Field Horses

Yesterday evening I had the opportunity to get some really blurry pictures of the field horses using the cell phone! None of them got close enough for sufficient time to study their cowlicks, but here are the pictures. :)

Also, I did make a minor change on EM's blog settings. I had heard that the RSS feed was not including pictures, so I tried changing some stuff. Hopefully it'll show images now. :)

From left to right: Porschia, Spirit, Fantasia, Nolia, Rave Review

Fantasia, Nolia, and Spirit

A few horses eating, Nolia seen off to the right.

Cowlicks, Crowns, Swirls, and Angel Kisses

On a horse, a hair whorl can be called a cowlick, crown, swirl, and probably some other words as well.  With a mule, they're just called angel kisses. (Which do you prefer - cowlick or angel kiss? Let your answer be revealed in the comments if you so choose.)

A whorl on a horse is where the hair changes directions in a swirly pinwheel type of way. Usually there is at least one on the head, somewhat centered between the eyes. However, cowlicks can be found on a horse's body (the neck is a common place), and there may be multiple ones on a horse's head.

A simple counter-clockwise cowlick on a horse.

Classifications of whorls:

• Simple: Hairs spread out into all directions from center point.
• Tufted: Hairs come together and form a tuft.
• Linear: Hairs grow opposite direction formed along a vertical line.
• Crested: Hairs in opposite directions come together to from a crest.
• Feathered: Similar to linear, but hair falls at an angle and appears smooth and symmetrical.

On both horses and mules, a cowlick supposedly has some significance as far as telling temperament.

(Note: As I've never known anyone who has had personal testimonies of this, I'm basing my writing off Wikipedia's article about hair whorls, as well as the other two articles I linked to below).

The general rule of finding temperament? The higher the whorl, the crazier the horse; the farther down, the sweeter the horse. I think this Tuesday when I hit the stables I'm gonna look at all the cowlicks and see if this seems to be somewhat accurate. I'll let you know afterwards. :)

There are also some other saying about horse whorls; such as a horse with a feathered one loves people,  a horse with a low cowlick can make a nuisance of himself (such as trying to open gates), a horse with an elongated whorl is more cautious, and a couple other ones.

Also, there's one more bonus of knowing where and what direction (counter-clockwise versus clockwise) your horse's cowlick is, as it's a very accurate and specific tool for identifying your horse.

Anyway, that's all for now. If you want to read more about horse whorls, there are some interesting opinions found here, here, and here.

Have an awesome day. :)

It's Now Official

I've been bitten by a horse!

Didn't hurt too much, but at least I can say it (and actually mean a real bite, not just a nip) now. :P

It happened on my walk, which actually turned out to be pretty eventful. A short while after I turned around to head back, there was this adorable little Sheltie type dog that trotted (not sure what they call it in the canine world, so this'll have to do) out onto the road and kept going. At first I just let him go, and then was like, "Hey! Let's go catch up to him and see if his collar has his owner's information on it so I might be able to contact them."

Well, didn't turn out quite that way! The dog just kept trotting on; obviously he had lots more energy than I did! He slowed down once we got to the stables, and stopped every now and then, but would not let me get close to him. I'm not exactly sure why, I can only guess that his owners weren't the nicest. :(

And then he decided to try something I told him not to do - run into one of the horse pens. Of course, all three of the horses got to chasing him, and it's amazing he wasn't hurt. I then decided to just sit down and see if he'd come up to me. He didn't.

He then proceeded to trot up the road again. I just let him go, figuring I couldn't do much to stop him, and was petting on Rosy's heads, with my back to Legacy who was standing besides Rosy. Well, Legacy didn't like it that I was giving Rosy my attention, so she commenced to bite my back. It didn't hurt much, and it wasn't a huge bite, but it wasn't exactly a "nip" either. I got after her about it, and hopefully she won't try that again. :P

So, that's all the horsey news for now. Hopefully I can write a post about the Friesian breed when I have time. :)

Have an awesome day all. :)

Messing with Sketch

Sketch (the application) is really cool! I was messing around with it awhile ago and came up with this horse. The background I also made, using the trial-version of Pixelmator.

Anyway, I kinda like how it turned out. :)

And, if you want to see the drawing I used as the base for the horse, it's right here. :)

Workin' the Mini Girls

Yesterday I got to work the mini girls (Toy Toy and Angel) for a good hour using the lunge line. It got kinda dizzying after some time. :P

On my walk down there, I was actually able to get Rave Review (pronounced more like raver-view though) to come up to the fence for me! She didn't really eat the grass I offered her, but I was able to get a picture of her scratching her ear with her hind hoof. :)

Rave is a black Arab, Polish-type, I think. She has a very float-y trot, and... Oh wait. Nevermind! That isn't Rave, that's Porschia. The only way I can really tell them apart is that Rave has a halter on and this mare doesn't. I know Porschia is black as well, and I'm pretty sure she's Polish-type Arab, but she might be Egyptian. *shrugs* Too confusing.

Anyway, after I got down there we cleaned out a few stalls and then I got to working Angel Eyes. After grooming on her a little (mainly just picking out her hooves), I grabbed the lunge line and lunge whip, and started lunging her.

She did great at first, and she definitely does not have any excuses about why the puddles will eat her. :P However, once she was a bit more tired, she decided to push her luck on being lazy. I tried a lot of stuff (snapping the whip, kissing to her, and so on) to get her to move, but she wouldn't. Instead, she would just slow down, stop, and angle her rump away from me so I couldn't pop her there.

Finally I sensibly asked MiniOwner how I could get Angel to go. The plan:

• Put the chain onto her halter so she'd pay attention more (it helped a bit, but not terribly much).
• Keep one foot on a small-ish rock in the ground to ensure that the horse is doing all the work, and the handler is staying in one spot.
• Every time she wants to be lazy, I reel her in towards me (yay for strong-ish arms :P) until she was to where I could pop her on the rump to get her moving. (It may sound mean, but 1) she has tons of fluff still, and it doesn't hurt her, and 2) she does need to be disciplined for stuff like that. Otherwise she'll just become a very lazy horse that thinks she can her way with anything.)
• Continue above two points until she stays at a steady trot and has nice slack in the line.

I had to do that for probably about 15-20 minutes, but it helped TONS. She realized she wouldn't get away with being lazy and that it wouldn't kill her to keep moving. After she did a few rounds especially good, I had her walk in to me (which is something she's very awesome at :)) and - after letting her have a bit of a carrot - put her to bed.

Then I pulled out Toy. As soon as I was in the position to lunge her, BOOM - she must've had megatons of energy. For some reason she didn't want to canter, but just gallop. At certain moments I would actually have to almost sit on the ground to keep her from moving my position (she, unlike Angel, doesn't leave much slack in the line).

After awhile she finally slowed down (just a tad!), and I put her to bed after lunging her for about twenty minutes. She didn't really get in trouble for being lazy, and I managed to get a picture of her lunging at the trot. :)

And of *course* she has to be blinking. XD Silly mare. :)

More Drawing

So, since my last drawing post, I've been drawing a bit more. I don't have pictures of all the sketches and stuff I've drawn since then, and I'm not planning on showing them all to you; mostly because not all are that great. :P

However, I did spend a couple hours working on this horse head sketch!

Now believe me, it started out absolutely horrid. It hardly looked like a horse! *thanks God for things so awesome as erasers!* Anyway, it's kinda Arab-y looking, but not too much. Just a little bit. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. The neck is curved and not too wide like on most my drawn horses, the jowl is clean and smooth, and the eye looks at least somewhat realistic!

I think that if I could re-do this, though (which, I could, but I'm not going to!), I would fix the forelock. It's not bad, and I like the near side (horsey term for left side) of it, but on the right side it could be shaped a bit different to make the head beneath look more realistic and not flat or rounded. *shrugs*

Either way, there that is. I copied that on our copier, and then colored it in for fun. I don't have an image of the finished coloring (yet!), but here's one that I took along the way. :)

English Schooling Class

Remember when I wrote this post? Here's the other part of it that I promised I'd write; the list of things one should do and remember when riding English.

• Keep sternum up.
• Keep lower back relaxed.
• Relax thighs.
• Lift inside shoulder up when turning to stay balanced.
• Hands to elbow should be lined up with the angle of the reins.
• Hands should stay above withers.
• Breath slowly, relaxed, and deeply. If you're relaxed, your horse should be, too.
• Do a reassessment of your overall posture before beginning the canter.
• Keep the canter consistent. If you start slow, keep it that way.
• When cantering, lower legs should not be flopping around.
• You should feel the weight of the stirrups on both sides.
• Never circle your horse in the show ring; you will be DQed for this. Do anything else to gain control of your horse, so long as it's "legal" and not super noticeable. One thing you could do would be to gently tug on the bit with alternate reins.
• Horses are somewhat like kids as far as training. If you ask a horse to do something, don't stop asking until the horse puts at least some effort into the requested task. If you let the horse get away with stuff, he'll turn out to be a brat horse that won't obey and will probably just cause problems. (Also, just how children sometimes need discipline, horses do as well. Just as a sidenote. :P)

Inaccuracy Lies Everywhere

Okay, maybe not everywhere. But it's very common. Even in the equine world!

A major annoyance to horse color geneticists is how inaccurate colors on a horse's registered papers may be. Most people either don't know, or don't care to know, the difference between bay silver and chestnut, for example. So hey - don't always considers colors on registry papers as accurate.

(If details on registry papers were always accurate, that'd mean that it's completely possible for two chestnuts to produce a bay: It isn't. Remember that details on registry papers come from the owners, not always a color geneticist. There will be mistakes, and we've got to count that in when looking at papers for something so precise as color alleles.)

Another thing that hopefully doesn't happen too much, is something I noticed the other day. I was working on horsey homework for my state's horsey club, and listing down horse breeds and three conformational characteristics about each breed.

Have you ever noticed how some books (such as Ultimate Horse and Horses: Eyewitness Handbooks) share many photos of the same horse, but the photos were shot on opposite sides of the horse? Now, I don't have any problem with that. It just means the photographer got a bit more money from each photoshoot without having copyright violations or whatever.

Anyway, I was going through my Ultimate Horse book as well as my younger sis' Horses: Eyewitness Handbooks book at the same time. When I noticed something very peculiar and somewhat disturbing: The breed profile pictures for Landais and Pottock were swapped in these two books.

In my book, it had a gorgeous, snappy-looking liver chestnut as the Landais, and a black horse as the Pottock. In my younger sister's book, the chestnut was the Pottock, and the Landais was the black.

Isn't that just annoying! Both books cannot be correct. It's one thing to have the same horse for the same breed profile in separate books, but it's completely different to have facts that do not comply from presumably (not so anymore!) accurate horse books.

Anyway, enough for now. Time to get to bed and stuff and wake up at 4:15 tomorrow for the show. Cheers!

...Actually, I'm gonna have this schedule to publish on Sunday. It bugs me (well, only somewhat) when I have two posts on the same day, and I'll see if I can write up a post tomorrow (Saturday) reviewing the horse show.

*yawns* Night!

The Fat and Fuzzy Show

Overall, it was good! Pretty cold the whole day, and as always with the location where the show was held, super super sandy and windy. My hat tried to get away from me at least three times, and my hair (which started out awesome!) doesn't feel so clean anymore. XD

Anyway, there were two modifiers to this show that made how Angel and I got scored worse than usual. I still consider it a good show, however, because it was an excellent practice (or schooling) show for both Angel and myself.

The first reason was that there were some top-notch mini people and mini horses there. And by top-notch, I don't necessarily mean the best. I mean, the type that's very very very slender and Arab-y and most people consider that's how minis should be. IMO, it can go either way. There are some things that you can do with a stronger built horse that you can't do with some weird horse-looking exotic specimen!

As I was saying though, some people brought about 4 slender, in shape, minis that were fully clipped. The reason we didn't clip the minis (other than their heads and fetlocks) was because it's still too cold for them. Another purpose (a more minor one, though) was that the show is named Fat and Fuzzy for a reason: It's fine to bring horses that are both fat and fuzzy and you won't be judged on that.

So, anyway, these people brought four of their super Arab-y little minis, and yeah, they were pretty! However, it was pretty obvious that the owners bred them for their beauty. Not their attitude. Apparently there were quite a few times when the little things were trying to bite at and be rude to their handlers!

The second thing that altered the show for it again has to do with the name and purpose of the show. I really don't think the judge should have been judging horses for being fat or fuzzy. But she was. Yes, yes, I know the first few classes Angel and I both messed up. However, we also had really good classes, and we didn't get placed at all...well, with the exception of being placed third in a class of three horses, and second in a class of two horses.

*shrugs* Ah well. Not every judge is perfect. She was nice and smiley though, and did actually give me advice on lunging after that class! It was really nice of her; not many judges will come and discuss how you can personally improve your performance/training with you, so that was cool.

So, that's that. Angel and I got the second and third I mentioned previously, and it's been a long day! A good training day for both of us as well. One thing that pretty much made my day was when a well-respected lady trainer was passing Angel and I as I was leading her to the arena with a lunge rope coiled in one hand, and the lunge whip in the other hand. She just started smiling this huge smile at us and she was like, "That's just so cute! *:D*". It was really cool. A bit after that I passed her again, and she didn't say anything, but she just smiled at us. XD That was cool.

Well, it's probably time for me to go do dishes. Tired from getting up at 4:11 lol.

Night!

Less than 24 Hours Left

Yup. Less than 24 hours before the show. I have to be up tomorrow probably at 5:15, and I'll be picked up by MiniOwner and her mother at 6 most likely. Before then I have to take a shower, double check my show clothes, get my blue hoodie washed, and get down to the stables to vacuum up Angel Eyes. We're vacuuming the minis this time because it's too cold for a full-body wash.

However, yesterday I was able to go down there and wash Angel's disgusting (it was a huge mess, but it didn't gross me out too much, at least :P) tail out using a bucket. It's pretty easy, you just fill a smaller-ish bucket with warm water, get the tail wet, thoroughly spread soap around in it, and rinse and repeat.

Anyway, a lot to do, a little time to do it (see this post on my other blog). I'll try to have MiniOwner get some pictures of me showing, and if I look decent in any then I'll share them with you. :)

Cheers! Pray that everything goes well for the first show of the year. (:

EDIT: The show's past now, and to see how it went, read this post!

Sad News

Yesterday evening I was informed by MiniOwner that Tess, the mini that was due to foal out on April 25th, gave birth to a stillborn (aka born dead) foal. He was a grulla colt, and he must've been dead for some time because his hind legs were starting to mummify up (technically known as rigor mortis).

This hit me hard last night, especially after I started thinking about it more. I was really looking forward to doing the foal watch on her, and foaling time, to me, is the best part of being around horses EVER. It especially hurt because a couple weeks ago when I had time to groom on Tess, I was able to feel her belly for a couple minutes and feel the foal kicking. :( So sad that he's gone.

Anyway, hopefully that'll be the first and last stillborn foal that Tess has. We're gonna breed her back to Buster (her "husband") again this year, and hope for a colored filly next year.

II Thessalonians 3:16
Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way. The Lord be with you all.

Hopefully this news didn't interrupt any currents of happiness, but if it did, hopefully the above verse will help reverse that.

God bless.

Horses are SMART!

They are very smart. Probably more than they want to let on to, for rather obvious reasons.

Today I had the opportunity to hit the stables for 45 minutes and work Angel Eyes. She did pretty good! I need to work with her more on cantering both directions while lunging, and still a bit more on giving me space when I'm turning her away from me.

However, she did really good! After lunging her for just a minute, she was trotting and cantering through the 4" deep puddle without any hesitation. I even ground tied her twice (once for 5 seconds, once for 10) and she didn't move a step! I ended the session on a good note, and decided to reward her with a carrot after I quick-tied her to the hitching post.

Digging my triple-bladed knife outta my pocket, I sliced up the carrot chunk as so.

Yum!

After giving her one or two slices, I decided that I'd try something. I stepped a couple feet away from her, and using gestures and vocal commands ("step up", "step back", "stand", et cetera), attempted to get her squared up. Here's the thing: It worked! She knew exactly what I wanted, and was willing to do it for a mere carrot slice.

I had her earn her way by squaring up for all the remaining carrot slices, and was able to take a few pictures as well. :)

I just gotta get those carrots!

"Hold it!"

As she was happily munching on the last carrot, I managed to get one more shot.

Awwww! She's so adorable. :)

Possible Change of Plans

There's a possible change of plans - we may be swapping Promise for another horse if we find a more suitable one.

Anyway, that's all I have for now; just thought I'd let you know!

Cheers!

Showing Season is Almost Here!

The first show we'll be attending with the minis is April 20, only nine days away!

I'll be showing Angel again, and I'm pretty excited. I have a year of experience under my boots, and Angel knows how stuff works as well. I'm not sure how we'll do at showmanship this time; it'll be the third time I've done it, but it sounds pretty complex! However, Angel should do awesome at halter and trail, and I wouldn't be surprised if she placed in adolescent lunge line either.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to it, and I hope Angel is too! Showing means waking up at 6:15 or earlier (once it was 4:30), freezing as we get the halters on the minis, tie them in the trailer, and feed the other horses, talking with our coffees handy on the way to the show when it's only starting to get light, and then being busy with no spare time to relax.

This first show is at a nearby-ish outdoor arena that most of the shows are at. Angel and I will be going in a couple trails, halter, halter championship (I can scratch that if we don't make it though), one class of lunge line, showmanship, and showmanship championship (again, very scratchable).

Anyway, thought I'd let you know. :)

Grooming on a Rainy Day

Yesterday I went down to the stables, and as MiniOwner put it, "the whole ground's saturated." So, instead of the usual cleaning stalls + working the minis, we headed into the upper barn to pull out a couple yearling minis and groom on them.

First MiniOwner took Echo - an E^eE^e/Ch^ChCh⁺ (gold champagne) filly, and I got Ruger - an A^aA^a/To^To-/Z^Z (silver on black) colt.

Ruger was pretty calm about the whole grooming process, and there wasn't much I had to reprimand him for (other than pawing when I stopped grooming temporarily). However, as we'll be showing Echo next year, MiniOwner decided that then was the time to get the filly used to clippers.

Bottom line was that Echo finally got over it. At first, though, she was rearing and freaking out all over the place. MiniOwner just kept going at her (which is honestly what has to be done until the horse realizes that clippers won't kill them. This technique is known as flood training) until she got over it.

After we were done with those two, I got out Reggie - an E^eE^e/To^To (chestnut and white) colt, and MiniOwner pulled out Cayenne - an E^eE^e/Sb^Sb1Sb⁺ (chestnut sabino) colt. For a little while, Reggie was nervous when I was picking out his hoofs; after awhile, though, he just stood there completely still and let me do whatever I wanted to on him. He was shedding a lot (wait...maybe that was Ruger? Grr my memory is getting confused) for merely a yearling, and he really really liked being brushed with the shedding blade. :)

Cayenne, however, decided he was going to act silly when MiniOwner was trying to lead him out of his and Reggie's stall. Short story even shorter, he reared up the first time and struck MiniOwner (thankfully he's a fairly small mini), she warned him not to rear up again, he did, so she pushed him over onto his back.

It may seem mean to a simply "playful" horse for those who don't know much about horses, but they need to learn. And that wasn't just playing, it was also disobedience, and that kind of behavior should not be allowed to reside in any horse; no matter the size.

Anyway, I didn't get any picture of Reggie or Cayenne, but here are a few of Ruger and Echo. :)

Ruger's head. :) Cute boy, but he didn't want to stand still for the picture!

A dark spot on Ruger's neck. I found it a bit interesting!

Echo, the gold champagne filly.

With some minor editing, you can kinda see the hazel-ish eyes common in champagnes.

She has such a delicate Arab-y head.

And big eyes, too!

More Boarded Horses

This past week, the stables gained two new boarded horses!

Fizzy is a chestnut and white Paint mare, and she seems pretty nice. She didn't like it when I let Angel get close enough to sniff at her, but other than that, she's quite friendly.

Her buddy is a little American (modern) type Shetland gelding. His name is Mikey, and he's a dark bay.  He too seems very friendly, and he is super cute. (:

These are the only pictures I have of them so far; enjoy. :)

Fizzy 

Mikey

Which Paint?

A sometimes confusing term is "Paint". The word can both refer to a breed, and also a color white pattern.

The most common registry for Paint horses is APHA - the American Paint Horse Association. I'd imagine there are registries for pinto horses in other countries, but I'm not certain. A paint horse can have any conformation, any size, and anything else you can think of, so long as the horse has pinto markings. Which means, yes, even a pinto Mini can be registered as a Paint.

However, when someone refers to their horse's main breed (yep, horses can be registered for multiple breed associations) as a "Paint", this usually means a Quarter-Horse-type pinto, or a more modern Thoroughbred-type pinto.

The color of paint is a bit more complicated. It can go by 'paint', 'pinto', 'piebald' (black and white pinto), 'skewbald' (bay and white pinto), and also '[base color] and white' (for example, a chestnut and white).

To most people, the color terms 'paint' and 'pinto' mean the same thing. My friends at the stables say that Native Americans would call horses such as tobianos a pinto, because the spots are fairly rounded and smooth (like a toe); whereas a paint such as a frame overo would be called a paint, because it looks like the horse got splattered (for lack of a better word?) with paint.

Piebald and skewbald are slightly old fashioned terms, but at lease the meaning of each is simple. Piebalds are black and white, and skewbalds are bay and white.

Referring to a horse color by '[base color] and white' is probably the least confusing, although it is a fairly informal term.

I think the main way to reduce confusion is to completely terminate using the word "paint" for a color. Keep it to pinto or the other options, and it will probably help.

Have an awesome day, and if you found this post helpful, please +1, and don't use "paint" to refer to a color. :)

Showmanship Schooling Class

Today Awhile ago was the schooling show, and I learned a lot about riding and showing! :) It was almost more like group lessons with different sections (English, Western, showmanship, reining, and so on) than a show, although the entrants were required to have a number paper.

Anyway, I'll share the showmanship stuff with you know, and save the English riding stuff for later.

For showmanship classes:

• You will be DQ'ed (disqualified) for touching the chain lead shank in the show ring.
• You will be DQ'ed for switching hands on the lead.
• You won't be DQ'ed, but your score will be marked down for putting both hands on the part of the lead rope closest to the horse to gain control.
• The mane should always be gelled down and banded. Mane should preferably be the length of the horse's ear, or long and trimmed to emphasize the shape of the horse's neck.
• The tail should be down and fetlock-length (any longer than that will mean the horse steps on it when he's backing).
• Spend time getting clipping done right; some places you shouldn't miss are the head, nostrils, insides of ears, and lower legs (up till about the knees/hocks).
• There should be a definite difference between how you treat your horse when he does and does not have the chain lead shank on.
• Without: Your horse can graze (if you'll allow), be cuddled on, and everything is pretty much laid back.
• With: This means business. Your horse is paying attention to you the whole time, do not let him graze, do not cuddle him, do not let him do any other actions that will mark you down in the show ring, or get you DQ'ed.
• You and your horse should move as one, step for step. It is not you dragging your partner to the dance, it's both of you calmly going as a unit to the dance.
• Your horse should be trained to watch and follow your shoulder, and move/stop accordingly.
• You should have strictly set angles of standing and vocal commands for doing different things so your horse will know what you want.
• Before you walk off - Standing next to your horse, with your ear opposite his throat latch; clucking slightly before (need to give horse a heads up) and when you want him to start walking.
• Before you trot off - Standing next to him same as when walking; kiss or quickly cluck to signal a trot.
• Before you back - Standing next to him in same location, but facing his engine (hind quarters); clucking used same as previously.
• Before stopping - With some emphasis put your shoulders back to cue the stop; say whoa.
• Before setting up for inspection - Say whoa again so your horse knows not to move around (even though you will be).
• Know how the quartering system works (I'll write a post on it sometime!).
• Wear a good outfit that goes together well.
• The cowboy hat should not have too much contrast with your hair (a blonde such as myself shouldn't have a black hat, unfortunately).
• No jeans. Just...no.
• The jacket should be similar in color (if not the same color) as the pants.
• There should be nothing that pops out and distracts the judge from the horse. For example, don't have some bright neon markings on the bottom of your boots; this is the last thing the judges see as you are walking/trotting away, and it can very easily make them start trying to figure out what in the world that is, instead of watching your horse and yourself.
• Dress for your age range. For a younger person, bling is just fine. For an older person, don't dress like you're trying to be a teen. Use common sense.

That's all I have for know. I'm sure there are plenty of other things that I forgot to mention, but that'll get you started. :)

Tess Tess!

Tess is a grey little Miniature mare, and she's due to foal out either later this month, or mid-May!

Looking at her previous foals, we know that Tess is a carrier of the dun and agouti (bay or black, most likely) alleles. The only stud she's ever been bred to has been Buster (her "husband" :P), because he produces reduced-size foals, and Tess is a small little mare.

Anyway, the earlier date for her foal is April 25th. If she doesn't foal out on that day (and give or take a few days), then it should be sometime around the 19th (I think?) of May. Regardless, we won't be keeping her foal unless 1) it's a filly, and 2) it has color. By "color" in this case, I'm referring to a color such as grulla or dun.

Yesterday we were up at the second barn and I was able to groom on Tess for a good while. Talk about shedding! And she hasn't even been wormed super lately yet.

Oh yeah; funny story here. When the mini owner's got her, Tess had never once been bred. They bred her to Buster, and a few weeks before she was due, MiniOwner'sMom took the clippers to Tess and got all the hair off her (Tess isn't very good at shedding out by herself). As soon as MiniOwner'sMom left the stall, Tess looks down at the pile of hair and starts talking to it. ^_^ Apparently she thought that must be what happens after she's pregnant!

So anyway, here's a picture of her. :) Flicka (a silvery dapple paint Mini) is her buddy, and those are her hindquarters you see in the picture.

Tess :)

Jaw Bone Pieces!

Or, technically, mandible pieces.

Last Saturday, we (MiniOwner, her mom, and I) spent a couple hours tightening up fences over at the second barn. It was somewhat boring, but all the wire is fixed up and ready to hold horses whenever we need. All of the second barn's fencing is smooth wire, and it is nice! It doesn't take too much maintenance, and it's really easy to slip through between the wires.

We were most of the way done fixing fence when we found a (separated) pair of mandibles - also known as lower jaws. They are somewhat falling apart and not in the best condition, but when I asked if I could have them both adults agreed to it!

Anyway, so now I have the pair of jaw bones, a segment of an upper jaw (with beautiful teeth on it!), and one giant horse tooth! I know some (like my sisters :P) will think it's disgusting and just gross to touch bones from a long-gone horse, but as I never knew the horse, I think it's kinda cool.

Once I got the bones home I got them into our larger, more-of-a-work-type sink and cleaned them as well as I could with a work toothbrush and warm water. And it's merely a coincidence that I was cleaning horse teeth with a toothbrush. :P

Anyway, here are some pictures!

EDIT: Also, sorry about the early publishing! :P I had scheduled it to publish yesterday, on Monday, thinking that I would have the pictures on by then. Well, of course I waited until now to get the pictures! Regardless, here they are. :)

One of the mandibles.

The other side of the same lower jaw piece. 

Some teeth!

The other lower jaw (mandible) piece! 

See the little whole? If you put water through it, the water comes out the tip end of the thing.

Reverse side of same lower jaw. 

The top.

Giant tooth!

Inside part of what we think is the upper jaw.

Outside of supposed upper jaw.