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So we are now almost 9 months pregnant!

Yep, that right folks, dee is now 267 days in foal… Can you believe it?!
Firstly, I would like to apologise for the lack of updates, my laptop died mad I have only just replaced it with an iPad Air. So far, so good! Of course, a certain black beauty is gracing my background.

Deli dis really is thriving. Now she is in her third and final trimester we are constantly watching her weight. With the biblical type rain we have been having it’s been no easy feat to keep dee in tip top condition. Mud fever bad risen it’s ugly head this year so we have had to content with that but, over all, dee is doing really well.

I am so sure she is having a colt! Don’t ask me why, I would love a filly but the amount of kicking and ninja style moves occurring in dee’s belly make me think colt.

I was very lucky to have a camera at the right moment the other day. Normal dee seems quite spooky when the foal is moving, but as time goes on she is becoming more and more inquisitive. I managed to capture the moment when the foal moved and dee whickered and nuzzled her belly.

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This has to be one of my favourite photos of her to date as it is just so special!

So as well as thriving, dee is expanding! She’s carrying low rather them outwards at the moment but I have no doubt she will soon look like a massive air balloon.

So, pics or it didn’t happens?

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Exciting times. Two months and two weeks to go… Where has the time gone?

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Time for am update!

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Sorry to all my readers that i haven’t been on for ages – silly me forgot my log in details!

ANYWAY, so a quick round up is in order? So dee is 190 days in foal today! EEEK *jumps up and down in pure excitement*. Can you honestly believe it? It only seems like yesterday we were inseminating her!. So far she has had the 1st of her EHV vaccines and her Flu vaccine was yesterday. The Reproduction vet, Mette at Bell Equine Veterinary Clinic came and gave her the once over. Shes in fine fettle and her caslicks, teats, condition is perfect. She also suspects Dee is going to be HUGE!

Im still sure dee is in foal to an elephant… I should have known with ears like hers there was some elephant in her bloodline. What can I, i saw the Donnerhall, Sandro, Sao Paulo, but no Dumbo! Oops! (sorry dee if I am being unkind 😀 )

Did anyone enjoy the fireworks? I didn’t, and personally think people should have licenses to throw firework parties. Dee also didn’t like them and managed to kick/twist her fetlock. So much so it turned into a canklet.Image Luckily *touch wood* she wasn’t lame, but with her history i err’ed on the side of caution and called the vet out (on a saturday – nice(!)) I am sure some think I am over protective of her, but in the last year I have invested over £10,000 in this mare and her future, so whats a Saturday call out fee to be told everything is ok. Anyway she was such a good girl for the vet and stood to allow her to palpate the tendons. The verdict was twisted/pulled ligament so box rest for a few days. Dee’s and my own worst nightmare! So I purchased an Aerborn Ice Boot and applied three times a day to the cankle, and after two days the swelling was more localised and all the heat had gone. This ruled out an infection which i was relieved at and on the 3rd day she went back out with her herd mates, and apparently did not stop eating the entire day!

Now, why do I hate box resting dee? Well, I am sure some of you are aware, Dee has quite the character on her….a bit like Dennis the Menace, she is able to get in trouble at the blink of an eye…

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so i decided that a few walks out in hand and some grazing might help her mental state.

So far, so good. Lucky for me dee seems to be in her ‘hungry’ stage of pregnancy so negotiations that involve food seem to be short lived. Still, when she realised all her field mates were out, she did levitate off the ground a few times…. damn those invisible UFO’s.

So we did the nice calm walking bit for a while, just 20 minutes at a time so as not to over do it (or tempt fate!) and after sticking her back in her box with about 6 sections of good hay off the fields, i thought ‘what could she possibly get up to if i nip home for two hours’….

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Yep, thanks for that Delicia. No, it’s ok, you are completely right, it DOES look better to have all your crap flung on the floor rather then hanging neatly on your stable. Now maybe i can find the dummy you also seem to have spat out and shove it in your mouth to stop you playing this new game.  🙂 Blooming mares! Is it me, or does she look proud?

Urgh.

So, we *think* we have seem movement. I am not 100% convinced but i am so excited at this prospect! As we start to come into dee’s 3rd trimester (7 months) I am starting to look into the correct nutrition for both her and her foal. So far she has been fed on Saracens Stamm 30 feed balancer and Dengie Alfa A Oil throughout her pregnancy (apart for a brief stint on Top Spec but i was concerned over her condition and feet on it). Having spoken with Lizzy Drury at Saracens Horse Feed, we have decided to start slowly implementing their stud range. We have chosen the Saracent Level Grow Mix due to its low GI properties, it is best suited to warmblood broodmares and their foals. The problems I have found are a number of stud ranges are really better suited to breeding bloodstock (Thoroughbreds), whose needs are different to a warmbloods. Unfortunately OCD can be a real risk in warmbloods, any breed can be affected but if you overfeed the mare in gestation, or the foal on the ground, you are placing too many risk factors for abnormal bone growth and development. Bear in mind, a horses bones are not fully formed until at least 5 years old, is it worth the risk?

I didn’t think so either.

So i will be purchasing the feed in the next week or so and slowly introducing it. At the moment the foal is the size of a beagle and putting on 1 pound every 10 days and weighs roughly 10 pounds, so there is no real rush to move her onto the move, maybe add a half scoop to her feed and reduce the Stamm 30 acordingly. It really isnt rocket science – as i read somewhere:

“If horse is too skinny ………….. feed it more If horse looks good………. feed it the same.” author  unknown

So, who wants to see her baby bump?

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You know…she could still be fooling us and its just a massive fart….i suppose in April we will find out….

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This weekend, I met a Spider i like!

This weekend, I met a Spider i like!

Namely, Amour G, the stallion to whom dee is in foal to. He is fantastic in photos but even better in the flesh. I was over the moon to have spider cuddles and meet this wonderful 8 year old kwpn stallion.

We met him at the British Dressage nation championships where he was contesting the Medium Open class. The boy did good and came 14th with a very respectable score just shy of 68%!

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A Double Dee Update

Okay, Okay, I know, it has been AGES since I last updated you all. I apologise for my slackness to Dee’s fans, it was wrong of me know, but I have been so busy working long hours to keep Dee in carrots, I am sure you understand.

So, Delicia is now 116 days in foal to the marvelous Amour G and is positively thriving! She has settled well into the herd and pretty much taken over the role of herd leader by being the most hormonal cow of this century. I don’t think I have ever been so embarrassed or apologised so much for Delicia’s behavior. She entered this lovely peaceful herd of 3 horses and proceeded to run the 31 year old herd leader into submission. I think Britvic pretty much decided it was wiser to let the hormonal cow get on it rather then risk running lap relays around and around the field every time Delicia gets a peak in her hormonal activity. I have however decided that is motherhood doesn’t suit Dee then she will be entered in the 100m sprint against Usain Bolt in the next Olympics. Well, she is doing her own interval training.

Normally her prating around wouldn’t worry me but 5 weeks ago we had a huge storm this way. We are not sure what happened, whether she was spooked or whether she got up too quickly from lying down, but she managed to kick herself and damage her Extensor Tendon on her hind leg. Of course, it was done on a weekend so out came the emergency vets. So there I am on a weekend, holding a hormonal pregnant mare who wants to be out in the field but who has a huge fat and very hot lump on her leg I thought was either a tendon or hairline fracture (not that i panicked much).

After cold therapy. Lil bump = big vet bills!

After cold therapy. Lil bump = big vet bills!

To their credit, my vets are fantastic and were there within 30 minutes of my initial call despite being based 40 minutes away (go figure?) A quick trot up proved Delicia was sound as a pound however, it was indeed a tendon. Cold therapy and (make note of this dee) GENTLE exercise was the order for the day. The main reasoning behind getting the vet was the heat of the injury, swelling and because shes pregnant I am adamant she is to have no drugs at all. Plus, at this point it was before the 90 day marker and drugs during early stages of pregnancy, especially phenylbutazone (commonly known as bute) can carry a risk. The vets agreed with me and unless she was in a lot of pain (another contra indication of pregnancy), we should let her just heal naturally.

By this point I put Delicia back in her stable to talk rehab with the vet. Well, clearly I had put Delicia out as her indignation was very very evident to all. The hoof stamping, neighing, grunting and snorting alerted me that little madam really, REALLY wanted to go out with the herd. As i approached this snorting beats, little leadrope in hand and sheepskin lined headcollar to keep her lil nose comfortable I thought i might do better with a chair and whip, or maybe one of those metal containers they used in Jurassic Park to move the Velociraptors about.

Don't be fooled by the innocence!

Don’t be fooled by the innocence!

Delicia thought she would demonstrate to the vet how sound she was by doing the most beautiful piaffe/passage transitions up to the field and bolting off to the theme of Black Beauty once i released her of her dead sheep hell. I winched as i watched her gallop around the field, bucking and doing her sliding stops, waiting for her to calm down before approaching her to check her legs again. Lucky she had been lifting her feet so high that she hadn’t kicked herself.

I did shout a few things at her, words I cannot possibly repeat on here, but a certain four letter word beginning with ‘F’ was used.

Delicia is a creature of habit. She doesn’t like to be first out, nor does she like to be the 2nd, 3rd or 4th one out… in fact, I think she would rather she didn’t come in. A thought that clearly crosses her mind every time i bring her in at night. It is not that shes naughty, she  no longer rears in hand and is generally well behaved, but she lets you catch her then….nothing. It is as though all four legs are glued to the ground and she cannot possibly walk.

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Who you gonna call? BATHORSE!

The first time she did this i thought Oh My God! Is she lame? Is she footy? Is he colicy? No, shes fat. Shes fat and she doesn’t want to leave the buffet but equally cannot be bothered to put the effort into a proper evasion i.e. walking away when I try to catch her. Once I got over the initial worry that something was physically wrong with her, I put it down to her hormones and in her mind, she was starved and therefore needs to gorg herself.

Speaking of eating, Delicia’s stomach area is definitely changing. She shape has changed so much already since she has been out of work and out all day, but her belly has changed shape.

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Fatty bum bum

I don’t know how much I can attribute to pregnancy changes as mini D is the size of a small rat at the moment, but there are changes afoot and it is so exciting! To be fair to Dee, she has calmed down in the last week or so and is being very good on the ground to handle.
Team Dee are off to the British Dressage National Championships on the 20th September to meet Amour G ‘Spider’ in the flesh as he contests for the Dressage Deluxe Medium Open Championships. We are very excited to finally be meeting spider in the flesh so expect a few pictures and an update to follow.

It seems like only yesterday that we were waiting for Dee to get in season to have a crack at AI’ing her, but now we are at 116 days and counting down till we get to meet mini Dee. The registered names have been chosen, but for now I am keeping them under wraps. We do suspect she is carrying a colt, and as long as it is healthy, i couldn’t care less the sex nor the colour.  Of course, I would love a coloured filly, so I suspect and typical Dee fashion, I will be getting a solid black colt. Either way, it will be loved and spoilt and thanks to the BD rule changes, subjected to bling and matchy matchy of the highest quality.

Some things don’t change 🙂

Over and out, Rachel and ‘fatty’ Dee

Delicia

My good mare.