When I grow up....I want to be a cutting horse!

Twister was off playing with Butterscotch and wandered away from Mom. Now this is still great with him..if it is his idea. Mom left him and went over to eat hay and he proceded to play some dominance games with Butterscotch that he quickly again realized that he might not win. He had to run the full length of the field to get to Mom before Butterscotch got to him! Look at the dust when he was running around the round pen. He ran the whole way neighing to his Mommy. He does have some speed on him though!

Such a little pest.....

Now, we all know how cute our little Twister is, he has really perfected his gait and does not look quite as clumsy. He plays with the ponies and is even eating hay, but he has developed a fun new game. This game is "bite the big horses ears while they graze".
First, let me say that Twister does not realize how very lucky he is. He loves to play this game with Lightning and Lightning is being way more patient than most horses would be. When he drops his head to graze, Little Twister comes up and bites his ear...Lightning lifts his head above Twisters' and then drops his head to graze and the game is repeated. Twister does not grow bored of the game for quite some time. After about 10 minutes Lightning gently lifts his neck and and pushes Twister gently off to the side with a gentle driving game.
Twister then moves on to the other horses, though Mom is not at all patient with the game...he gets in one, maybe two quick bites before he gets a quick bite on the hiney. He is a lucky horse to have such a great Dad.

Meeting the rest of the herd....hmm this could be fun!

Today when Sally and Lightning were in the barn eating their evening feed, we put the two ponies back into the field. We did this because Butterscotch is a pony with a lot of "go". We knew that as she entered the field she would have to run a few laps and buck and roll. She did all of the above. I don't think she stopped for a good 10 minutes. Then she grazed for a bit and started all over again! She had most of this out of her system by the time that Mom, Twister and Dad came out of the barn.

Twister became instantly intrigued. Now to give you a picture...since I of course did not have my camera...the ponies are a little over 40 inches (10 hands) at the withers (base of the neck). If I were to take a guess Twister is about 9 hands at the withers, so the size is about the same. There were a few curious "I'm not looking at you" sideways glances, but then he realized that they were not a threat. He then proceded to drive Butterscotch. What he did not know is that his Mom was behind him at first and was giving Twister the backup he needed to be in charge of the poor pony, but soon he was able to do this on his own.

He was able to drive her several more times and in between she was really showing off as well. (They may actually be made for each other!) Mom was generally OK with this, until he took out at a full sprint at Butterscotch....Mom felt like maybe he was getting a bit big for his britches at that point and cut him off and drove him back towards the barn a few steps.

I think he may have finally found someone with as much play drive as he has! I bet he will sleep well tonight!

Meeting Daddy

Today we made the first step reintegrating the herd. Little Twister has begun really bucking and rearing back all the way around the hay ring. I actually think he can outrun Mom, as she was pouring it on and he was able to keep ahead of her. Now in her defense, she tried a few maneuvers to cut him off and drive him the other direction. He had not listened to her and she was running to catch him to show him that she could. About 3/4 of the way through the challenge he realized that he was in trouble and ran back up to the barn with her a close second.

His run began when he was showing off for Daddy (Lightning) and our Thoroughbred, Hassle. He was playing with them and trying to run with him. His Mom has relaxed quite a bit and she has introduced Twister to the rest of the herd across the fence for the last few days. We decided to bring Lightning back over with Sally and Twister and it was a seamless integration. They all even go in and out of the same stall without incident, even though there is space for each to have their own. We are excited that they are all doing so well!

Sleepy Day!

Today Twister ate and slept most of the day, though I did see that he was trying out his racing legs a few times. He goes as far a Mom will let him, stands there and looks at our big horses a bit, and then runs back to Mom as fast as he can. I guess all of that running wore him out, because everytime I had the camera....he was sleeping!

In the Field with Mom...

Sally allowed little Twister to leave the area behind the barn today and let him go into the field. He was able to run, give a few little bucks and even tried to round up our 2 poor ducks! I guess he is going to be a bit "cow-ey" just like his Daddy. He is so steady on his feet now, but I think he may be thinking he is a little bigger than he actually is. He stands and proudly looks into the field where our 2 geldings (One of them his Daddy Lightning)are living and just watches the big guys! Now when they look back he hides behind Mommy!

There is life outside this barn!

Well, with Twister being born in cold, wet and windy conditions he had been in the barn his first 2 days of life. Today it was a very sunny day and Mama (Sally) actually let Twister go out of the barn.

Now, you have to understand that this was difficult for her. You see, like many kids Twister has a listening problem. Sally would drive him to one stall and, as her back was turned, he would walk to the other one. She could not eat and watch out for him. After a bit of frustration and a few quick nips to the hindquarters he was back in line. We decided today to allow Sally and Twister to have free access to the field. Twister took several naps in the sun...always posiitioning himself behind Sally's very powerful legs.

This evening Sally taught Twister to run. He looks so funny with those long legs...looks like he was running on stilts! Of course the camera was inside so we don't have any pictures of him running. We can't wait to see him playing in the field!

It's My Birthday!

Well, today was the day we have been waiting for. Our little colt finally decided to grace us with his presence. His name is Twist of Fate, but we call him "Twister". His dam is our Tennessee Walker Mare, Sally and his Sire is our Quarter Horse, Lightning.

Twister's Story has more twists and turns than you can imagine. It all started when we purchased a "bred" Tennessee Walker Mare. She was bred to a Tennessee Walker stud for a late summer early fall 2007 foal. Well she was underweight when we bought her because these awful Welsh Ponies were beating her up and keeping her from the food. We brought her home to add her to our herd.

She got larger over time but at the end of July 2007 the changes were slowing down. Her udders were smaller and the milk was only a bit cloudy. She was not getting any bigger around her belly and we made an appointment at the vet. The vet palpated and ultra sounded her and to our disappointment, told us that she was not pregnant. She thought that the udder development was due to excess hormones.

We also had our 2 year old Lightning gelded the same day. He had been sold to us as a gelding and because he was so young he had not dropped and until we put Sally in the field with him he showed no signs of being a stallion (not to mention..we thought she was already pregnant!)

At the end of February 2008 we noticed that Sally was getting more wide. It was definitely no longer a hay belly. Because she had had an ultrasound at the first of August with no baby and Sally had only been with our geldings, we thought that there was no way she could have been pregnant...just that we would have to really work her in the spring! We grew concerned then though because her belly was growing so rapidly. We took her into the vet the first week in March. After a quick palpation it was quickly discovered that there was a nose and two very big feet. We were going to have a baby...and it was our boy Lightning's baby. This was ideal. We had regretted gelding Lightning as he is such a wonderful horse. He is confident, and very much a partner. He is very well balanced and can balance a new horse in the course of a few days...they just can't help but follow his lead.

Because the baby was so large, it was difficult to get a due date. This was the beginning of a lot of worry for us. We had not had Sally off of fescue because we did not know she was pregnant. She had less udder than she had had in July of 2007. We immediately took her off of fescue and gave her a high protein feed divided into several meals a day. We bought foal colostrum..just in case and began monitoring her progress. At the time of her exam, the vet thought that we had maybe 2 weeks left, if that. Well of course just to be more unpredictable, Sally went almost 4 weeks!

When we first thought Sally was pregnant we came up with Twist of Fate as a foal name. We had moved from Louisville KY, where we had lived for 11 years to Bolivar Missouri and this was a great move, but very unexpected. We certainly had not seen ourselves in a place where we would have a farm with horses (expecting to stay in the Louisville area), so we thought that this name was fitting. Well, considering the twists and turns in our foal's story, this seemed even more fitting now.

We would like to introduce.... Twist of Fate or "Twister". He was born on April 12, 2008. He was of course born on a day in the Ozarks where it was 32 degrees with 20 mph winds. We had sleet, snow flurries and it was just plain miserable! The week before we had 60 degree days and beautiful days, though we had had excessive rain. Very unusual weather for a very unusual baby.

We have been using imprint training and he has even been exposed to the halter. Here is a photo of Twister. We will update his blog so friends and family can watch our boy grow!