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December 25th
Another pony has left since the last update.
The weekend after Gaya left it was time for little Zahara to go to her new home with Louise at Stutteri Grønkjær.
We have already heard back from Louise who is thrilled with Zahara, so naturally I am very pleased.
Nothing left to say except Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I will see you all in 2015, where I as always will start out with a recap of the last years events.
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November 16th
Time for another update.
Last time I promised some news in the stallion department, but I didn't manage to finish the update before we left for our vacation to Bali.
Thank you so much to Lena and Rikke (our neighbour)
for taking such good care of all my ponies while we were away.
Before we left for Bali, a new stallion arrived.
I had made a deal with Mia Liljeberg from Stall Mytorp in Sweeden, to borrow her young stallion, Winnies Wilbert.
He will be 3 years old this coming spring, and the plan is to show him for assesment in may.
Read more about him on his own page.
I am especially happy with the arrangement to borrow Wilbert, since the hope of my very first foal, Zodiac, becoming a breeding stallion was almost gone at that time.
He never really got over that injury in his hind leg, and not long ago he started limping on and off more and more. When he finally lost his status in the group, and started to pull away from the other horses, I knew I had to take the heartbreaking desicion to put him down.
I was a very hard thing to do, but I know it was for his best.
R.I.P. but gorgeous and cheeky Zodiac!
I will always remember him like this. Flying across the field playing!
And from my very first foal to the future foals of my stud.
I have finished this years breeding plan, so you can see what foals I am expecting next year. Se more under Services.
I am already looking sp much foreward to next years foals!
As I wrote in the last update, Zilver unfortunately aborted her foal in the 3rd month, and was efter this running with Waldo.
Unfortunately I noticed she was in heat again, just before I seperated the mares from Waldo, so unless he mannaged to put a bun in the oven just before they were seperated, I doubt I will have another Zilver foal next year :(
Oh well at least I will be able to start her early next year instead.
Sine also went in heat again a little late, but I have not seen her in heat since, so I hope she and the other mares are all in foal.
Most of the foals have now been weaned.
A few are still with their moms, but the rest are in the kindergarden with Rupert, who is taking excellent care of the little ones.
The little ones also seem to be having a good effect on Rupert, as he is eating well this winther and looking good compared to last year.
Below is Trouble, strutting his stuff for the camera.
He looks to have inherited his mothers excellent movements!
This weekend we have said goodbye to Gaya, who has now left for her new home with Mona, and Stutteri Voje.
We will miss her, but are convinced we will soon see her again at the shows.
This is all for now, but hopefully I will be back with another update soon.
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September 24th
Let me start by apologizing!
Its been over 6 months since my last update, which is just not good enough.
But I excuse myself with the fact that a lot has happened, which has kept me more than busy!
I hope to do better from now on, and I also hope I can remember all the exciting things that have happened.
Let me start from the beginning.
In January, after almost two years without a job, a finally got one!
This fact was quickly followed by me and Steffen getting hitched one wednesday afternoon after 13½ years together.
The reason for this spur of the moment marriage, was the fact that we were planning on buying our very first property together.
April 1st we bacme the owners of "Egegården" a beautifull little place at the edge of the woods.
It had room for our little family and all my lovely ponies who moved in straight away.
They seemed to love the new place as much as we did.
It didn't take for for a few more ponies to find their way to "Egegården"
I got an offer I couldn't refuse and therefore drove all the way to
northern Jutland to pick up these four beauties!
x 
x 
x 
Yesmine v.d. Vaarhorst xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Pamela of Duke Stable xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lille Ensteds Pumpkin xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Lille Ensteds Dunfannaghy
You can read more about each of the mares on their own pages.
Pamela and Yesmine were both on foal to the dunalino stallion, Cutmullion Dandelion, so naturally we were looking foreward to the arrival of the foals.
In the mean time it was Sine who broke this years foal bubble.
On April 11th she had a lovely red dun filly foal. This was the fourth red dun filly foal she has had. In fact she has only had filles so far. Six in all. Will be exciting to see if she delivers another filly again next year.
The foaling went completely by the book. I noticed something was happening, took her in and watched her closely.
When she started blocking up, I went into the stable and sat in the stall with her.
She kept wandering around and around for a few hours, and finally she laid down and pushed once to break the water, and then it only took a few more pushes before the baby was out!
Sine always has the quickest and easiest foalings.
At 02.55 am. beautiful little Shady Acres Sweet Sameena was born.
I was ofcourse thrilled to have a filly foal, since all the foals last year were colts!
After this we had to be a bit patient, because the next few mares to foal, went quite a bit overdue.
On the 22nd of April Regina delivered this years second filly foal!!
She had only bagged up a little, but seemed just a wee bit firmer that morning, so I decided to start putting her in the stall from that night.
We were going out to eat at a friends house, but I kept looking at the clock. Finally I said we had better be getting home, since it was starting to get dark and I wanted to go find Regina and take her in for the night.
On the way home, the feeling in my stommach grew, that we had to hurry home. Once home I could find the entire herd of ponies except Sine and Regina who was away somewhere out in the dark.
I went around the paddock and quickly found them on top of the hill. Sine was stading there with her little Sameena and next to her was Regina, with a very wet little foal who was only just getting to its feet for the first time.
I quickly picked up the foal and carried it to the stable with Regina on tow.
In the light of the stall I was thrilled to see that Regina had delivered my dream foal. A beautiful little mushroom dun filly, just like I ordered!
Shady Acres Royal River was born just around 21.30 pm.
It was also in April that the annual Youngstock Show took place at Dorthealyst:
I hadn't entered any
ponies this year, but was very pleased at the great results of Ruperts first son here in Denmark.
Kivi's Ronaldo first went and won the 1 year old colts class with amazing points: 9979 and an overall grade of 9!
He then went on to the 1 year finals across breeds, and there he was picked to go to the grand Best in Show Final, where he came third overall! He was also the best placed Shetland Pony of the day!
This is his second outing and his second time to win top marks!
Lovely Ronaldo is even for sale if anyone is interested!
Congratulations to his owner Mette from Stutteri kivi.
At the end of April Gucci got her very first foal! On the 29th of April very late at night, started to prepare for foaling. I sat in the stall with her and watched how she quietly started to sweat and later to drip milk.
She didn't pace around like Sine did. Only laid down a couple of times and got straight back up. Other that that she just stood there and ate hay.
After a good long wait she finally liad down and started to push. The water broke and it wasn't long until I saw the white bubble appear. But then it didn't really progress any further no matter how hard she pushed.
I sat down with her and felt the bubble and I could only find one foot foreward! I knew then what I had to do. I broke the bubble and fought with all my strength to push the foal back so I caould reach the other front leg.
However Gucci's contractions were so powerful and almost completely on top of eachother, which made it almost impossible. Just as I was about to give up and call for assistamce, I finally mannaged to push the foal back and grab the other front leg. Just as this happened the foal was pushed right back again by another powerful contraction, and it was only after 3-4 more tries that I mannaged to get the front foot foreward before the next conntraction. After this it only took a few more pushes and the the whole foal was out!
Phew that worked up a sweat and the adrenalin was pumping after that!
I just had to check the gender, and I was thrilled to see that this was yet another filly foal!
Unfortunately it didn't have the silver gene I had hoped for, but she was a beautiful brown
and chunky filly foal.
I am really pleased with the quality of Gucci's first foal.
At 02.25 am beautiful Shady Acres Gorgeous Gaya was born.
And I wasn't the only one who thought she was gorgeous.
It only took one picture on facebook and then she was sold. I didn't even have time to put her up for sale.
So Gaya is going to live with Mona at Stutteri Voje!
I wasn't the only one who had foals in April.
Last year Waldo had a single visiting mare besides my own and the result was a beautiful little chestnut tobiano filly foal.
Bakkegaard's Anemone:
In May we had a bit of a babyboom.
First out was Zilver who foaled in the middle of the day on May 2nd.
Luckily I was home that day and suspected something was going on so I checked her repeatedly.
She just kept grazing with the rest of the herd.
I went in to fix some laundry and text Lena who was coming by to borrow the trailer.
I was gone maybe 10-15 minutes and when I came back, suddenly she was alone with Cyselle. The others ponies had left them at the far end of the paddock.
I got a bit closer and saw a tiny little foal at her feet! It had only just gotten to its feet.
I ran back in to get the camera and then back out to Zilver, who had very quickly delivered the fourth foal this year. Another filly foal!!
Zilver laid down shortly after I arrived and delovered the afterbirth and the little foal found the milk just as quickly as it had found its feet!
A beautiful little mushroom girl named Shady Acres Zahara was born around 01.00 pm.
Next foal was not born here at Egegården. It was out of Annexgårdens Cindie who I borrowed last year.
She had a black colt on the 15th of May. His name is Shady Acres Black Moon and he is a great looking very correct and chunky foal!
He was born just before this years stallion assesment.
I didn't bring any stallions for assesment this year, but I went anyway to cheer for Hedegårdes Shadow, a son of my mare Tamelone.
The judges liked him a lot, just like last time he was shown, and he ended up with amazing 43 points! And was even Mini Champion 2014!
While I was sitting there rooting for Shadow, I got news from home that my mother in law had just helped deliver Yesmine's foal.
She had a gorgeous little red dun colt.
The experience of delivering her very first foal, had my mother in law fall in love with the little guy, and therefore my father in law later bought him for her.
He will be staying here for a few years, until they find a place of their own with room for a couple of ponies.
Shady Acres Yellow was born on May 17th at 09.25 am.
The next foals came as a bit of a surprise.
On May 23rd I was woken up early by Steffen. He said there was a new foal in the paddock with Yesmine and Pamela.
Yesmine had already had her foal and Pamela was no where near ready to give birth when I had checked her.
But Pamela was standing over a little foal lying in the middle of the paddock.
As I approached the paddock she happily left the foal and came towards me.
I remember thinking, thats definately not hers then!
In the same moment, I spot out of the corner of my eye, Trix chacing around after Zilver and her foal.
Trix is dertermined that little Zahara is her foal, and does everything she can to get her away from Zilver who is running around completely confused.
I mannage to catch Zilver and take her to the open large shed making the foal and hence Trix follow. Before this I had carried the new foal to the stall in the shed and once in the shed I could then grab Trix and putt her in the stall with the foal.
As soon as she saw the foal, she whinnies quietly to the foal and has loved it ever since!
I was so happy Trix finaly had a live foal to shower with maternal love. Unfortunately she lost her foal last year, and she was devastated, so I was so relieved everything turned out well.
Again this year she delivered a nice little filly by Rupert.
I sent the other mares out to graze so Trix and the baby could realx alone for a bit.
A little later I went to take some pictures of them.
While I was taking pictures and enjoying the sight of Trix totally in love with her daugther
I kept seeing Cyselle standing up on the hill in the tall grass all alone.
The others were at the other end of the paddock. I remeber thinking to my self what she kept doing up there alone.
Finally I went to check and it tunred out that this beautiful little creature is the reason she kept to her self up there:
In the middle of all the confusion with Trix and her runaway foal, Cyselle had delivered the most beautiful little mushroom tobiano girl.
Both mares had 2-3 weeks still to their due date, and none of them had shown any signs the night before.
I am just thrilled averything went well and both mares had a lovely filly!
The two little girls with the same birthday, are named: Shady Acres Trixiebelle and Shady Acres Cute Clover.
Waldo had spent the winther in Ølby with his sons from last year.
They had had a great time!
Now it was time however to get him home to Egegården, because he had work to do.
Besides two of my own mares, he also had 7 visiting mares so he was quite busy this summer.
First to arrive was Tahiti and Waldo was very happy with a bit of female company!
Later Lena's 3 year old mare Phoebe arrived and Waldo really liked her too
Many more arrived, but I will soon update the services page with this years breeding plan, and they will all be found on there.
I almost forgot to introduce another 3 members of our family. They had moved onto the farm with us.
They are all "rescues" from my job.
Introducing our 3 wonderful kitties: Marcus, Musen and Minnie:
In June, another resident moved in. It was a mare I have wanted for many years. Ever since I was introduced to shetland ponies by Kate Grambo at Stutteri Bakkegaard, back in 2004.
In 2005 I was even in the ring with her and her foal, as she passed the assesment with a first prize and was Mini Champion!
It has been planned for ower a year that I was going to buy her, but first I needed to get a place of my own. Then when we bought Egegården, it was time, but after my trip to nothern Jutland, for my other 4 ladies, my husbond was not happy for me to buy any more ponies. This means I ended up selling a mare I was not going to sell otherwise, to be able to buy this beautiful lady:
Stjernens Mini-Blondie!
Only a few days after getting her home, she started bagging up, despote the fact that there was more than 3 weeks till her due date.
I was very excited about the foal, as last year I had conviced Kate to run her with her gorgeous little cremello stallion: Bakkegaard's Kong-Arthur!
She started preparing to foal, so I put her in the stall and sat with her.
She was quietly eating her hay. She slowly started to sweat, ydder getting more tense and starting to drip milk.
It was the middle of the night, but I had promised Kate to call her when things got serious, so I called and woke her up and she got in her car and drove!
She didn't arrive quite in time though, as the foal was born only a few minutes before she came. Shortly after I had called Kate, Blondie lied down and started pushing to break th water and after that the foal came very quickly.
Just then Kate arrived and could help me to welcome the prettiest little foal into this world.
Shady Acres Baby Blossom was born at 02.29 am. on June 20th. A beautiful little cremello filly! A complete dream foal and a definate keeper!
When Blossom had suckled and Blondie had passed the afterbirth and everything was okay, Kate and I went for a walk round the paddock in the early morning hours.
After this we went inside and and prepared a nice breakfeast for my husbond and then we celebrated his and little Blossom's birthdays! It should be easy to remeber her birthday in the future.
It was a great night and morning, and I want to thank Kate for coming to share it with me and with us!
Now that Blondie had moved in it meant saying goodbye to another mare.
This mare was Trix, and she will be joining Zita and Arwen at Stutteri Farmen. She will be joined by little Sameena who Dina has also bought.
Dina would like to have a nice 1st prize mare and she has promised me that if she will ever sell Trix, she will contact me first.
I can console myself with the fact that I still have her sister Tamelone to carry in her amazing lines.
Trix's reunion with Zita actually started already over the summer, as they have both been running woth Waldo. They got along great, so I am sure Trix will fall right in at Stutteri Farmen.
About a week after Blondie's delivery, it was Tamelone's time to have her foal.
I thought she was starting to bag up a bit more, but she had already cheated me a couple of nights, when I thought this is it and then nothing came.
This time however I was pretty sure, but she certainly made me wait for it. She stresses quite a bit if I put her in the stall, so I just let her and her good friend Pamela stay together in the snall paddock with the big shed.
I ws going to work the next day, but I still went and checked on her every hour, and at around 02.30 am she finally had a big leggy bay colt foal, who has later shown to have some extreme movements.
I came out just as he was getting to his feet for the first time, and Tamelone still needed to pass the afterbirth, so after she had done this and the little guy had found the milk bar, I hurried back to bed.
Thia was Tamelone's fourth bay colt foal in a row. She had one black filly back in 2007, and since then only bay boys.
I am hoping so much for a filly out of her soon!
The nice chokolate brown boy was named: Shady Acres Tons of Trouble
After this only Pamela needed to foal. She was actually due in the beginning of may, but she must have absorbed and been bred again because nothing happened.
I even had to test her a few times just to be sure there was actually a foal inside.
In July it was time for the annual mares assesment.
I had entered Cyselle, hoping she would keep an okay condition this year, so she could get a good assesment. The hope was to get a 2kl.A.
As the day progressed I could see that they were generally giving quite low points, and I started fearing we would end up with a 2.kl.B instead.
Finally in the second to last group, it was our turn. The showing went well so now we just had to wait and see.
I was very happy when we were put first in the group and then got a very nice assesments, with 39 points and a 2.kl.A! More than we ever dared hope for.
Only one other mini mare at the assesment, got as hingh a score as us, so we had to go and compete for the title: Best Mini Mare. So excited when Cyselle turned out the winner!
All in all a super day! I was so excited for my little girl!
Finally on the 22nd of July Pamela delivered the last foal of the season.
Actually she did everything herself, so when Steffen got home from work, he went for a walk around the paddocks, and suddenly outside the paddock in the shade of a big tree, he saw Pamela with her new born foal!
He called me who had just gotten off work, and I raced home as fast as I could!
In the meantime Seffen had gotten some water for Pamela, since we had no idea how she had gotten out of the paddock and for how long she had been out there.
Luckily she didn't seem overly thirsty desoite the fact that it was a burning hot day.
I quickly put on her halter and got both her and the foal back to the cool stable, to relax a bit, and to give Pamela some food.
After this they were put in the small paddock alone until the next day.
The tiny little guy was named Shady Acres Pure Power. He is a very frisky little boy with a cute face and a great attitude!
With a dunalino father I knew he could be both black or smoky black, so I sent in a test and it came back positive for the cream gene, making him smoky black!
During the summer we also had our very first harvest of wrapped hay done from our own land. It was a funny experience and now hopefully we have enough feed for the winther.
We were actually going to fence in the big field too, so the horses could graze it in the late summer, but we haven't gotten to it yet, what with all the other projects.
So this will have to be a project for spring, if we donøt get to it this fall.
I have had quite a few of the mares out for coverings this year.
Blondie, for instance, has been visiting the lovely little Otan, who is stationed at Stutteri Bakkegaard this year.
Hoping for a beautiful and tiny foal next year!
Regina and Zilver have been at Stutteri Stjernen to be covered by little Balou v. Klein Engeland.
I did this hoping to get one or two mushroom filles not related to Waldo, so I had something to keep using him on in the future.
Both girls were scanned in foal and returned home, but when Zilver was about 3 months along, Waldo suddenly took an interest in herm and I found this in the paddock. So sad :(
So sad and so unfortunate. I debated with myself wehter or not to cover her again, what with it being such a late foal then, but finally decided to let her run with Waldo and just hope that he could do the job and hopefully she will produce another one of her lovely foals sometime next year. Especially now, since her foal from this year, Zahara, has been sold to Louise from Stutteri Grønkjær.
I will have more about the different coverings in my next update.
Otherwise the summer has passed working on projects and enjoying our place and all the ponies.
Lots of friends and family have been here to visit and to help.
Here in September we went to the Foal and Youngstock Show in Roskilde.
Be brought Gucci and Gaya.
They both did very well. Gaya got 41 points and Gucci got 23 out of 24 points (they use a different points system for the adults at this show) and both got an amazing description.
Gaya's new owner Mona was there to celebrate with us.
We have also gotten an update from Austria, where Zippo mannaged to become best yearling across breeds and gender, at a breed show down there.
We are very proud and offer congratulations to his owner Melanie.
See more pictures of Zippo's life in Austria in this album: Zippo in Austria
Thank you for reading.
Hopefully I will have another update soon, where there will probably be some exciting stallion news!
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The year 2013
I had 4 lovely foals in 2013. Not that many, considering I covered 10 mares in 2012.
Sadly Melissa and Alberte had to be put down with laminitis and extreme colic, so no foals from those two lovely ladies. Regina, Gucci and Sine all absorbed, so they didn't have any foals in 2013 either, and finally Trix had a little filly foal that was unfortunately stillborn. So sad :(
Oh well, luckily the rest of the mares had easy deliveries, and 4 nice strong boys were born. Three of them was by my own stallion Waldo and the last one from the Mini Champion and Overall res. Champion, Stjernens Mini-Paschal.
All four boys have found lovely new homes.
Shady Acres Zippo ---------------------------- Shady Acres Benetton -------------------------- Shady Acres Cute Commander --------------------------- Shady Acres Powerful Patron
The one who had to travel the farthest to get to his new home, was little Zippo, who in december, had to go all the way to Austria.
So this is the second year in a row, that one of our foals travel abroad. The year before, little Soffie had to go all the way to the Shetland Isles.
It is always lovely to recieve photos and updates from the new owners. Especially when the little ones have travelled so far away. Luckily little Zippo looks to be sttling in very well in Austria.
Best experiences in the show ring in 2013, would have to be the annual stallions assesment where both my stallions were approved for breeding, and Waldo even got a coveted 1st prize!
It was an amazing experience and completely unexpected considering all the troubles I had with injuries ect. in the weeks before the assesment.
Another fantastic show day was when I went to the Mountain and Moorland Show at Dorthealyst.
Here my little Sine did very well. She started out winning the yeld mares class (as number 1 of 11 yeld mares of different breeds).
Next she went on to the senior championship, where she was Reserve Senior Champion.
After winning Res. Senior Champ she went to compete for Best of Breed, which she won!
Finally she went to the Best in Show final, where judge Mrs. Pat Renwick singled her out, and gave her a special prize: Best in Show Res. Reserve!
All in all it was a amazing day, where the sun was shining and Sine behaved impeccably all day long.
I also shared many other amazing experiences with my ponies this year. Among others I got to drive with my loveley mare Gucci, who did so well for her first time.
Unfortunately I have not had the time to do more driving with her, but hopefully I will make time for it in this new year.
For more news from 2013, click the link below.
Here you can also find the news from all the previous years.
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