We wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year
There are five new photographs on the Photo page starting from the sixth one down. the first three are from Maddi, I will put on some more of Maddi’s tomorrow.
Hello Mr Farmer,
My friend Carrie in Canada sent me these photo’s, I hope you all enjoy them. Maddi.
Baby Moose 12 Hours Old – Born in the middle of downtown Flatrock
In my whole life in Flatrock, I have never seen a new born baby moose. This one was not even a half a mile from my house. The mother picked a small quiet neighbor in Flatrock and had her baby in the front yard just off Deer Marsh Road ,at 5:30 am. Debbie and I (Jim) were out bike riding when we came upon the pair. The lady across the street from this house told us she saw it being born. We saw them at 5:30 PM. So the little one was 12 hours old. What an awesome place we live in, to see such a site. Jimmie & Debbie Auchinleck.
Dartmoor Ponies taken 2 years ago when we were on holiday. Elsie.
The Osprey picture is from Elaine.
As you have probably seen Lady is now on her own. We parted Lady and Willow this morning. Up to now it has gone very well, much better than we had expected. They are calling for each other, but that has got a lot less over the hours. Of course Willow is pining for Lady. Parting the Mares and Foal is one of the most disliked things that I have to do. Unfortunately it has to be done. The alternative is to leave the Mares and Foals together until the Mare decides that it is time for the Foal to stop suckling, that would put the Foal at risk of being kicked by the Mare, if the Foal persist in trying to suckle. The last three months of the gestation period of the unborn Foal is very important, If the Mare was allowed to keep feeding her current Foal, it would cause the unborn Foal to get the nourishment that it needs. Willow has been with Lady eight months, by far the longest that we have kept a Mare and Foal together.
Willow is stabled in between Emmi and Gypsy, in those stables they have bars so that the Horses can see each other. Willow went to the side Emmi is stabled, to my surprise ignoring Gypsy completely. After about an hour we let Emmi out of her stable to walk about, Willow really did get stressed, so that we had to quickly put Emmi back. After four to five days we will turn Willow, Emmi and Gypsy out into the main Horse field. Within a couple of weeks we should be able put Willow and Gypsy together in the barn in the area we have made for them.
Once we got Willow into a stable we had to put Lady into hers. We also brought Arnie in to keep Lady company. Lady has only called out once or twice in the last couple of hours for Willow, that was only after Willow had called out to her. Lady should only need to be stabled for two to three days, after which we should be able to let her out of the stable. All the time that she is stabled Arnie will be kept with her.