Why a Miniature?

Whoah, cool! Not sure if you had noticed, but as I'm writing this, my blog is at 500 views. Epicness! :D

Anyway, I'll get on to my point, but just wanted to say that. (: Even though most of the views seem to be coming from myself, that's still cool, and thank you for reading this. :) Don't leave yet, please!

So, why would someone even want a miniature horse? You cannot ride them (unless you weigh around 50 pounds or less), and they're almost not even a horse, but...they are a horse. They have the same normal instincts as horses, can have the same illnesses, and are basically a shrunken horse. However, that's what causes the main differences- the lack of large size results in different uses than a big horse.

In a way, Miniature's are almost more of a companion than real horse. The only transportational use they have is only enabled if they are trained to drive (as in, pull a cart). Other than that, they're just for chilling with.

Their size does have its advantages, though. They eat less, require less space, are cheaper to buy, use less wormer, and would work splendid as a very young horse crazy girl's horse. I mean, think about it. If you had an eight year old girl, would you rather entrust her to a trained giant (comparably) horse, that she can barely lead around, OR a trained Miniature horse, that's just her size? Personally, I'd choose the latter. Besides, it hurts a lot less when a Mini's hoof lands on your foot.

To me, I think of a mini as a good start to being around horses, an awesome horsey companion, and a great opportunity to get into training horses and the like. Oh yeah, another neat thing about Minis? They're actually used as sight guides for those whom are blind.

Just one more advantage of the Miniature horse- it seems they would work great as a therapy horse. Or a good way for a horse-liking person who is scared of big horses to overcome their fear.

Anyway, that's all. :) Here are some pictures of some Miniatures that we showed at the fair.

Angel Eyes, the Miniature that I showed. Doesn't her profile almost look like a Thoroughbred here?

Angel has a beautiful tail, even if I do say so myself.

Toy, another Miniature mare, and a champ at showing.

Warrior, our double-stuffed oreo cookie stud.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! :) To one and all, I hope you had a completely splendid day. :) And don't just remember Christ as the reason for the season, I tell you- God is the one and only reason for *existence*. And He loves you. Yeah, I know. It IS awesome. :)

With that said, spread the cheer! :)

An Online, Interactive, Horse Color Genetics Game

Whilst browsing around on Tuesday evening, I found a very well put-together game. More than that, though, it was a horse color genetics game. And interactive. :D

Here is the link: http://www.jenniferhoffman.net/horse/horse-color-genetics.html Kudos to Jennifer Hoffman for making this wonderful tool!

If you start from the actual webpage (I just linked you to the game itself), a guided tour will explain colors and alleles as you go along.

The thing I didn't like about the guided game was that it didn't record previous changes to the horse's color. For example, I had the horse as a seal bay, I proceeded to the next color gene, and the horse changed to a bay, chestnut, black, or otherwise. What?

For that reason I skipped to the end, where I could change any and all alleles, and all at the same time.

It seems people really, really, like this game. One of the comments complained that the game allows you to make impossible colors (such as being homozygous white, which produces a foal that dies in embryo). However, that has been fixed. Now, if you'll try it, you'll be able to have one copy of the white gene, but with both of the copies, the horse vanishes and the text says "Embryonic Lethal". The game also is accurate so far as the four linked or almost-linked KIT alleles.

Another accurate feature - it shows the gray (G) gene as dominant. You can have a multitude of colors underneath, but if a horse has the gray gene in it's phenotype, this will cover everything except white (or pinto) markings.

Interested in horse color genetics? Read more articles here!

Here's a replica of the stable's AQHA stud, Billy. :)

The Silver (Dapple) Gene

Just recently, I've dived (just a short dive though) back into horse genetics, colors, and research. This time, however, I have a specific area that I'm gaining knowledge on- the Silver (Z^Z gene).

It really is an interesting gene. Similar to the Cream and Champagne genes, it is a dilution gene. However, it goes a smidgen more complex than just that- the Z^Z allele will only affect eumelanin; that is, black hair color. The only other melanin in horses is pheomelanin (the red/brown/yellow coloring), and that is left unaffected.

Before I get to the fun part, there are a few more factors to cover. The Z^Z gene is located on horse Chromosome 6, in the PMEL17 gene. It is a simple dominant allele, so if a horse has this trait, it will appear in the phenotype. The one exception to this is if the horse is a chestnut, in which case it'll take either breeding or testing to tell.

EDIT: The gene may not be a simple dominant allele. Please read my later blog post on it! 

By breeding, let me use this example to explain what I mean: If you breed your chestnut mare to a black stud, and produce a silver bay, you then know that your mare carries silver-positive allele.

Sure, one may think that breeding to find out true color (which one cannot always find through this method) saves you...say, $40 by not testing. However, if color is an element of your breeding program, and you can scrap together 40 bucks, do it. It isn't that hard- just follow the instructions here.

Okay, yay! Time for the fun stuff. :) Let's start with a few base colors + silver gene = the answer.

Black + Z^Z = Chocolate (or Blue) Silver
Bay + Z^Z = Bay Silver
Chestnut + Z^Z = Chestnut (but carries the Silver allele)

And of course, there are combinations of base color + Silver + other dilution or extension genes. However, I'll save that for another time.

Do you remember the Miniature mare that foaled out this June? She's actually a silver, as she has all the characteristics that the Silver allele elicits, and her sire had the allele. I'm almost certain that she's a seal bay silver, but nothing's been verified.

If you don't want to go digging through my awesome blog posts to find the picture of Bunny, here she is. And who knows, maybe Dove will be a Silver carrier as well. (:

Bunny, a Silver Dapple mare

Umm, wait a second....

So, I was going to write a blog post here about horses. Except, I'm not sure what to write about horses. I mean, they're great and all, but wasn't I superbly busy? That I was, and still am. Ah well, may as well say something here.

So, around Thanksgiving weekend I saved a miniature filly, and possibly from death (let's hope not, though). I was at the stables, showing some relatives around the place. It just so happened that the owners had left to go eat, and I found Echo, a miniature palomino filly had gotten her hind leg stuck in the fence.

It almost looked like her leg was woven in between the wire, and I kinda doubt she could have gotten out of it by herself. So, actually knowing what to do, I grabbed onto her muddy little hoof and got her un-stuck. It was actually quite easy, and I'm really grateful it was calm little Echo, not the wayyyy rowdier (and older/bigger) colts.

And, that was that. Other than having kinda dirty hands, I felt really good about it. :) I like saving horses.

Also, if you peel a fair mass of carrots, please, instead of tossing the peelings in the trash, just find some horses to give them to. :) They'll enjoy them, I'm sure, and never once have I heard of a horse that was allergic to carrots.

Crazy Busy

Yes, I know this is another boring filler. I just don't want you to forget about my blog.

Anyway, lately I've been crazy busy. Other than my school and standard responsibilities, I'm having more chores added to my checklist, and I have to take over helping Mom school the kids (as my older sister is gone, and will be gone for another week). Ugh.

So, you probably won't see any annoying fillers or awesome posts until later.

Till then, peace out, munch on carrots, love horses, and don't forget to help this blog by +1ing the posts, and telling any horsey friends about it.

Confirmed Hypothesis

Just the other day, I got a chance to talk to a lady who attended college solely for learning about horse genetics. A couple points she made were foreign to me, but I'll take her word for it for unless I hear otherwise from a reputable source.

First of all, I learned that approximately half the population of horses have a roan gene, but it doesn't always appear if it isn't prominent enough (so it isn't a dominant gene, it's recessive). Which explains how one of my friends got a chestnut roan from two solid chestnuts.

Also concerning roan, it is possible to get the roan gene from the sabino gene. So now Cayenne's coloring is possible, yay!

I asked her one more question- how do you get a bay from a palomino and a chestnut? Okay, this is the one piece of information that seems iffy-ish to me, so I'll have to look into it further. Either way, she said that palomino's can indeed be a black base color, but you cannot see it because of the palomino dilution.

EDIT: Now, I would disagree. One copy of a cream gene on black does not produce a palomino-colored horse. Turns out that the "chestnut" is actually a silver bay.

So, that's that. If I remember what I had wanted to write about, or find that list of topics to write about, I'll try to do another blog post soon. :) And one that's a bit more interesting.

Cayenne - A Sabino Roan

Cayenne is an adorable miniature colt that is going to be weaned soon. Up to this past Tuesday, I have been thinking and thinking about his coloring, and trying to figure it out. Just to make things clearer for you, right now he appears to be a chestnut roan sabino.

As a foal, his owner and I thought he would just be a light chestnut with a fair amount of chrome (in the Miniature horse world, this means white or markings). After a bit of maturing we could tell that yes, he will have high lacy stockings on his hind legs, an apron face, and perhaps more. Then, we got to what puzzled me- he appeared to have roaning in his phenotype (appearance)!

Myself being into horse genetics and knowing the coloring of Cayenne's parents, here are some facts.

• Roan is a dominant gene. If a horse has it, it'll show up.
• To get a true roan, one of the parents has to be a roan.
• Neither of Cayenne's parents were a roan.
• Pepper, the late sire, was a buckskin sabino.
• Birdy, Cayenne's dam, is a light solid palomino.

What I didn't remember until last Tuesday was that the sabino gene can include the roan gene (even if it isn't a true roan). Apparently Pepper had seemed roan until he was a yearling, at which time he lost the roaning, but still was sabino. (Not sure if that'd affect much or not though.)

My current hypothesis is that a sabino horse can yield a sabino foal with roaning, even if the parent was a roan-less sabino. I'm still trying to figure out how a different friend got a chestnut roan out of her two solid chestnut Walkers, but perhaps I'll discover the reasoning behind that one later. Or perhaps it was a freak accident, who knows? *shrugs*

To close, if you want to see a picture or few of Cayenne, here're a few from last Tuesday. :)

Cayenne *finally* standing still for a picture.

And walking, which was rare for his energetic little self.

Eatin' grass with Mommy.

I got an itch, and I just gotta get it!

A "Cast" Horse

If you've been around horse people a lot, but have not been around horses extensively, you've probably heard of  when a horse gets "cast". If you are similar to me, you'll ask what it means multiple occasionthroughout time, but won't quite understand how it happens and why it is so dangerous. If you are even more like me, you may even Google the term, searching for pictures. And, similar to me again, you'll be unsuccessful.

A cast horse is a horse that has its hind legs stuck up against something, ergo not being able roll into a position to stand up. This gets dangerous after the horse has been cast for awhile, for the digestion system doesn't work very well will not in its normal orientation.

Thankfully, I have two pictures to share with you. These may be the only online pictures (for now) of a cast horse ever in history. Unfortunately they're both nasty quality, blurry, and perhaps even slightly warped as I took them with a cell phone camera. Either way, I'll show you them so you can understand the concept of a cast horse.

As you can see, the hind hooves are stuck against the fence. Most often though, a horse
gets cast against a stall, and it isn't so easy to handle as it was for this mare.

Sorry for the lame view, but here you can see it a bit better. You'll also see that there (thankfully)
is room for the hind legs to maneuver around, unlike many cast situations.

Besides colic (when the horse's digestion system isn't working right), there's also danger in getting the horse un-cast. Use whatever safe means you can, but be wary of the horse's hooves as they flail about.

After the horse is un-cast, watch him for awhile. If the horse is eating and acting normal, that's good. If the horse acts like he has a tummy-ache, call your vet. Colic is nothing to shrug off.

A Brief Explanation of Colic

Colic is a very bad and possibly fatal condition a horse can get, and is the leading cause of unnatural death in horses. If you have horses, or a friend does, please read this, and let's keep safety first. =)

Colic is like a bad stomach-ache on a horse. The reason colic is terrible has to do with the tight muscles in the horse's esophagus, preventing the horse from regurgitating food. As such, the food either has to continue onward through the digestion process, or result in rupture or impaction (basically constipation). If the horse is blocked at both ends, this can fairly easily lead to colic.

Naturally, horses are not on the ground without their legs beneath them very often at all. So, being cast puts a horse in an awkward position, and remaining in this position for a prolonged period of time can cause colic. Especially if the horse is rolling and flailing around a lot, trying to free their legs.

As far as colic goes, the main safety is prevention, as well as catching it early on. Depending on how long the horse was cast, watch the horse for any signs of pain near the belly. Some of the possible signs may be a horse having a pained look on his face, looking back at his barrel often, reaching back and biting the skin, and rolling. Of course, every horse is different, so the easiest way to tell if a horse isn't healthy is if he isn't acting normal.

If this has ever happened to one of your horses, feel free to add tips/what you learned below in the comments section. Thanks!

P.S. - Colic can also be caused by a horse rolling around or being cast (see blog post coming soon on November 16), so keep that in mind as well.

My Job: Mucking Stalls and How-To

Okay, fine- it isn't quite a job. More like, I get paid by the hour (ranging from $6-$10) for cleaning stalls down at the stables. Pretty exciting, and this way Mom and Dad will probably be more lenient towards me going down there more often. Before I explain it all, here are some of the commonly used tools that come in very handy.

For those who have never cleaned a horse's stall, it is not hard. Yes, sometimes it can take awhile if it is only one person working, and hasn't been cleaned for awhile. But that doesn't make it hard. In case you're wondering how it all works, below is the process.

1. Lead the horse out of the stall. In my case, the horse either goes in the outside pen attached to the stall, or in the indoor arena.
2. Gather the equipment. On an easy stall, this is just the picker and cart (for now). On a packed stall, you'll end up needing a pitchfork.
3. Start removing contents of stall and putting in the cart. There are two ways you can do this.
1. One is just picking it out, which means removing the wet shaving area (it is very handy when the horse has a specific area for this) and the piles of muck. For both of these sub-tasks, one just needs a picker. For the latter task, it can take some time to sift out the clean shavings (if they're clean- keep 'em).
2. The second way is just to do what is termed as "strip" the stall. Basically, user picker, pitchfork if needed, and a broom if you like, strip the stall of all shavings. Occasionally, around the edge of the stall there will be clean shavings, and those may remain.
4. Sweep out the stall, if you like. Stiff bristled brooms work best, and aluminum square shovels (such as what you use to gather shavings) work splendid.
5. Empty the cart as you go. On a particularly bad stall, one may have to empty it three or more times.
6. Once you're done with all that, take the empty cart and fill it with shavings. Dump in the stall, and spread with the picker. Usually, it's preferable to not spread within a 2 ft. radius of the stall door, as this way not so many shavings will get out.

And, that's pretty much it.

 Tl;dr version: Fill the cart, dump, continue until stall is clean, and go get more shavings.

Understanding a Horse's Base Color

To understand horse color in general, you first must understand the three base colors and how they work. However, I won't touch much on the latter bit, as that is very complex and I don't want to confuse you (or myself, for that matter). So, to learn how each base color came to be, I'd suggest reading what D. P. Sponenberg's "Equine Color Genetics" has to say about it.

Anyway, to get back to the point; there are three base horse colors. There isn't any certain order, but I chose to arrange them as bay, chestnut, and black - as that is generally the order in how common each color is. Of course in some breeds, such as the Friesian and Suffolk Punch, they have been bred selectively for so long that it is rather difficult to get a chestnut Friesian, or a black Suffolk. And at least for the latter breed, if the horse is any color other than chestnut, it can't be registered anyway.

I imagine you all know what a bay, chestnut, and black horse looks like. Just in case you don't, here's a short description of each.

• Bay - A body color ranging from medium-dark brown, and oftentimes having a reddish tint to it. The points (tips of ears, mane, tail, and lower legs) are black. Sometimes a bay horse can have countershading and some people may think their horse is just a darker colored dun. Thankfully, there are more characteristics to a horse with a dun gene than just a dorsal stripe. There are also some subtypes to bay, and those are listed below.
• Sooty Bay - The sooty effect on any color simply means that the horse has a slightly darker body, with a few areas (head, flank) being the color underneath.
• Wild Bay - If you've ever seen pictures of a Przewalski's horse, then you probably have an idea what a wild bay is. A wild bay can be quite lighter than a normal bay horse, and the black on the legs doesn't always start till about the pastern, and even then it isn't always that black.
• Chestnut - This is simply a yellow-to-red-to-brown colored horse. They can have flaxen mane and tail as well, but that doesn't have anything to do with the genotype as far as we know.
• Liver chestnut - A liver chestnut may sometimes be confused for a bay, but in reality the genotype is exactly the same as a chestnut. The phenotype, however, is a lot darker. Liver chestnuts can still have flaxen mane and tail.
• Sorrel - In reality, sorrels are the same as chestnuts, but some people (and breed associations) just prefer to use different words. To get around this inconvenient issue, some horse geneticists will just use the term "red".
• Black - This is a completely black horse. When identifying a black horse though- one must be careful. Generally the easiest way to tell if a horse is really black is to search for the absence of red hairs near the eyes, flank, and pasterns. However, one also must keep in mind that some black horses will bleach out in summer (known as a summer black) while others will not (known as jet black).

Anyway, below are some charts to help you understand three common color genes in conjunction with the three base colors. The top layer is the base color, the second is the gene, and the third is the resulting phenotype. Also, for the champagne resulting colors it is not just a single word, but the word and then "champagne". For example, a gold champagne would be called a gold champagne, but not a "gold".

P.S. - If a horse has two copies of the cream gene, the affects will be different. Two copies of the cream gene on a bay or black results in a perlino, and two copies of the cream gene on a chestnut results in the lighter colored cremello.

A Bit on Horse Color Genetics

So! I realize that this blog is pretty much abandoned, but I figured I may as well write a blog post. First of all, the book Equine Color Genetics by Dan Sponenberg is an *amazing* book. Yes, it is complex (as always will be with genetics of any type), but within the first 15 pages (and skimming through the tons of colored pictures and charts and appendixes) I have learned a lot. So, if you have any interest in learning about horse color genetics, or even just want to figure out the color of your horse, I highly, highly suggest reading it. However, as it is a bit pricey (even from Amazon), I'd suggest checking it out from your local library, as I did.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, even though disclaimers are pesky little bots, I just wanted to say that I have researched/learned about this topic for less than a total of 12 hours, and as it is very complex I could have things wrong. If I mess up on something, can you please make note of it and tell me?

Hmm...I suppose I shall just place a random collection of horsey genetic stuff and information-similar-to-that at this specific locus (aka location). Here goes! :D

• Horse color genetics work fairly simple- each horse has a pair of a specific genes, and when it reproduces with another horse, the foal receives a *random half of a gene from each specific locus from the dam, and same from the sire.
• *Random = not always quite so random when one of the parents is homozygous for a specific gene.
• If you removed all top layers of pigment from the horse, it would not be white. Some people think of a horse as a white canvas with the color on top of that. That is not true. The horse has a base coat of either black or *red, then the other colors are either extensions or dilutes. On top of all that is white patches (either markings or a pinto/Appy pattern).
• *Red (by horse geneticists) is used for either chestnut or sorrel. Saying one of the latter may get you going with a horse breeder about the definition of chestnut vs. the definition of sorrel (when genetically they're the same). And it gets even worse when certain breed regulations call some horses a chestnut if they are of a darker coat with silver-toned mane and tail, whereas they call a sorrel a yellow or gold-toned horse. And then some breeds only use the term chestnut (such as with Arabians) whereas some only use the word sorrel (as with Quarter Horses, I'm pretty sure). So instead, just use red. ;)
• There are basically 14 layers of horse colors. It starts with a base coat of either red (ee) or black (Ee or EE). After that comes the layer that, if the base coat is black, defines the amount of black. For this second layer, AA or Aa limits the black to a horse's points, whereas aa doesn't restrict the black at all, and the horse will just be black. After that comes the cream gene, the dun gene, the champagne gene, and so forth. For a complete list of abbreviations of alleles, the 14 genes, and their affect on a horse, see Wikipedia's article on this.
• Did you know that there is an actual Mushroom horse color gene? Apparently this is a newly discovered dilution gene, and looks quite makes an affect quite similar to the Silver gene. This is gene is still hardly understood, and a main fact of that is probably that most people confuse their Mushroom horses for Silver horses. Whereas, if they DNA tested their horses the owners' would find that their horse came up negative for the Silver gene.
• Also, there are some pretty rockin' awesome horse color modifiers out there! :D This webpage is pretty information-filled (and picture-filled) and if you love horses, you'll love this.

A manchado horse

I was going to be chestnut, but decided to change to black last minute.

A pretty little tovero

The Basics of Equine Coat Colors

This will basically be a list with short(er) descriptions of the colors a horse's coat can be. :) Sorry this is so late, I've been horridly busy at the time. Also, a bit later on I'll see if I can do a post on the marking patterns that horses can have, such as facial markings, leg markings, pinto, spotted, roan, rabicano, and anything else that'll work. :)

• Chestnut - the basic solid brown coat/mane and tail, that can range from a reddish toned brown to a dark, dark brown, also known as a liver chestnut.
• Bay - Imagine a chestnut with black points, and you have a bay. Similar to the chestnut, the brown can range in shades and tones.
• Black - A solid, solid, jet black. Of course markings are excepted though.
• Palomino - From a dark golden to an almost cream-like coat, this color also has a lightning white mane and tail.
• Gray - Simply what it implies- a gray. ;) They can look like a cremello, but the way to tell the difference is by the skin. Grays will always have black skin, whereas cremellos will have a pink skin. Grays can also be very dark, as well as dappled (known as the "dapple grey").
• Buckskin - A brownish yellow coat color with black mane and tail, these are a favorite color of many. They can also be very light, and if they are, they are referred to as "buttermilk buckskins".
• Dun - Similar to a buckskin, but generally darker and more of a vibrant shade. There is a lot more confusing definitions to the difference between a buckskin and this, but I'm trying to keep it simple. Both for your and my sakes. :D
• Cremello - A cremello is a very unique color that you don't see around too often. They have a creamy-colored coat with pink around the nose and eyes. They can also have pink hooves.

Question and Answer Game

I realize that I do not have that many common visitors, but I want to try something here. So if you're looking at this, please finish reading this! :) Thank you.

Now, what I'd like to do is have a little Q/A game where someone comments and asks a question (about anything horsey-but please realize it will be reviewed and removed/edited if need be), and then someone else answers it! Really simple, just use the little comment box right down there. ⬇

I'll probably be the one to answer the questions, but I would *love* for someone else to pitch in as well. Hopefully this will get me some more readers. So, +1, comment, and let's start the game. =)

Some Statistics

Here are some very interesting statistics for this blog! Let's start with the location (and it's only for unique visitors- it doesn't count the same IP address twice).

• 38 visits from the United States
• 1 visit from Egypt
• 1 visit from United Kingdom
• 1 visit from Japan
• 1 visit from Philippines
• 1 visit from Slovenia

Isn't that neat that we have visitors from so many countries? Now for the language.

• 39 English-US
• 1 Arabic
• 1 English
• 1 English-Great Britain (or en-gb.... Am I right that it means "Great Britain"?)
• 1 Japanese

And, just for fun let's throw in some other neat facts and the most used browsers and to view this (awesome?) blog, as well. Let's start with the most common used browsers.

• 72.09% Chrome (yay!)
• 16.28% Firefox
• 9.30% Safari
• 2.33% Internet Explorer

So, great job to almost everyone for using Chrome! Personal note- I find it rocks. ;) Here's a bit of an overview to finish off this post:

Visits: 43 (this is per IP address, so multiple visits do not count)

Average Visit Duration: 2 minutes, 37 seconds (any way to improve this? :\)

32.56% New Visitors

67.44% Returning Visitors

So, I guess that'll be it! Also, the breed-of-the-week thing will now be breed-of-the-month. ;) Thanks for reading, +1, share, and all that!

Horsey Terms

Today we'll be going over the horses' world (or should it be the horse peoples' world?) of terms and sayings. I'll just leave it as a list, and you can read through and memorize what you can.

• Filly - a female foal
• Colt - a male foal
• Foal - a baby horse within the age range of newborn-weanling
• Weanling - a horse within the ages of about 5-6 months through 1 year
• Yearling - a horse that's 1 year old
• Adolescent - a horse that's 2 to about 4 years old
• Mare - female horse
• Gelding - a castrated (unbreedable) male horse
• Stallion - a male horse

This is just the basic list, and I'll see if I can have a more advanced one later. If you have any questions about words I've been using to talk about horses, just ask in a comment.

New Foal - Dove

Another new foal has arrived! This miniature filly has been on the ground since early this morning! Her name is Dove and she's chestnut.

Bunny is her dam (pictured below with her); a bay or brown silver dapple. The sire was Beeg, a palomino. Possibly Dove has inherited the silver dapple allele from Bunny; only breeding will tell.

Dove and her dam.

A Source for Help

Whether you're looking for how to clean a stall, or would like to share a new technique on showing a horse or anything else you have expertise on, wikiHow is the place to go. It's a free site with friendly users and lots of articles to read and improve. There's a whole category of horse articles, and there still remains space for more.

If you need to know how to do something, have something to add, or even just want to copyedit some articles, go to wikiHow. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me - I'm an admin on wikiHow, and I should be able to help you.

New Foal - Cayenne

A new foal has been born! Cayenne is his name, and he is a little chestnut pinto. He has been born three weeks early. Fortunately, he is healthy, just very tired.

His foal color a lighter peachy-ish color, with the normal foal pangare. He has a blaze, faint dorsal stripe, and near one of his hind stifles you can see some lighter speckles caused by the sabino allele he inherited from his sire.

I'll post pictures here when I have them, but it may be a week or so. Now we have 2 of the 4 foals comin' this year, the next two are due June 8 or so. Anyone want to guess the date and gender of these next foals?

EDIT: Well, it took me until now (March 7, 2013) to remember those photos. Here they are.

Breed Profile: The Noriker

I think horses of this breed look really magical, and would be really excited to meet one face to face. :)

Other names: Norico-Pinzgauer, Pinzgauer, and Oberlander. The Noriker's which are bred in Germany's state stud farm of Marbach are known as Black Forest Horses.

History: Over two thousand years ago, this breed found its start in the province of Noricum, although the breed has been mostly developed around Salzburg. During Roman times this area was called Juvavum, and was known for the horses bred there. This breed is very common in Austria, and currently more than half of the horses there are Norikers.

Uses: These beauties were bred with the intention of a strong war horse that could also be used as a pack animal. People have found that Norikers also excel in agricultural work, harness, and hauling timber.

Height: 16-17hh

Conformation: Good clean limbs, sturdy, hard hooves, thick neck, thick mane/tail, deep chest

Color: Black, bay, chestnut, brown, gray, roan, pinto

Source: europeferd.eu via NHBA on Pinterest

A New Blog

And the first post. I'd been thinking about having a blog for awhile, and I decided to give it a try. If you couldn't tell from the title, this blog is all things equine. As I learn new things about horses, I'll post them. Yes, there are tons of horsey-blogs out there, but I will try my best to help you learn something new with each post.

Some topics I'll try to cover include horse drawing techniques, training/handling, interesting facts, and a breed profile here and there. This will change as I go along, but for now it's my aim. I'll have a real blog post up when I can, and any tips, +1s, or followers are welcome.