Too Gone for Too Long.....

I'm pretty sure that's a Randy Travis song.  Well, what can I say...I guess I've been a little busy.  The sad thing is that I really enjoy blogging, but I just haven't been able to find the time, so once again I'll have to play catch up. I think the last time I updated, we had one foal and were waiting for two more successful deliveries.  Well we succeeded.  We now have 3 of the cutest little foals, one colt and two fillies, running and bucking around the horse pasture. 

First came Sweetie's baby, Sugar, on May the 3rd.  We were excited when she came out paint like here Mama. 

Hayes making sure that Sugar will always like him best!

Like mother, like daughter:

Then we waited for Sandy to have her baby.  We were nervous because she has had problems in the past.  Our favorite horse "Sonny Boy I" (RIP) was born with what is called "dummy foal syndrome" or "maladjusted foal syndrome".  During the birthing process, some sort of trauma causes swelling on the brain and it affects the colt's instincts to nurse.  When Sonny I was born, he was in Flagstaff and a vet gave him an IV and other stuff to bring the swelling down.  In the end, he ended up doing fine and turned into a wonderful riding horse for Spence and Hayes.  Sandy also lost her first and only other foal.  It died and tore Sandy bad enough coming out that she had to have surgery.  So needless to say, we were pretty nervous for this baby to come and for everything to be OK.  We brought Sandy to the pen in our back yard and started checking her religiously.  On the night that Spence was sure she was going to have it, we set the alarm for every hour to check and wouldn't you know it, she had it between 3:00 and 4:00am and we missed the whole thing.  But the baby came out without causing Sandy any problems. It was a rainy morning, so we spread straw in pen so the baby wouldn't slip trying to get up and nurse.  It was a big stout horse; just as big as Sugar who had been born weeks earlier.  After hours of attempted nursing with lots of near misses, we knew something was wrong.  All of the other babies had been able to nurse after one or two tries.  We knew the baby needed colostrum, so we milked Sandy and gave him some in a syringe. We just kept watching.  He kept circling Sandy and trying to nurse, but he just couldn't latch on.  Trey came out and he and Spence milked Sandy a few more times and we got the colt to drink from a baby bottle.  By the time 9:00am rolled around we decided to call the vet.  They said they had the antibiotics the colt needed, so mama and baby got loaded in a trailer and headed to Snowflake.  Trey said that shortly after receiving the IV, the colt started nursing and he's been growing stronger ever since.  We were relieved to know that if it ever happens to one of her colts again (which is a good possibility considering our odds so far) we know what to do and it's a pretty easy fix.  Here's mama and baby after they came back from the vet that first day.

They had to shave a little spot on his neck to put the IV in.

And if you know Hayes and his ways of naming pets, you might have guessed that this little look-a-like is Sonny Boy II. 

I just had to throw in this other shot from that day.  Just a shaggy, scraped-up, sleep-in-the-eye, dirty-toothed punk with a twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face.  What a boy!