Saturday, March 25, 2017

PREGNANT

I’m going to be a grandmother again. Neither of my daughters is pregnant, though. This will be a four-legged addition to my family. It’s coming with a tail and a mane. 

My TWH mare, Mallory, is pregnant. I found out Valentine’s Day. How romantic.

As best I can calculate, she’s due the first week of June. Horses gestate 11 months. When the vet preg-checked her February 14, he said she was about seven-and-a-half to eight months along. Flashback to my July 8, 2016, blog about her getting hung up on my fence, with her back half in my neighbor’s pasture, her front half in mine. Picture my neighbor’s stud munching contentedly as we worked to free her. Yep, that must have been the day.

“He took advantage of her while she was in a vulnerable position,” my youngest daughter said, when I told her the news.

“Are you kidding? “ I replied. “The shameless hussy backed up to him. How do you think she got into that position in the first place?”

My feelings are mixed. Yes, I’m excited. I’ve thought about getting a foal out of Mallory. I’ve thought about the fun of raising one. Foals are cute from Day One. They come out all legs. They stand on wobbly stilts within an hour of birth. 

Someone told me it would be difficult for her to get pregnant for the first time at her age. (She’ll be 15 in April.) So much for that argument.

Raising a foal is a lot of work. You have to handle it from Day One. You have to gentle it. You have to feed it. You have to train it. All of that takes time and money. I know nothing about the daddy’s side of the family — he was a rescue with no papers. Even when you know the lineage, you can’t be sure you’ll get a good horse out of the deal. 

Mixed emotions aside, I’ve been thinking about names. Ever since I watched Richard Boone in the 1950s television show, “Have Gun, Will Travel,” I’ve wanted a black horse named Paladin. If Mallory’s foal is a black colt, that will be his name. It might be even if he isn’t black. His daddy was red, so who knows? I’m contemplating “Cheyanne” if it’s a philly. I’m not set on that one.


Any suggestions?

1 comment:

  1. I'm pretty good at naming dogs once I see them but never named a colt.
    Good luck with that little scutter.

    ReplyDelete