Member Blogs

A month ago the barn was empty and chores where pretty easy. Go out on Sunday put out a couple of round bales fill the stock tanks and then do what ever else I "want" to do. Now the mares are coming in either to foal or to be under lights so we can get them to have a normal estrus cycle. Now six horese come in evernight just to dirty my stalls.Now barn duty every night before those mares can come in. Of course a couple come in just because they are spoiled rotten.
 The first group of mares to get bred are our open mares, they are all under lights. The lights come on at 6 am then shut off at 11 pm. For those of you who don't know the lights trigger the pituatary gland in the eye which tells the mare that it is summer already,which has 14 hours of daylight.Time to stock up on breeding supplies so that we aren't caught short the first time we have a semen shipment.
 The second group is the mares that are going to foal in the spring, Febuary-March. These mares usually will come into heat 7 days after they foal. Of course we have to stock up on supplies for when those mares foal. I'm not looking forward to sleeping in the barn as we have been having 10 and 20 degrees every night, thank God for propane.

Last year we drug our feet about getting mares in under lights so we where breeding mares for 2-4 heat cycles which became very expensive as we did shipped semen on most of our mares last year.This year we are way ahead of the curve.I just haven't picked out the perfect stallion for  Zipper Magnum or Mercedes.3 weeks to decide and purchase them, nothing like waiting to the last minute.lol