I think our vet will say he is ok to go out full time again.This is the first time we've ever had a foal who didn't straighten up within a month of just leaving it alone, this one has had farrier trim him carefully and he will be kept trimmed every two weeks just to be sure.
I get a little cross when I read posts about how we shouldn't be breeding from ungraded stallions. This little chap's Dad has good competition bloodlines (his Grand dam completed Badminton twice and Burghley once) and his sire is busy proving himself eventing with dressage scores of 22.
The sire has also has passed vet inspection twice aged 17, so no hereditary nasties being passed on.
The dam is by a well known eventing sire and the grandsire is a Grade A and Advanced dressage stallion.
I'm going to carry on breeding horses like these and to hell with anyone else's opinions.
Take a look at the following pics of our horses and see if you think we're wasting our time; judging from all the satisfied owners I don't think so!
Galileo should end up absolutely straight, research shows it canbe due to a number of things from mineral deficiencies to food intake of the mare. She has access to ad lib food all year round and mineral blocks so not sure why this happened, but he is such a nice foal he is worth the effort to fix him.
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Plans..
the island is my next project, the cypress tree has died it's too wet for it, so the plan now is to cover the island with azaleas and give it plenty of spring colour.
Monet bridge.
I'm still getting round to painting this bridge dark red like a japanese garden, but for now it remains dirty blue!
the wild orchard
this is a bit of a muddled garden, in here are fruit trees, raspberries, redcurrants (damned birds usually feast on those) black currants and some young trees of plum and cherry that haven't fruited much as yet.The mallow pictured was just a branch that sprouted on it's own from the rubbish.
our water jump!
best jumped off the car park it introduces the young horses to water on home ground. the pond is around a foot deep at this point and after a few sticky starts they leap in with a massive splash and power through both ways.
Almost tropical
You wouldn't expect some ofthe things that grow her to survive, last year I grew luscious peaches and we always have grapes in late summer.
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