Winter is here, well sort of…..we have only had a dusting of snow so far and then some ice the other day. It has since melted and now everything is wet. As you can see Sue has been growing a lot lately! This is her with one of her best friends, Dream. Dream is 6 years old and 12.3 hands, Sue is 20 months old and getting close to 13.3. 

Pregnancy update for Pixie, she is now 6 months along and should be our second mare to foal in 2025. However last year she went several weeks over her due date so it’s possible one of the other mares will beat her to it!

So far she has been 2 for 2 on producing colts. She had her first foal (a bay pinto) back in 2011 and her second foal (a Smokey black pinto) in 2023. Because she is homozygous for tobiano, we know she will have a tobiano but it will still be interesting to see what she has with Cyclone this time!

Possible colors:
25.00% - Red (Chestnut/Sorrel) Tobiano
25.00% - Palomino Tobiano
18.75% - Bay Tobiano
18.75% - Buckskin Tobiano
6.25% - Black Tobiano
6.25% - Smoky Black Tobiano

Kenzie seems to be enjoying the lovely weather we have had the past few days! She is about 7 months pregnant now and seems to be well adjusted to our routine here on the farm. We had visitors yesterday and of course she was soaking up the attention like all the other ponies.
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She is carrying our only Phantom foal for 2025. So far she has been 2 for 2 with homozygous splash fillies, it will be interesting to see if the trend continues or if she decides to mix it up this time. Either way it will be a wonderful foal that I can’t wait to meet!

I have been preparing for Winter here on the farm and that has included moving a few ponies around. Because we didn’t breed Thistle this year she got moved to one of the mare pens while Mac moved into her old pen that shares a fence line with Cyclone. While Cyclone wasn’t to happy that Thistle left, he did enjoy roughhousing with Mac over the fence and they seemed to become fast friends. It was rather entertaining to watch and I was amazed to see how close Mac is to Cyclone’s height at just 18 months. It will be fun to see how tall he is as a two year old.

Cactus went to his new home today! While I will miss the sweet boy, I know he has a fabulous family who will give him all the love and attention he deserves!

As a follow up to our stallion color post, here are the coat color results from the mares in our herd. 

I have mentioned this before but in case you missed it, in the last year and a half I have done some fairly extensive DNA testing on my herd. This has been for fun and to learn more about the Chincoteague pony breed as there aren't a ton of Chincoteague's that are color tested much less have health or ancestry testing done on them.

​The results have been invaluable and will no doubt strengthen my breeding program and how I manage my herd going forward. Not to mention it feels like Christmas when you get the results back.

Cactus had a full day today, he started out his morning at daddy daycare (aka hanging out with his dad at over the fence). I’m pretty sure Thistle loves having Cyclone babysitting over the fence! It’s always so precious.
After daddy daycare he had a short leading lesson with me and then spent the rest of his morning napping and grazing while I was at church.
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Later this afternoon he was my “helper” and we both cleaned the waterer and made sure it was ready for Winter. While Cactus wasn’t an abundance of help in handing me tools he did provide comic relief and was adorable (and we know that’s hard work in and of itself) so he got extra kisses and made up for my moments of panic when he was close to breaking things.
Finally, he ended his day by enjoying grass on the other side of the fence as it is no doubt better than the grass on his side.

Cactus watching his daddy (Cyclone) over the fence and a quick picture I got before his nose was up to the camera!

I have some extremely exciting news to share but first, let me start at the beginning. ⬇️

Trailer loading practice for Cactus. It didn’t take long and he was hopping in and out like a pro! He is such a good little fellow <3
Here is a video: ​https://youtube.com/shorts/V4H9yStngS0?si=CWt2JNZ3umaQ5TTC

Picture time for Cactus!  I finally had the chance to get some good photos of him for his registration papers and for fun! As with most of my herd, he will be double registered ICPAR and PtHA! It will be hard to say goodbye to him when he goes to his new home later this Fall, he is such a sweetie!