A Russian Youtube video about Akhal Tekes that is comprised of other peoples Youtube videos. (Does that make sense? Ha ha.) Octopelle and I are at about 2:08. The rider in the snow at around 7:35 is very good, and the rider of the buckskin at about 11:15 is very good as well.

(Of course, there are also several liberty and halter clips thrown in there for jokes as well. Riderless videos are a fairly common plague within this breed, and it seems to re-enforce the point that people just want to see a horse run around and do nothing. This is a pet peeve of mine...)

Ah well, my pittances aside - it's an interesting video anyhow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wq3BuDOKA8Y

If you haven't seen this video yet, check it out!  It's absolutely amazing!!!!!!  A true master of balance.
http://www.adme.ru/video/neveroyatnaya-koncentraciya-620355/

Lambs 2014

The icicles on our house were pretty impressive when the snow was here!

This little ewe lamb was popular when she was born... (in fact, she was a little bit too popular).  It became a slight problem.  I had to pen both of them up due to another ewe that kept trying to steal her away, (the one pictured on the outside of the pen).

 I walked outside immediately after the little lamb was born (in the snow), and there were two ewes huddled around her trying to imprint their mutterings to the little  newborn.  I tried shooing the imposter ewe away multiple times, but she kept coming back and trying to take the lamb from the mother.  So, I penned the pair up to keep the imposter away and get the little lamb hooked solidly to the mother.  The mother ewe was very nervous being penned up, but it worked to get them bonded together.  They are now inseparable.   

Fatty had two lovely little lambs this year.  The snow was starting to melt off by the time that these two appeared - (yay!!!!)  The solid one is a ewe and the spotted one is a ram lamb. 

Yesterday Luna had a cute little solid ewe lamb.

These two adorable little lambs were born today, on Valentines day.  Ebby did a very good job this year, both lambs are very colorful little buggars.  The black and white one is really awesome.  I'm very happy about that one - and it's a ewe lamb!  Score!!!!  Wahoo!!!!  The little red and white one is nice too, but it's a ram lamb.

I'll have to think up an appropriate Valentines day name for her.  She's a really nice flashy little lamb!

4X4 Snow Chickens

The Ohiki hen forgot to use her 4-wheel drive today, and got high centered!

My poor little chickens. I have a couple of varieties that aren't very well equipped for the snow. Ohiki's are a rare variety of bantam oriental longtails, and definitely don't fit the criteria of "snow birds" at all. They have very short legs (about 3 inches long), and get stuck quite easily in the snow and deep mud. I had to dig this red girl out today after she tried to make it across the barnyard enroute to the big coop. She attempted to fly for about two feet and ended up hydro-planing across the top of the snow and burying herself even further.... it was rather comical. The rest of her short-legged comrades decided not to tempt fate and stayed snuggly in the small coop. (I think that the rest of them sent her out on a scouting mission to see if she could make it or not...)

Snow.....Grrrrrr......

Damnit, this throws a wrench in it!  With lambing coming up I'm really not thrilled about this crappy cold weather.

Generally our area has a very pleasant February - a bit chilly at night (in the 30's and 40's) - but it usually DOES NOT snow in February around here.  Most years the damned snow is dumped in December and January and is fairly well cleared off by this time.  (But this year is turning out to be a bit of a jerk so far....)  It is 20 degrees at the moment, and the wind chill factor is expected to be a negative -10 to -15 below zero at night.

This means that I have to be much more vigilant about checking on the ewes at night, and getting less sleep.  They really hate being penned up in small enclosed areas to lamb out, so I will keep checking and hope that I won't find a baby lamb hidden in a snow drift.  For now, it appears the girls are holding them in, so I'm relieved about that.  I don't know how long this snowy weather will last....  

On a good note, the new little twin lambs are having a blast of a time.  The snow isn't affecting them at all.  They've been playing and napping in the hay piles as the big snowflakes fall.   

Lambing Season Has Commenced

I had planned on going to a horse show today, (the second February BITS show) but one of my ewes had other plans for the day. We started lambing season as of today - Feb. 1st, right on the dot.

I noticed yesterday that this old girl was walking around muttering to herself... (one of the trademarks of an older experienced ewe that's lambed a lot, they will start talking to their lambs even before they've made an appearance into the world.) She wandered around for awhile this morning softly muttering to herself, and then layed down and spit out two beautiful healthy twin lambs.

The first one was a spotted ram lamb that is very strong and was standing and nursing the bag within 5 minutes. The second is a little brown ewe lamb that was VERY VOCAL when she came out. In fact, she was so loud that I thought that there might be something wrong with her, like the ewe stepped on her or something - she was a real screamer that sounded like a baby child! But she is fine and healthy - she's just a little "loud-mouthed girl". =:)

I'm interested to see what the rest of the flock will have this year. I used two of our spotted painted desert rams last fall to breed the ewes with, and there are about 20 more ewes to lamb out. Hopefully there will be lots of spotted lambs in this crop!