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December 31st
Time flies and a new year is upon us.
We went to the M&M Christmas Show. It was not a shetland judge, so it was hard to know what to expect. The points were quite low all day, and both Fanny and Tristar got quite low scores, but nice and correct descriptions.
Tristar was especially praised for his trot.
Is was a bit hard to take some proper pictures, as the ponies were a bit worked up because of all the wind. But we mannaged to get a few okay ones.
My mother in law brought her little Player.
He had not been trained at all, but did so well all day.
This show was also the end of this years showing season. The new season already start in the beginning of March, with the M&M Winther Show, but unfortunately I cannot go, since we are on vacation.
And ofcourse it had to be one of my favorite judges judging this show. Oh well, hopefully she will be back another time.
Little Charisma has also left for her new home now, and has already settled in very well in her new home with Pernille.
Not much else to say, except a belated merry christmas and happy new year.
I will try to be back soon with another update.
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November 22nd
It has taken me a long time to write this update.
Zilver's foal finally arrived on september 12th. But certainly not in the way we had hoped.
The foal was positioned wrong, with one front leg and one hind leg coming forth. I worked so hard to correct it, but I simly didnøt have the power, and we couldn't keep Zilver on her feet, to give me the room I needed to turn the foal. I called another wet, who came as fast as possible, but it still took almost an hour for him to get here.
He fought and fought for a long time and finally we mannaged to keep Zilver on her feet long enough
for him to turn the foal, so we could pull it out by its hind legs.
A tiny little mushroom colt. Dead ofcourse after all these hours.
Zilver was treated and I gave antibiotics and pain medication for the next five days. She seemed fine, except for a bit of straining when she had to defecate.
Three or four days after the foaling, she also left the foal, and let us bury it.
The following weekend, one week after the foling, she suddenly started laying down a lot.
I took her in. Her temperature was normal but her heartrate was 65 (normal 32). She has massive straining, and produced a little urine, but was in a lot of pain.
I could hardly palpate her rectally, since she got violent contractions and more straining right away.
I talked to the on call vet, and made arrangements to drive to Ringsted for some Buscopan to give her. When I got back the heartrate was 95! Temperature still normal. I quicly gave her the Buscopan and went for a walk with her.
She walked willingly and even ate a lot of grass, carrots, apples ect.
I kept an eye on her heartrate which fell to about 76, and stayed there. Still way too high. She dropped 2-3 times and rolled a bit,but other than that no other symtoms except the strainings.
She had no defacation for hours, and I was fearing an atypical colon compaction.
I talked to the on call vet several times along the way, and she finally thought I should have her admitted to hopital.
So I took her to the Royal Veterinary College Hopital. We took different blood tests, which looked fine. They got a bit fatty after lying arounbd, so we did the triglyceride blood test, to make sure she was not hyperlipemic, and they were fine too. We did an abdominal puncture and there was no sign of peritonitis.
Despite intense pain management, sedation ect. we could still not do a proper rectal examination, because of the pain.
We examined her birthcanal, wich was fine except for a small tear next to the cervix. The cervis itself didn't feel to good either, but it was impossible to get into the uterus and palpate her there.
We gave her everal types of pain medications, and finally gave her an epidural, before I was sent home for the night.
So terrible to see her in such great pain, my beloved little Zilver.
She ended up staying in the hospital for 1½ weeks. They had to give her Finadyne (NSAID), Fentanyl patches, Torbugesic, Lidokain drip and Epidurals, to try to mannage her pain just a little bit.
An ultrasound the day after I admitted her, had revealed 2 massive hematomas, in the bottom of her pelvis, and it was these that were giving her so much pain and problems with urinating and defecating.
They put in a urine catheter to relieve her pain when urinating, and gave her oil and fluids by gastric tubing, 2-3 times a day, to keep her feces soft.
She was eating okay, but still developed hyperlipemia, so also had to be put on insulon and a glycose drip.
Despite this, was also the fear that these hemoatomas would get infectes and rupure, so when she one morning has a bit of a fever, they started her on antibiotics, despite the increased risk of developing colitits.
Finally after 1½ weeks, they thought she was well enough for me to get her home and continue treatment at home.
She came home wednesday. She seemed fine and happy to be home.
The following day however, she was really bad. She was lying down, shaking and in a lot of pain.
I wasn't allowed to give her Finadyne, because the renal values had become elevated, but even though I gave her torbugesic every 4 hours, it was nowhere near enough to ease her pain.
I talked to the vest and we decided to give her just one shot of Finadyne, and it helped a lot and made her eat a tiny little bit.
For the next 3-4 days I went around in constant fear that she would develop hyperlipemie again, or that her kidneys would give out, because I had to give her Finadyne to keep her earting just a little bit.
Finally on sunday she cheared up a bit. Started eating a bit more, and even got her eating a little bit of hard feed, carrots, apples and stuff like that. She also looked to be more comfortable.
On sunday evening when she called out for me when she saw me coming to her in the paddock, I almost cried.
It was the first time since her admittance to hospital that I got any kind of real response from her, and not just acting like a zombie.
And to think she would still happily call out for me, even though I had been poking her with needles and stuff 6-8 times a day!
Monday I took a blood sample and ran it down at the clinic where I work. Her renal values had completely stabilized, so I was exstatic.
After a couple of weeks at home I could stop treatment completely. She now only had a bit of straining
when defecating and she was eating well.
She had however become incontinent, and the urine just kept dripping from her. I was nervous if she had permanent dammage to her urinary tract, and arranged for a control ultrasound e couple of weeks later.
After a week more at home however, the incontinence stopped, and she is now almost completely back to normal.
Happy, lively and with a great appetite.
Now the plan is for her to rake it easy all winther, and then in spring, we are going back to the hospital to have the experts do a control ultrasound, and check if the hematomas are gone.
If they are not completely gone, I will not be able to put her in foal again ever, in fear that the foal will not have room to come out.
However Zilver is alive and herself again, and thats whats most important!
This whole ordeal with Zilver meant, that we missed the Gørlev show.
I could not set myself up to gettting the ponies ready, as the show was the day after Zlver lost her foal.
I ended up going for a quick visit at the show and then back home to be with Zilver.
Well, now that Zilver is out of danger and well again, I have been able to concentrate on other things.
I have sent Rebel off to his new home, and they are all completely in love with him already. So nice to find perfect homes for my little ponies.
Charisma was meant to leave the following weekend, but we had to rescedule because of a storm.
Her and a few of the other foals, were weaned a copule of weeks ago, and are doing great. Plan is now that she should have left today, but it does seem a bit unlikely with all the snow we got last night.
I finnished the Services Page, so it is now updated with this years breeding plan, and shows the expected foals for next season.
Zilver is ofcourse not in foal, and I haven't mannaged to get Sine in foal either. She first ran with Følfods Challure, but when she wouldn't take, I took her home to run with Waldo. After a few tries, I thought she had finally taken, but then a few weeks ago she started showing signs of heat again, and I removed her from Waldo. So unless he mannaged her in the last minute, no foal for her next year either.
I think it might be due to her abortion earlier this year. She was washed and treated and everything, but Blondie who has also aborted (many months earlier) was a bit difficult to get in foal this year too. It took a few tries, and she usually take in her very first heat.
But hopefully we will have 9 healthy and happy foals next year.
We certainly would like to do without this years misfortunes. Both Blondie and Sine, who aborted their foal, Gucci who had a foal with a front leg not positioned right, and getting nerval dammage in her pelvis as a result, and then ofcourse Zilvers catastrophic foaling, I have just told you about.
So hopefully everyone will foal without any problems next year!
I have also decided to sell Rupie.
I now have so many mares with dun gene (6 in all) and I have retained a lovely bay dun tobiano dauther of Rupie's this year, so I will be looking for a cream gene carrying stallion instead.
I don't have room for many stallions, and since I am also retaining two of my silver colts from this year, I have had to make the desicion
to sell little Rupie.
You can read more about him on his own page and on the sales page.
Besides Rupie, I have also decided to sell one of my three silver boys. I was going to keep all 3 of them, but as I said, I just can't mannage that many stallions at the moment. Since two of them are quite a bit bigger than I hoped for, then I have decided to sell one of the 2 big boys. Today I finally decided to put up Silver Moon for sale.
I have been going back and forth between him and Galaxy, since they both have their own strengths.
I hope to find great homes for my two boys Rupie and Silver Moon.
Next show will be the Mountain and Moorland Christmas Show, which I am looking very much foreward to. It will be the last show of the year.
I have entered Fanny and Tristar and my mother in law has entered Yellow. He has not been trained a lot, but we think it will do him good to get out and experience something.
Biggest obstacle however will be to get the ponies looking halfway presentable. After two weeks of nonstop rain, everything is all dirty and muddy!
I still need to update a lot of the pages around the site, but I will have to do that during these long winther months.
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September 6th
Just a quick update after a very cold and wet day at the Youngstock Show in Roskilde yesterday.
It was actually okay weather, but we had some massive rain showers, so everything got quite cold and clammy.
Not the most exciting results for our ponies this time. Silke lost no less than 5 points since our last outing. She was not quite a free in her movements as usual, but to give her only 6s in walk and trot, is quite harsh I think.
Besides the movements she got a lovely description.
Yesterday probably did the best and was only 1 point shy of the 40 points giving acess
to the Best in Show ring. The judges couldn't quite agree on wether to give her 8 or nice for type, but ended with 8, and thus "only" 39 points.
She got a lot of praise for her movements though, so I am very pleased with her. She behaved perfectly.
Her mother, Yesmine, has to settle for 22 out of 24 points on this occasion.
She still need a bit more muscle in her topline in my oppinion, but I thought her amazing movements would compensate a bit. The judges however were not impressed with her movements this time. I don't know if it was the bumpy and somewhat slippery surface we were running on, or if the girls just didn't feel like showing off their movements today. Anyways, we had a lovely day despite the bad weather and poor results, talking with our shetland pony friends and my in laws, who were there as always, to cheer and have fun.
Silke will have a chance to redeem herself next weekend, when she is going to the Gørlev Youngstock Show
together with Fanny.
Because of the rain showers, we only mannaged to get a few quick, but not so good pictures of Yesmine. I would have loved to have some of the other two as well, especially Yesterday who is looking so good at the moment, but I will have to take some in the paddock soon instead.
Thank you so much to Lena and my mother in law for helping with the ponies, now that they all had to be in the ring at the same time.
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August 30th
This year has gone past so fast, and now summer is almost over.
So much has happened since the last update, so I will start at the beginning and just hope I remember everything.
In April we went to the Dorthealyst Youngstock Show.
We brought little Blossom, who looked a bit funny. She had a massive fur, except on either side of her bum, where she had shed it, leaving her with a mohawk looking thing on top of her bum.
Besides that she ofcourse has blue eyes, which I knew before hand would be commented on by the judges. And it did.
Besides that she got a great description, and I was especially pleased that she recieved 8 out of 10 for her movements which are actually pretty good, despite her small size.
She actually got 8 out of 10 in both type, conformation and movements, but was given a 6 for her limbs, because of "small hooves" which the minis are always told. I think her feet fit her size perfectly.
Anyways, that landed her on a 7 overall, which is fine, for a young growing lady.
April was also the month that gave us our first foal of the season.
On April 29th, only one day past her due date, Yesmine had her foal. I knew something was up, so I kept checking her and checking her and finally at almost 4 am, I could see it was time.
I ran to our guest house and woke up my mother in law as promised.
For the second year in a row, she got to whitness Yesmine giving birth, and thus saw the birth of the little sister, of her own colt Yellow.
A beautiful big chunky bay dun filly foal! Exactly the colour I had wished for, so even though she is a lot bigger than I would have liked, she is still a keeper.
Since she should have been born the day before, and her name had to start with a Y, I could only call her: Shady Acres Yesterday!
The month of may brought us more foals.
Regina overtook Cyselle and had her baby 8 days early, on may 2nd.
I had been watching her like a hawk for 36 hours straight, and then she decides to foal in the 3 hours I am away for work on saturday morning.
So when I got home there was a very new, and still quite wet, mushroom colt foal standing at her side.
I took them in for a few hours to relax, berfore I let them out in a paddock by themselves.
He is a very well put together, great looking little guy, with a very nice and dark nuance to his colour.
His name is Shady Acres Regal Rebel.
Little Rebel is already sold, and when he is weaned, he will move to Jutland, where his new owner can hardly wait to get him home.
3 days later, Cyselle foaled, and had her baby 1 day past due.
She also tricked me and had her baby in the afternoon, shortly before I got home from work.
She was standing in the open stable, with a little very cute mushroom filly foal by her side.
Since she has the cutest demeanor, her name is Shady Acres Cute Charisma. Not even a day old, she was already crawling in my lap to cuddle.
A genuine snuggle bug!
Just like Rebel, little Charisma is also sold, and her new owner Pernille truly appreciates her cute and cuddle nature.
In the middle of may, it was time for the annual stallions assesment.
I has made ready Wilbert as best I could, but still think ha lacked a bit of volume.
However he was only 3 years old, so I thoguht it would be alright.
Unfortunately this would turn out to be the year that the judges got tough! Especially with regards to the young stallions.
Out of I think 23 enteres young stallions (3 and 4 year olds) only 6 passed the inspection.
Wilbert was unfortunately not among these 6, so by arrangement with his owner, he is now back home in Sweeden.
We are very sorry this adventure didn't turn out as planned, as Wilbert is a very nice stallion.
Instead we were very happe to see that Silbersee Luxus did very well at the assesment!
He got 1st place, 1st prize, Best Veteran and Res. Standard Champion!
Luxus is the father of 3 of our foals from last year, and 3 of this years foals, so it was great to see him receive such a great assesment this time.
He was shown in near perfect show condition!
Lena had brought her little Challure. Unfortunately he was very fat, so he had a hard time living up to his assesment 2 years earlier when he was approved with 42 points and was Mini Champion.
He did win his class
though, and got a nice assesment in 2.class A. There was no mini champion this year, as no minis got a high enough score. Challlure will be back, after a much needed diet!
The day after the stallions assesment I woke up to quite a chock! I had checked Gucci the evening before, and even though she was past due, there was not really any activity with her udder. I was actually a bit smaller than the previous week, so I though it would be at least a copuple of days or more, before anything would happen. So I did not check her during the night.
By chance I woke up quite early because I had to go to the toilet, and through the window I could see Gucci lying flat on her side, right in the dunghill.
My heart skipped a beat! I threw on some clothes, that were lying on the floor from the day before
and ran as fast as I could down the stairs.
When I get to her I can see the foal is on the way out. Two front legs and a head are out, but the membranes are gone and the foal is cold and not moving! I am sure the foal is dead, and I start fighting to get it out of poor Gucci.
One of the front legs is a lot further back than the other, indicating it is flexed in the elbow. I pull and pull, but nothing happens, so I run to our guest house and wake up my mother in law. She quickly come to help, but even with ther help the foal won't budge. Suddenly in between contractions, I mannage to get the flexed leg foreward, and then the foal pops out easily with the next couple of contractions.
Just as the foal come out, is starts to move! Its alive afterall. I am so happy! At least until Gucci tries to get up.She tumbles around not capable of managing her rear end.
She has obviously had some compressed nerves in the pelvis during the birth.
She almost steps on the foal, so we quicly get a wheelbarrow, and put the foal in that, as none of us has the strenght to carry the big guy to the stable.
Carefully we lead Gucci to the stable, with the foal in the wheelbarrow by her side. She slides around with ther back legs, collapsing in her pasterns ect. but we mannage to get them both safely to the stable, where they can relax and regain strength.
The following day, Gucci is already much better. Still quite wobbly in the back end and very wide behind when she walks and trots.
I know it will be fine with a bit of antiinflammatories and time. Time however was not on our side, since Gucci has been entered on the Roskilde Show, that was just 2½ weeks away.
At that time though, I was just happy that Gucci and her big strong silver black tobiano son were both okay!
His name is Shady Acres Silver Galaxy, and he is the first shetland pony in Denmark with this unique colour.
Two days later, the joy of this little man, was replaced with sorrow, when I got home from work, only to find that Sine had lost her foal, almost 3 months early.
There was a tiny little colt foal, lying next to a very sad Sine in the open stable. The placenta had not let go yet, so I carefully removed it and placed some intrauterine antibiotics.
The following day, we flushed her and gave her more intrauterine antibiotics.
Luckily Sine was soon ahppy again, and when she was ready I drove her to run with Følfods Challure.
The two of them were very much in love, so hoping for a cute little baby next year.
I haven't had her scanned yet, but will in the next few days. She hasn't shown heat since she got home.
May was also the month when we said welcome to a new pony at our stud.
Silke, a beautiful big silver black yealing filly, has moved in. I bought her despite her large size because she has this unique colour I would like to breed.
When offered to me, I simply had to buy her, since she is a very high quality pony, with a beautiful color. Her mother,
Stjernens High-Present is a 1st place, 1st prize mare, and he father is Luxus who is now also 1st class.
The plan is ofcourse to use smaller stallions for her, when that time comes, but in the mean time, I am just looking foreward to showing her.
In the beginning of june, it was time for the annual Roskilde Show. For the first time ever I had entered a pony, bought a camping spot, and the whole nine yards. Steffen and Papaya were coming with me, to camp at the show and we were looking so much foreward to this, that even though Gucci was not walking completely normal yet (completely pain free though), we still brought her just for the experience.
We drove up there already on thursday, installed the ponies and camper and everyting, and just as we were saying goodnight to the ponies, Jette and Søren's neighbour called and sais that Cindie had foaled!
Jette and I immediately decided, that even thougn it was late, we would drive the long way to see the baby right away.
And Cindie had definately delivered, and given me a nice strong chunky silver black colt! It was too dark then, to take pictures, but the following day, the neighbour sent this picture:
This lovely guy is called Shady Acres Silver Moon, since his full brother from last year was black and called Black Moon.
The following day it was time for the judging. Gucci did the best she could with her restricted hind quarters, and understandably got judges down on her movements, but she still mannaged to get very nice 22 out of 24 points, so I was very happy.
All in all we had a great weekend. Papaya loved it. We had borrowed a caravan this year, but have already gotten our own, so we are ready for next year.
It was a very happy, dirty and tired Papaya we brought home in the car sunday evening.
We are already looking foreward to Roskilde Show 2016!
Both Pamela and Tamelone were not due until July, but already shortly after we got home from Roskilde, she started bagging up.
On June 15th I was convinced that this was it. She had wax all afternoon, and in the evening the milk started dripping.
I went out to her and sat in the stable with her. She walked around a bit and the milk kept running and running. Everytime I left the stable, she started stressing, so I stayed there all night, waiting and waiting.
I ended up sleeping out there, but nothing happened. In the early morning Steffen sneeked in and took a picture of me sleeping.
That morning I had to go to work. I was sure she would foal while I was at work, so I teamed up with neighbours and friends, who checked on her all through the day.
In the end she decided to wait until I got home that night. Shortly after my return, I could see that now was the time.
The foaling went perfectly, and I had decided to film the whole thing, so now a have a completely textbook foaling on film.
I have mannaged to upload the video on my Facebook Page, but here are some pictures from that night:
Pamela had a super cute and very little colt foal. His name is Shady Acres Perfect Player. He is already sold, as my mother in law has reserved him as a companion for her beloved Yellow.
She also has a soft spot fpr Players mother, so it was only natural, that this was the guy who would be Yellow's new friend.
Unlike Pamela, Tamelone showed no signs of getting ready to foal, but like Pamela, she decided to foal 2½ weeks early.
So only 2 days after Pamela had given birht, I came home from work and found Tamelone running around the paddock, with a
lovely little silver foal at her side.
I ran out and got a hold of her, and guided her and the foal to the stable, so I could give Tamelone a bit of feed and have a closer look at the foal.
It turned out to be a lovely little silver brown colt foal, with the cutest little head, and thus we had made a hattrick of silver foals. 3 out of 3 possible.
This 3rd silver foal is ofcourse named Shady Acres Silver Tristar.
In June we also had our first Midsummers Party at our place. It was a great evening, with midsummers bonfire, great food and pony-fun-time.
That should have been the foals for this year, since I didn't expect Zilver to be in foal.
Last summer she lost her foal at 3 months, so I let her run with Waldo instead. However, when I got home from vacation around November 1st, I noticed she was in heat again, and took her away from Waldo, thinking she would just not have a foal next year then.
But she did turn out to be in foal afterall, so now she might not be due until October 1st!
She has however been bagging up for a few weeks already now, so hopefully she won't keep me waiting that long! Hopefully sometime during september. I am looking so much forward to her foal.
Zilver is also looking particularly lovely this summer, carrying her pregnancy beautifully, so I just had to take some pictures of my favorite girl!
Well, back to the mont of June, which ended with the Mountain and Moorland Summer Show. I had originally entered both Silke and Fanny, but I didn't think Fanny, was ready, so I ended up just bringing Silke.
She did a great job at her very first show, and ended up 2nd in her class, right after a beautiful welsh filly. She got all 8s, resulting in 40 points!
She was very sweet and I can't wait to show her again.
The next show on the schedule was the Gørlev Show. I had entered Blondie and her granddaughter Pumpkin.
They behaved perfectly both of them, but unfortunately quite fat. Luckily they did very well despite the extra weight. Pumpkin got 22 out of 24 points and Blondie got 23 out of 24 points and a great description.
Yeld mare, Stjernens Mini-Blondie,
14 years old
Granddaughter, Lille Ensteds Pumpkin, 3 years old.
I also showed Dina's lovely Gelding, Filur. He did very well, and was in front for many rounds, during the placing, but in the last minute he was beaten and ended up in 2nd place, because he ran out of energy.
All in all we had a great but very HOT day at the show. Papaya was with me as usual, and she also had a great day, with bouncy castle. icecream, toy shops and much more.
We are looking foreward to next year!
2 weeks later it was time for the annual mares assesment.
I wasn't planning to enter anyone this year, but Pamela was looking so good, and had foaled 2½ weeks early, so I ended up entering her after all.
She has turned 15 this year, and thus was entered in the veterans group. We were going up against a very beautiful big bllack standard mare, who had already recived a 1st premium in Holland and is a kroon mare.
So when we were placed 1st I was very happy and surprised. We got a great description, but unfortunately "only" 40 points, and thus 2 points shy of a 1st class assesment.
No other mini mares got a 1st class, so we ended up competing with the class winner from the 5 years and older group, who had also gotten 40 points like Pamela. We won and thus became Best Mini Mare! This is the second year in a row we take home this title, and we could bring back home the lovely trophies. I now have 3 of the mares listed on these trophies, and a 4th that I am borrowing for a couple of years.
We are so happy with Pamela's lovely results, but I might consider showing her for assesment again some day, if she is looking as good as this year.
I think she is a very good mini, with very nice movements, and she deserves a 1st class assesment.
I certainly hope it will be possible to see a Mini Champion (requires a mini in 1st class) at the assesment again some day. I think this is the 3rd annual assesment in a row, with no mini champion here on Zealand.
We need judges that also like the little ones.
Pamela of Duke Stable - 2.kl.Ax - Best Veteran and Best Mini Mare 2015
This year I have had a lot of visiting mares for Waldo. They have almost all been scanned in foal after the first breeding.
I love that he is so professional and experienced, and ofcoure fertile. Makes things a lot easier.
Waldo has had 8 visiting mares, besides my own, so he has been quite busy.
At my next update, I will update the Services page with this years breeding plan. Both my own and the visiting mares.
As I wrote in my last update, Blondie aborted her foal back in february. I had been looking very much foreward to that foal, but Blondie was alright, which is what was most important.
This year she has been running with Kate's lovely cremello mini stallion, Bakkegaard's Kong-Arthur. They have been getting along great, and Blondie is now scanned in foal, so thats great!
Her and Arthur are going to spend the rest of the summer together here at out place.
In the meantime Rupert is running with Kate's mares at her place.
In a couple of days I will ultrasound the last mares. Only a couple of mares are still not in foal, but they are getting their last chances now.
I pefer not to have quite as late foals as the one Zilver is having this year.
In the end of July, after we harvested the hay for winther, I finally mannaged to fence in the big field, with a lot of help from my friend Lena.
So now all the ponies can go out in the last 3 acres of our field. As always it was great to see them running around the big field. I haven't sorted pictures from that day yet, so here are instead a couple of pictures from spring, with some of the ponies enjoying their paddock.
I am not sure I have remembered everything, and I definately still need to update a few pages, new pictures on a lot of the pon ies and Waldo's offspring page ect. But that will all be with the next update.
Until then I will just say so long, with a few lovely pictures from our beloved "Egegården"
The next show will be the big Youngstock Show in Roskilde in a weeks time. I have entered Yesmine, Yesterday and Silke.
The following week, its time for the Gørlev Youngstock
Show, where Silke is going out again, together with Fanny.
Other than that, we are just waiting for Zilver to foal!
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March 27th
Time for another update!
The year started in january when I went on a trip to Holland, with three lovely sweedish girls.
Anneli, Mia, Nina and I all had a great
trip, and besides going to the annual stallion showm we also went and visited different studs on the way.
The stallions assesment, was as always, a great show.
I am definately coming back, but have also considered going to the selection in december.
It could be interesting to see all the new stallions. Who passes and who doesn't.
A few more ponies have also left in the new year already.
York has long been living with our neighbours, and now the move has become permanent.
With him now is little Trouble, and the two of them are best friends.
Besides these two boys, the rest of last years foals have also found new homes. All except the three girls I decided to retain at the stud.
So Trixiebelle, Power and Black Moon have all gone to live with Charlotte, who has run an equine therapy center with Icelandic horses, for many years.
She contacted me as she was looking for a few minis
she could use, for the smaller children and the ones who don't necesarily wants to ride, but could still benefit from the contact with horses.
These three little friends are therefore going to
act as therapy ponies, and Charlotte also has plans for at little circus group, where they can learn tricks.
I am so happy to have found such an amazing home for my little darlings.
This also meant that the sales page was suddenly completely empty, but ofcourse new foals are already on their way, and some of these will definately be for sale.
In the mean time my friend Kate has a couple of lovely minis for sale, so I have put them on the sales page.
February 9th I came home to feed the ponies and found Blondie lying flat on her side right in the mud.
My heart stopped for a minute, as she had been a bit sad in the last few days, so I had been tacing her in, feeding her ekstra and taking ekstra care of her.
I was terrified and thought she was dead. I ran across the paddock as fast as I could, and as soon as I got to her, she lifted up her head, looked at me and then stood right up!
I gave her at treat and took her to the stall. There I could see the fetal membranes hanging from her. Crap I thought, and figures the had aborted her foal, and was about to drop the afterbirth.
I let her stay in the stall and started feeding the other, but she kept laying down. She wasn't really contracting, just lying flat on her side. Got up again and again, only to lie back down.
I tried to help, gently pulling on the membranes, but nothing was really budging.
I finally decided to go in, and when I did, I could feel the foal was still in there.
I broke through the membranes, got a hold of the legs, helped Blondie pull it out. A little filly foal.
Crap, crap, crap, crap... I was so looking foreward to this particular foal!
Blondie was ofcourse quite sad at first, but was ready to move on already after at couple of days, and she seemed healthier as soon as the foal was out.
In hindsight, she had acted a little weird for months. Not always wanting her treats, sometimes staying by her self in the paddock and so forth, and in the last couple of weeks, I had noticed several times that she had been completly wet on one side, like she had been laying in the mud.
Therefore I think this pregnancy just wasn't quite right. She looks better now than she has done in months, and I am just happy that nothing happened to her and that she is alright.
I will just have to wait until next year to have a beautiful little baby from her.
Well, on to some happier news.
At the end of february I went to the annual Mountain and Moorland Winther Show.
With me I had Zilver and little River.
River had grown a bit apart since I entered her, but she still looked alright.
Zilver looked lovely in my opinion.
First in the ring was little River. She was quite naughty, reared in front of the judge and would't really trot properly in the ring
But the judge really liked her and made her class winner in front of five other lovely yearling fillies.
She got an amazing 42 points!! And I am so proud of her!
Then it was Zilvers turn. She behaved perfectly as always, and as expected she got her usual 37 points.
I still to this day, thinks she deserves at least a couple of points more, especially when she looks as good as she does at the moment, but I think I am the only one who thinks that. Ha ha.
On the other hand, she was selected to compete for the title: Best Winther Coat, and low and behold, if she didn't go and win it!
So all in all it was a great day with a great start to the showing season, and I got several great prizes!
Now I am just waiting for the first foals to start arriving. You can see all this years expected foals, on the services page.
Yesmine is the first one due, but both her and Gucci has slowly started bagging up, just a tiny bit. There is still a month until Yesmine is due though, so I have to be patient.
I have entered Blossom at the Dorthealyst Youngstock Show in April, even though at the moment she mostly resembles a sheep that has not been sheared for 3 years straigth!
But I could resist seeing the look on the judges face when he sees her beautiful blue eyes. I am guessing blondes are not his type.
I am also contemplating finally entering a pony at the Roskilde Agricultural Fair. I have watned to for many years now, but maybe this will finally be the year.
Steffen said he would come with me, so he, Papaya and I could have a little mini vacation. I am thinking of entering Gucci. Had also considered Yesmine, but last year she took forever to shed her winther woolies, and I don't wanna risk ending up showing a furry monster at Roskilde ;)
Finally the training of Wilbert has also been kicked into high gear, so he will be ready for the stallions assesment!
There was some trouble getting his DNA sorted, as the lab seemed to have forgot, getting his dads DNA results from Holland. Its there now though, and everything looks in order, so now we just have to have the results printed and then we can finally enter him.
I will be back with an update after Dorthealyst, or before that if a foal pops out in the meantime!
Remember to also follow us on our Facebook Page.
I will try to do live updates there during the foalings I attend.
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The past year - 2014
Last year was one of the most amazing years of my life.
So many wonderful things happened.
The biggest thing that happened in 2014, was the fact that after I finally got a job, we were able to finally buy our own little place.
And so we became the happy owners of Egegården! Our own little piece of heaven.
We live here now, the three of us, together with our cats and all my ponies.
Show-wise, it was a very slow year, as we were so busy with renovating the farm.
I did bring Cyselle to the mares assesment, and she did me so proud!
She was classwinner, and got a lovely 2. price, and even ended up winning, Best Mini Mare!
I could not have hoped for more, for my little girl.
Even though I didn't do much showing last year, I did however get a lot of wonderful foals!
11 foals all in all. 7 girls and 4 boys.
It was really hard to decide who I wanted to keep, but I ended up deciding on these 3 lovely girls:
x 
x 
Shady Acres Baby Blossom xxxxxxxxxxx Shady Acres Cute Clover xxxxxxxxxxxxx Shady Acres Royal River
A few new ponies have also found their way to the stud in the last year, while others have found new homes.
Look below at the news from previous
years, for the "Full Story"
Now 2015 is already well on its way, and I hope it will be another super year with many exciting experiences, lovely foals and hopefully a bit more showing than last year.
I will be back as soon as possible with an update on the first 3 months of this new year.
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