spring, baby time, feeding ponehs and parasites.

The last few weeks of pregnancy are the hardest. I am so ready to have this baby.

I'm officially at 38 weeks and we are on baby time, makes it hard to plan things.
Tax lady: how is Monday the 19th for you?
Me: should be okay, unless I am in labor, because then I would be busy
Tax Lady : oooookay would Tuesday be better?
Me: maybe? But if I don't show it's because of the Baby, cause I am going to be tooooo busy to remember to call you.

It was pretty easy to be well behaved when the weather was crap, like yeah I really want to slog around outside in the freezing rain and mud, wahoo!. Well, spring has sprung. It is in the mid 70s with a light breeze, the flowers are coming out and I want to ride so very badly.

My dragon baby is very wiggly, I am still enjoying having him in my belly but at the same time I feel like we are both getting impatient. I'm trying to do all the things now that I won't be able to do later, like take long baths, read books and waste time online.

You can vote here on when baby is born, Joe is convinced it will be the 21st, I really don't know.

Otherwise not much going on that other people would be interested in. I had horrible stomach flu last Friday and a 9 month (!) pregnant, puking woman is the saddest thing ever. Jeep tried to break and I had to take it in to the shop to get Ujoints replaced, glad Joe is much more sensitive to weird car noise then I am, I tend to just turn the music louder which isn't the best plan. We went yesterday to visit friends (they fed me steak, delish!) and skyped with other friends and family :) It was fun to show off my belly to my parents, and really great to see them although I find Skype a little weird.

Critters are good, although maybe more clingy then normal. Sadie is always watching me. Probably because I am always eating.

Another thing that interests probably only me is figuring out this feeding thing. Ponehs have pretty much free choice grass hay, meaning I am their hay slave and bring them more about the time they run out of the previous feeding. Joy looks good (although hairy, muddy and disgusting) Poppy is slightly ribby and Little Horse is skinny again. Picked up more Triple Crown senior, since it is simplest to have all three eating the same grain, TC SR. doesn't make Joy a spooky mess, it is palatable, easily digestible and fairly high calorie. Only issue is it takes Joy a minute to snarfle her smaller amount of food, Poppy takes a normal amount of time and Little Horse is the slowest eater ever. So I separate them and fuss. I have Little up to three pounds of TC SR and oats and this happens daily.

Little Horse: nomnom, what's that? oh it's the dog,  nibble nibble, oh what's over there? hmmmm, nibble nibble
Me: Just eat your damn food!
Little Horse: but you put oil in it and now it has a funny texture
Me: just eat your damn food!
Little Horse: I don't really like it when there is more then one pound of oats per two pound of TC
Me: just eat it!
Little Horse: I think I will stand over here instead, eventually you will let Joy back in and then we can share it.

This is with food she likes, food she doesn't like she paws at and when it doesn't magically turn into something tastier she will dump it all over the ground.

I had fecals done on Joy and Little in preparation for spring dewoming (they got hit last with Equimax in December) Joy had a very low count and Little had an enormous count, more then four times higher then Joy's! I feel awful because I had gotten Little's numbers down and then figured we were good to go with a more normal deworming schedule. I think because she had such an awful parasite problem when she was a foal (I am seriously doubting if her dam was ever dewormed) that her gut doesn't work properly in getting rid of them, I know young horses often have a harder time with parasites but she is different. So the new plan is hitting her with dewormer every other month and looking into treating her for ulcers this summer, I just don't think her tummy works right.

Silly high maintenance beasties. Mine are pretty easy to keep though still, I think my mom is right and horse people just like to fuss.

goals and the upcoming year

Since it is January and I don't feel like folding clothes I thought I would post about goals. I am not the type of person who likes making New Year resolutions, I think if you are going to make a change it needs to come from within and be attainable, so I guess a resolution like "I am going to my body healthier" is more my style then the infamous "I am going to lose ten pounds" type resolution.

Looking back at this post I did in the summer (before I knew I was pregnant) I think my goals were pretty reasonable, taking lessons, trying to get to another show and improving my fitness and Joy's dressage. Of course shortly after that post I found out I was preggers, we had some financial restraints and our infamous "move in while looking for a house and stay for fucking ever" house guests happened. In short life happened and while I am not disappointed in myself I do wish finances were not an issue, I still rode and worked on Joy's fitness and training and feel we got a lot accomplished even if it wasn't quite how I pictured it.

So basically my goals for 2012
-I want the remainder of my pregnancy and labor to be uneventful
-I want to have a healthy and happy baby
-Get myself and Joy fit
-improve Baby horse's ground manners (not human Baby that would be silly)
-get Poppy started under saddle and make preparations to sell her
-improve Joy's dressage (biggies are balance and relaxation)
-Have some lessons to get experience and feedback on our training
-Make it to at least two horse trials
-continue improving pasture and fencing (love my husband)
-set up better arena space (see above)
-have fun!

On a poneh health front everyone is doing great, weight is good for all three. The weather has been freakish and we are back to mud mud mud so I haven't taken any recent pictures. I can't get them to touch the GroStrong minerals that I was trying to feed free choice, so have been mixing the appropriate amount in with the morning feed of beet pulp and rice bran. I don't think I will buy them again since the primary component is salt (which they already get free choice, they especially enjoy the Himalayan rock salt) and they have no interest in eating the stuff free choice and if they won't touch it then it defeats the purpose of offering it. Planning on putting Joy on some Glanzen Complete since she did well on it last year and looking into joint supplements, at least will try some msm.

On the Me health front Baby and I are doing good, still having a surprising amount of sleepiness, I feel kinda lame because I get so tired, I feel like all I do is eat and sleep right now. I think giving myself permission to be tired helped, I don't feel as guilty for "not getting as much done" and I am doing something, I'm growing a person! I found making a big list of the things that have to be done and doing one thing off the list everyday helps, makes me feel more accomplished and less overwhelmed.

I'm also doing a lot of research on hospital births and procedures although I am going with the nurse midwives at a birth center it is different then doing it at home and I want to be educated. My midwife says everything looks great and is really supportive which is so nice since I had to take a "parent education class" through the health center and it was all "of course you want an epidural, they are totally wonderful and safe!" Out of the 15 women there only three of us were going with midwives, I guess I didn't realize how pervasive the modern birth attitudes are, I really don't believe giving birth should be like an illness or trauma that has to be interfered with. I have time but I think it is best to figure out what I want now.

baby needs tasty noms and so do ponehs so I better go feed myself and critters :)

Good news!

I got Dancer's fecal testing results back and her poo sample was negative! hurray! yay for poo!

It has been a struggle getting her parasite free. I have her on a good rotation and feel her gut is functioning well. This place is great since you can send off a poo sample, they analyze it and let you know if what you are doing is working, and it is.

Joe is coming back today! hurrah! I am more interesting then Canada and Fish.

I have a yearling!

I forgot to make a post about Dancer, she is now just over a year old.


The little filly I got last year as a companion for Joy is now a yearling, I missed her birthday so she gets her own blog post! She was a freebie, Arab, registered, and has a very sweet temperament. Overall I am very pleased with her, She had a huge parasite load when I got her and it took some time to get her healthy. But she is looking great now. She has a very interesting temperament, really calm and inquisitive.

Baby Dancer

Big girl Dancer

The Ladies

Hey!

The big things to getting her gut healthy were a good rotational deworming with frequent fecal checks, probiotics, a good diet with appropriate vitamin/mineral supplementation.  I fed Triple Crown Growth when she needed extra calories this winter and she gets Glanzen Complete as a supplement, in addition to the kelp and herbs both the horses get. Her first fecal was positive 1200 Stongyles eggs per gram and 100 roundworm egg per gram! She mildly colicked and pooped worms out after her first dewoming, which was a half dose of pyrantel pamoate. I put her on monthly rotational deworming for the first six months with periodic fecal checks. I feel the addition of a good quality mineral supplement helped a lot as well.

Had a great trail ride on Joy  day before yesterday, she was little hot but we had a lot of fun. yesterday we were to busy visiting friends to ride. I will have plenty of time to ride this week though, hopefully the weather will stay good :)

I have a Popsicle addiction

and I can weed whack like no one else.

And now pictures.

Sadie loves to help feed chicks!

obsessed with her babies.

Still cute!

hmm, branch.

Girls say "hai!"

Dancer is looking nicer