I got a new job…

As a nanny for two hunter/jumper trainers… Scott and Renee Lenkart. They have two little girls who are absolutely adorable, and I will be watching them all summer! So I am leaving in a week and a half!! I seriously can’t even believe it!! So I am going to be home for like a whole week this summer. I am so excited/nervous! It is going to be so great!!!

I get to go to the Traverse City horse show in Michigan, for three weeks This is huge! Beezie Madden (see picture below)

might be there. She is huge in the hunter/jumper world!

I am also going to Traders Point and then also a show in Kentucky.

This is huge! I am seriously so excited, but nervous at the same time!!! I am going to be gone basically all summer, because I go to Traverse City for three weeks, then home for one week, then traders point and Indiana back to back and then its time to go back to school. I am so excited to have this awesome opportunity, and am so lucky!! The kids I will be watching are adorable, and I am just beyond excited.

Here is a picture of Scott Lenkart:

Huuuuuuuugeee Horse.

So I know this is my second post in one day, but I needed to finish that baby post, and I was just so excited to post about this.

So last night I went over to Kathy’s to ride and see two baby foals. So I rode this horse named Archie, who was really fun and everything. Then Kathy went and got this horse named Max. Now Max is about 18.2 hands, which is like the size of a huge draft horse. One hand is equal to about 4 inches. Which means he is really tall. The horse that I usually ride is about 16.2 hands, and the biggest horse I have ridden before Max was about 17.2 hands (which is pretty big for a riding horse). I have to stand on my way tip toes to even reach his back ,and definitely cannot see over it like i usually can with horses. It was pretty crazy.

So Kathy rode him first and then had me get on him. Well before I got on she took a pic of me and him to show the size and here it is.

yea. he is HUGE!! It is so crazy, these pics don’t show it fully but he is seriously huge.

So then I got on him and Kathy said I looked absolutely tiny on him haha. So here is a picture of me on him, just to show the ridiculousness of how tall he is.

My feet came halfway down his stomach. That is insane.

He was really fun to ride though [:

And that is it. Have a wonderful day.

Baby…

Horses! (Or foals to be correct)

Since Christine requested it, I am now going to write a blog all about pregnant mares and foals.

I am going to be getting my info mostly from Wikipedia, but also from other sources and little bits of information that I have picked up from my vet.

First of all, a mare is impregnated by a stallion. Nowadays this usually happens by Artificial insemination (Artificial Insemination (AI): the mare is inseminated by a veterinarian or an equine reproduction manager, using either fresh cooled or frozen semen.), which is basically collecting a stallion’s semen and then freezing it and sending it off to be used to breed a mare. This is the most popular/best way to do it because a lot of times the stallion that people want to breed their mares too is too far away to do “live cover” ( the mare is brought to the stallion’s residence and is covered “live” in the breeding shed. She may also be turned out in a pasture with the stallion for several days to breed naturally (’pasture bred’). The former situation is often preferred, as it provides a more controlled environment, allowing the breeder to ensure that the mare was covered, and places the handlers in a position to remove the horses from one another should one attempt to kick or bite the other.) plus artificial insemination is also safer as the spread of sexually transmitted diseases is reduced, and also there is no chance of a mare kicking a stallion.

The mare is artificially inseminated or bred by live cover, and then she will be checked in about 16 days to see if she “took” (meaning that she is pregnant). If she did not take, then the mare can be bred again on her next cycle until she takes, and is pregnant with a leetle baby horse.

The mare or she is also called the dam, has a gestation period of about eleven months (or about 320-370 days). Usually they are bred in early spring so the baby will be born when it is warmer weather outside the next year. Oftentimes mares are bred right after after the birth of their foal, around the time of their “foal heat” which is their first cycle after the foal is born.

The horse can be ridden throughout the pregnancy, usually up to about 1 or two months before the baby is due. At this point the mare will be pretty big, and she may even start to waddle (kinda like a pregnant human, i think its kind of cute to see a pregnant mare waddling around [: ) since her tummy is so big)I just thought this little pony was just so dang cute with her big prego belly. Just showing how big they can get.

And here is another pic of a pregnant mare, I think they said she was about 9 months along from where I got it.

So, I am going to go back to the beginning of the pregnancy. The first 30 days of pregnancy are very important, as there is about a 10-15% chance that the embryo will be resorbed, so it is very important that the mare does not undergo a lot of stress and is well taken care of.

Sorry for that little jump there. So after 11 months of being well taken care of and making sure the mom has everything she needs, she will go into labor. Since horses are prey animals, labor is usually quick, and often happens at night to prevent any predators from getting them (if they were in the wild).

There are many signs that show when a mare is going into labor. One of the big ones is that the udder starts to fill noticeably with milk, and the teats distend at this time also. Next, the teats start to wax, which is where sticky drops of milk show up on the teats, and this usually means the mare will foal in about 24-48 hours. The whole foaling process takes about an hour. The foal is positioned with both feet forward and its head in between its two front legs when coming out. The foals hooves are covered with a rubbery substance so it does not hurt the mare on the way out. The foal comes out with the hooves first, then the head will start to show about the time when the knees come out.

There is a picture showing how the baby is positioned inside the mare before it comes out.

After the baby is completely out, they usually stand up within the first hour of birth, can trot and canter within a couple hours, and can gallop the next day. The ability to get up and move so quickly is due to the fact again that they are prey animals, and need to get away quickly if needed.

Foals grow quickly, usually putting on up to 3 pounds a day. They can start eating solids at about 10 days, and after eight t ten weeks will need more feed to supplement the mare’s milk.

Between four and 6 months of age, the foal is weaned from its mother, which is where the baby is taken away from its mother. A foal that has been weaned, but is less than 1 year old is called a weanling.

So that is the whole process of horse pregnancy and babies! Now here are some pics of babies:) If you want to know anymore (christine [: ) just let me know! Sorry it took me a while to get this posted.

here is a guy holding a baby, they can be held pretty easily when they are younger.

and another little guy.

a newborn foal and its mom.

Here is my friend Alissa’s baby when she was first born. Her name is Midnight and I think she is like 5 or 6 years old now?

And the last few pics are pictures I took just yesterday of a baby colt that is about 7 days old. He is at the place where I rode last night.

Mocha and her baby boy (he does not have a name yet)

momma and her baby relaxing in the stall

he was tired…

Sorry the pic is bad, but my camera was being weird and he kept moving right when I took the pics.

and the last one, its bad again, but he is so cute!!

There you are. Babies. I want a foal of my own so bad.

Horse’s digestive system. Pretty sweet.

So since Jim gets to write boring blogs about math :), I decided to write a great blog about the horse’s digestive system. This is going to be the best blog post ever. Please hold your excitement.

Basically here is a run through of the horse’s digestive system:

It all starts with prehension, which is where the horse picks up his food with his lips. He then moves it to his molars, where he masticates the food (also known as chewing the food). While he is masticating, the salivary glands help to soften the food. Then it is swallowed and goes through the esophagus, which runs on the left side of the Trachea, goes through the diaphragm and into the stomach. The esophagus is bout 50-60 inches long. Did you know that horse’s can’t throw up either? So then the food goes to the stomach, which can hold 2-4 gallons, and works best when it is only 2/3rds full. Digestion then takes place, with the production of Pepsin to help the digestion. Then the food enters the small intestine. Did you know the horse’s small intestine is 70 feet long? Yea. Pretty crazy. The small intestine is filled with Villi, which help the absorption of nutrients. So then the food is moved to the Large Intestine, which is 25 feet long. The Large Intestine is made up of four parts: 1. The Cecum where the food goes to “ferment” or be broken down by bacteria. This is why horses are hind gut fermenters. The second part of the Large Intestine is the Large Colon, where the last of the nutrients are broken down and absorbed. Then it enters the small colon, where the water is absorbed and “manure balls are formed.”(Who decided to call them “manure balls?” i think that is the weirdest way to put it, but maybe it is just me). Lastly is the rectum, where the manure balls come out.

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the horse’s digestive system. So I will leave you with a diagram of the horse’s digestive system:

April Fools Day.

Does anyone else find this day a tad ridiculous? Whoever thought it would be good to dedicate a day totally to pranks is stupid. Last year’s April Fools day came back to bite me in the butt. This year’s was not quite so bad, definitely did a little prank on my roommate, no big. My friend Andrea did most of the saran-wrapping, but didn’t end up too bad. I can’t tell if the roommate is just pretending to think its funny or not (although I did get a very hard slap on the leg that stung for at least 15 minutes…).

Anywho, so I am walking to the bathroom to innocently go get ready for bed. Now part of that routine is to brush my teeth and all that jazz, which includes going to the bathroom. So I walk to the door of the bathroom and think nothing of it and sit down on one of the toilets. Now someone smarter may have thought hmm… its April Fools, maybe I should not sit on that toilet (but who actually thinks that because who does a prank in the bathroom?). Anyways I sit down on the toilet and lo and behold there is Icy Hot all over the toilet (which is not pleasant at all). Yea. Thats right. Some really cool person decided to put Icy Hot all over the bathroom toilets. So Thank you whoever you are. Thank you.

(okay, so maybe I didn’t actually sit on one of the toilets because I read the sign on the door to the bathroom, just thought I would make it more interesting. April Fools!!)

Now, the thing I don’t understand is why? Why in the world would you decide to do that to someone? It’s not like you can see people sitting on the toilets or see someone’s reaction to it.Ha Ha thats so funny that there is Icy Hot all over the toilet seats. Now no one can go to the bathroom. That is so hilarious. April Fools!!

Real cool guys.

Math Needs to Die.

I am really curious as to whyboth of my brothers are good at math but I am not.

Today I spent pretty much 8 hours doing math. Yes thats right 8 Whole hours. Do you know how much I could have gotten done in those 8 hours? A lot.  A lot more than freaking math. The worst part is that I am still not done!!! (Granted, I did have all the assignments ahead of time like three weeks ahead, but who actually does their homework ahead of time?) So I think that math needs to die a horrible, horrible death. Who needs to know how to find the vertex of a parabola? Or how many calories a big mac and fries have if one has 20 times more calories than the other? Is it not good enough to just know that together they have 1200 calories? Just look at the nutritional guide if you want to know the ridiculous amount of calories in the fries.

Time to do more glorious math.

Horse Connex!

So for art I did this project thing where we had to first take an existing logo and update it and second we had to make our own company and design a logo for it. So, with the help of Jim and Christine, we came up with Horse Connex. Pretty genius, right? It is a “social networking” site for horse people, so people that either ride/have horses can join or just people that like them (If it were an actual site). So I worked on the logo last night, and pretty much all of today to get this logo:

In other news I am really tired and nervous for how my professor will grade this project. It is a very weird one to do. Anywho, I am done.

Hello.

After reading many other blogs I decided to start one of my own. Not really sure why, I just enjoyed reading other people’s blogs so I started my own. This could either be a success or a failure. By that I mean I may never ever post again or I may post a lot, slash I will write boring things. Who knows. Bear with me.

This almost reminds me too much of Xanga. Anyone else ever use Xanga. That was all the rage for a while then everyone quit for some reason. As did I. Oh the Xanga days. Before Myspace and Facebook. Now no one Myspaces (Myspace’s?) anymore. (Does anyone else find it odd that you can pretty much use it along with Facebook as a verb?) I will facebook you. It sounds like you are going to beat someone up. Or put someone’s face in a book.

Ok I am done being stupid. Time to go ride some ponies and spend a wonderful evening watching movies with Kasey and reminiscing about middle school. What a great time.