Autumn, time for weaning..

🍂 Autumn 🍁 is slowly setting in at the farm.

Summer and the holidays are coming to an end, it is time for our first mothers and their young to return from the field and join the breeding to prepare the first weanings and the first departures of our foals towards their new families, whom we thank for their trust.

Autumn is also the time for breaking in horses. This year, it is our pretty Perla GM, a 3-year-old PRE with a cream/pearl coat, who will learn the basics under saddle and will be prepared for confirmation (PRE horses, in order to be able to reproduce in the Stud Book of the breed, must pass confirmation with a Spanish ANCCE judge, possible from the age of 3).

We share with you this photo of the pretty Perla, au naturel.

Yeguada The Seven Kings

Breeding of Pure Spanish Horses

www.yeguadalossietereinos.com

The birthing season is over

July 2024, normally we should be warm; shorts and flip-flops available. The weather has been very unstable in our region, since October 2023 and even today. Fortunately, there was no disaster at the farm despite the heavy rainfall in recent months, but stress was starting to mount (haying had still not started in mid-June). Indeed, the job of breeder is not just about taking care of horses. We must also manage all stewardship, and in particular produce the fodder in the summer necessary to feed our livestock as soon as they return from the meadows (from fall).

We benefited from a short week without rain, with three days at 25 then 27°C, which allowed us to attack the hay. Excellent weed production, we have already made and returned 148 Round Ballers!

The 2024 hays are made at the Yeguada Los Siete Reinos

During the few days when we brought in the hay at the beginning of July, we noticed that our mare Quintilla Carthago, suddenly from the udder (10 days from term so nothing abnormal), we decided to bring her in to monitor foaling..

Raising horses takes time, a lot of time. We can say that we even learn patience if we are not naturally so.

For several years, we have cherished a dream, that of giving birth to a foal with the Isabello (Double Pearl) coat. Not easy because this gene (Perle or Pearl) is recessive. This means that for them to express themselves on the foal's coat, both parents must at least be carriers of the gene themselves, to have a chance of having a foal with this unique golden coat.

In 2022, two young mares carrying the Perle gene arrived at our breeding farm: Deseada VPB and Perla GM. Perla was a one-year-old filly at the time, and Deseada was a young 3-year-old mare who arrived at our breeding farm pregnant. In 2023, Deseada gave birth to her first filly: Naranja VMD, a superb young smocky black filly (the father wore Cream), but Deseada did not give her Perle gene (otherwise the filly would have been cream/pearl like Perla.

In 2024, Deseada, pregnant with a double Pearl stallion (who inevitably gave him his gene) has again not given birth to a double Pearl foal, her foal Oléo VMD is sublime, and carrying the Pearl, but not homozygous for this gene, it is therefore bay in color. It was finally Quintilla Carthago, who arrived at our breeding in 2023, carrying the Perle gene, married to a double stallion Perle, who gave us in 2024, the first Isabella filly born at our breeding.

Here is Ojalà VMD:

As you can see in the photo, the mother has a classic bay dress, the Pearl gene is invisible.

The filly, who inherited the gene from both parents, is Isabella (Baie + PrlPrl).

The foaling went very well. The filly and her mother obviously remain under surveillance, but we are delighted by this very beautiful filly, endowed with a character close to humans like her two parents. His father is the adorable Kapitan del Sol (By Tarzano GSA) from Haras des Sylves.

Ojalà VMD will be kept in breeding because, unlike Deseada and her mother, she will give her Perle gene to 100% of her foals, and will therefore produce, married to a Double Perle stallion, 100% Isabellos foals.

What is the job of a breeder?

The profession of horse breeder? We imagine very green meadows, a stallion with his mares and foals frolicking in the meadows in total freedom, it's beautiful, it makes you dream.. But in reality, what is a horse breeder? The reality is very different from what most people imagine.

Imagine for a moment, not with 1 or 2 children at home, but around ten new children every year, the dream is already fading a little to give way to a completely different concept of the life of a breeder! This year, the 7th foal of the season arrived 15 days early. We noticed that the mare was getting ready, so we brought her in to monitor her carefully, under a 24-hour camera, with a foaling monitoring system (non-invasive; no 24-hour belt, no magnets sutured to the vulva..) At 1:30 a.m. on the night of May 24, 2024, the mare Deseada foaled without problem. We perform first aid on the foal (a very handsome bay male carrying Prl) and return to rest a little.

In the morning, at 5 a.m., we went to see the mother and the foal, which we did not see facing the camera. This foal, however beautiful it may be, does not at all have the reflex to go towards its mother, whose colostrum (first milk) must be ingested within 12 hours following foaling, (the foal's stomach not being capable of digesting and assimilating it after this period of time) otherwise the foal will have no immune defense and will automatically die at the first attack of microbes.

We must therefore milk the mother (who, by the way, is exemplary, allows herself to be milked by us without any problem), then make the foal drink from a bottle, and this every 20 minutes, as soon as the foal gets up to drink. . This beautiful baby does not go towards his mother at all, the important technique is to make him drink from a bottle as close as possible to the mare's udders, so that his instinct develops towards this place for "suckling".

It wasn't once or twice that it took Oléo VMD to come and drink on his own, but it was more than 6 hours like this, being present every 20 minutes, and finally around 12:00 p.m., our little protected ends up agreeing to go to the breast. But it is not yet won, each time, we have to bring him to the breast, again every 20 minutes, and it is only in the evening around 8:00 p.m. that our foal is independent in feeding!

A great victory, after having tried everything to fill Deseada with a top stallion stationed abroad, after having taken good care of the mare for 10.5 months, after having monitored the foaling, then "saving" this foal which did not would have never survived if he had been born in the wilderness, that we can enjoy the magic of this birth. Everything was not rosy after this, we had to think about the first release of this amazing duo..

On the morning of May 25, bright sunshine (rare in Normandy since October 2023..) it is time to put Deseada and her little Oléo in the paddock for an outing. And there... disaster!

This foal, which now goes to its mother to drink without any problem in the box, is not going to follow its mother at all! On the contrary! He turns around and heads straight towards the paddock fence, and this for more than thirty minutes! Deseada has only one idea in mind, to get closer to her friends, to show them her wonder, but Oléo is not at all decided, and we witness an incredible scene.. We had never seen this before. Oléo has no instinct to follow his mother, as soon as she goes back to pick him up, he takes 3/4 strides and then turns around in the other direction!

The mother, although only 5 years old, was incredible. She trained and taught her foal to follow her in a few minutes, tiring for both, but after a while, that's it, the foal finally follows its mother! Hooray!! Of course, out of the question for us to leave the stage, not out of curiosity, but because barely 24 hours old, it is imperative that Oléo be able to drink every time he needs it, and if the stage had continued, we should have intervened. Finally, the mare, arriving near her friends, calmed down, and the foal, through fatigue, too. They are now with each other and the foal can drink safely.

Here is the story of a birth like no other, a small sample of what can happen in the life of a breeder, in just 24 hours, during the foaling period. Today, June 15, 2024, Oléo is doing perfectly well, he behaves like any breeding foal, he is magnificent and it is a joy to see him frolicking in the herd near his mother in complete safety!