As I mentioned
before, we are breeding Star. On Wednesday, hubby sent me a text that Star was in - plans changed and we loaded her up in the trailer and off we went! Dropped her off where she can be bred. Unfortunately, that's not how simple our day was...
Let me start at the beginning of our day...
I went to work, planning on leaving at 3pm for the Coggins test for Zoe. She had to be to the vet at 4pm. I left work 15 minutes late because I am SUPER busy right now but I got home with plenty-o time to load up and go (the vet is 10 min. away). On my way home, hubby texted me that Star was in heat today so that meant bringing Star to get her bred HAD to be done TODAY. When I got home I changed my clothes (I work in an office), grabbed Zoe and loaded her in the trailer. She's great loading so that was a very quick transaction! :) Good girl!
Off to the vet we went. No issues there either. A perfect angel, she was!
On the way home, we stopped off at the daycare lady's house to pick up the kiddos. Of course she wanted to see Zoe, so we did a little show-and-tell presentation in her driveway. The neighbors were all very excited to see her. We live in a small farm community so having a horse in town is perfectly acceptable. :) Again, Zoe was very well behaved. I was a proud horsey momma!
After we left, we called the stallion owner (brother-in-law) and told him we were coming up soon. He asked us if we could swing by a neighbor's house and pick up another mare that was also getting bred. She was just around the corner so it wasn't a big deal.
When we got home we unloaded Zoe, changed a dirty diaper (tmi???), loaded up some hay in the trailer, loaded up the kids in the truck, loaded Star (who also loads very easily) and we were off. Got to our neighbor's house to get the mare and she also loaded very well. Neighbor had 10 bales of hay we had to load and then we were finally on the road to brother-in-law's house. It's now 6pm.
The drive was uneventful. Unloading both horses was uneventful.
We decided to see how the stud was going to be with Star. If something did go wrong, there were 3 of us to help with any situation that could possibly happen. A little background info on the stud: he's 4 and bred one mare on accident (didn't realize he had "dropped" yet) so he's very inexperienced and we had no idea how he was with his mares. A little background info on us: we've owned stallions before and have handled the breeding ourselves for several years. We know what we're doing.
The stud was very excited at the new comers and Star was probably just as excited to see him! The stud was very well behaved while in-hand. Minded his manners and listened astonishingly well with only a rope halter and lead on. I'm sure brother-in-law was very proud of his stud horse. The two nosed up and Star was quite the lady...yeah right. If you have ever been around a mare in heat with a stud at her nose, you understand. She did what all mares in heat do. Gross. Have some class, would ya??? j/k
Since he was being so good, brother-in-law put the lead rope over his back and let him go. The stud was talking, nibbling and sniffing Star all over. Star was a statue. Stood there waiting, making it very easy for him. He tried at first to climb on her side. Brother-in-law pulled him down. He went back to her face and talked some more. Made his way around to her butt climbed on but couldn't figure out where things were supposed to go so he climbed back off. Almost looked defeated. Brother-in-law picked up the lead rope again and walked him away.
We decided that since he had been a good boy that we would try pasture breeding and let him and Star go. Star stood like a good girl while the stud circled around her, nibbling on her as he went. She didn't mind. Well then he got more aggressive and started chewing. He would go down her front legs, then her back legs, and then down her sides. She got sick of it and started running off. That just made him more aggressive. She started kicking at him when he would bite her. Things were getting worse by the minute. The kicks weren't phasing him one bit and she was really firing them off (and landing 90% of them on either his chest or his sides)! It was time to step in. He wasn't jumping, just chasing her around, trying to control her movements (this is what stallions do). Hubby stepped in and grabbed the stud very easily. Like I said, he's a good horse person and the stud was a good boy when being handled. As soon as hubby grabbed the lead, the stud calmed right down and acted like a puppy again. Star stopped too. She just stood there waiting for him to try again. Hubby led the stud around to make sure he had a handle on him, which he did, and led him over to Star again. Star waiting again while the stud "got ready" and jumped her. He never penetrated but went through the motions like he was supposed to.
By this time the stud was dripping in sweat but wasn't finished yet with Star. But we decided to call it a day and put him back in his pen with his buddies. They all ran around like crazy sniffing him but settled down. We did some thinking about the events that just took place and it's very possible that Star is too tall and he's too inexperienced. We are trying again tonight but this time we are digging a hole for Star to stand in so the angle for the stud is better and we won't be doing pasture breeding with this stud, he's much better in hand.
I fed Star her hay and grain, made sure she had fresh water and we went on our way. Our kids (who stayed in the barn so we didn't have to have the "birds and the bees" talk) were hungry...it was now 7:30 pm and we hadn't had dinner yet. We would've stopped on our way home but our big hayfield was getting baled and hubby wanted to get home ASAP so he could start getting the bales off the field. Needless to say, dinner was out of a can and made at about 8:30 pm. We finally crashed into our beds around 10 pm...it was a long day for us!
Until next time!
Quote for the day:
"Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it."
-William Penn
