It's a girl!

Well, actually, it’s a filly! This morning, our purebred Arabian mare Windy (RJ Kiss the Wind) had her third foal and first filly just before 7. I’d gone to the barn to feed breakfast and she was pacing her stall and lying down. I ushered out the two Thoroughbred mares from neighboring box stalls into the pasture and Ian came and put all the horses in a pasture that is one further away from the barn. Our Quarter horse mare Nutmeg likes to pick up the sliding barn door with her nose and slam it, indicating I’m not fast enough with her food. No mother about to give birth wants to hear that noise!

Windy got up and laid down three different times and then she went down once again in a contraction and rolled over on her back with her four hooves in the air and pushed her daughter into the world. I’ve never seen a mare give birth quite like that before! While this was going on I sat outside the stall on a turned over bucket, the barn cats and Lady near me watching this miracle. Ian, coffee cup in hand, and I watched for the next hour as the filly stood, wobbled, found the right faucet and began to nurse.

We’re going to register her as AMF Troublesome’s Kiss and call her “Kisses.” We own all three of Windy’s foals, Cairo, Kiss and now Kisses.The filly’s sire is the handsome purebred Arabian stallion RSA Troublesome, owned by our friend Gerri Ann. I called her when I came into the house to get Ian … before the foal was born! We’ve talked several times already today. Friends in Iowa had a mare bred to Troublesome too and they had a filly this morning as well! In fact, a few weeks ago, Windy’s dam (mother), also in foal to Troublesome, had a filly too!

We have another foal due this month too by our Thoroughbred mare Missy (Yukon Miss). She’s in foal to a Thoroughbred stallion named Foolish Lover. This is her sixth by this stallion. We bought Missy last October and she was already in foal. That one should be very long-legged, as Missy is a giant at 16 hands (4 inches per “hand”) at her withers (shoulders) and her head is held much higher.

Fun, fun, fun!

E-I-E-I-O