07.24.10

New foals!

Posted in Horse Breeding, Horse Color at 3:29 PM by Administrator

June and July have been very busy here at the farm. 

Our Haflinger mare, Dunrovin Freya presented us with a lovely Sport pony filly on June 7th, by our Arabian stallion, Moonlight Money Maker.  STM Blue Valkyrie is a chunky little girl with tons of white and lovely blue eyes.  Since Freya is a Haflinger with no pinto genes we were hoping for a little color from this cross and once again, MMM pleased and suprised us with a flashy pinto out of a solid mare!  Kree is for sale.

On June 9th, Sonora gave us a lovely blue eyed bay splash filly by MMM.  Filly is 87.5% Arabian and will be registered as a Half-Arabian and is PtHA eligible.  STM Blue Dharma is very balanced and athletic.  

One of our leased mares, Bourbons Scarlett Kiss, presented us with a stunning purebred Arabian filly by MMM on June 18th.  STM Blue Velvet is a black splash sabino with blue eyes like her sire.  She is incredibly typey, delicate and the sweetest girl we’ve had to date!  She loves people and is NOT for sale. 

July 4th was cause for more celebration than just Independence day, as AMYR Tiffany gave us STM Independence by MMM.  Mindy is a very delicate, exotic and typey bay purebred Arabian filly.  She is primarily Crabbet and has the classic Crabbet look.  She is for sale.

BEMA Pearl graced us with a fabulous filly on July 5th by MMM.  STM Ruby Blue is a purebred Arabian filly, buttermilk bay (looks buckskin) with one blue eye and one partial blue eye, large belly spots, and tall stockings. She a classically bred filly that is tall and correct.  She is for sale.

We’re on foal watch with several more mares and I hope to be posting more baby photos soon!

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04.22.10

Hello world!

Posted in Farm Life, Horse Breeding, Horse Color, Horse Training, Horses at 8:39 PM by Administrator

Welcome to what’s up at Shatormar Arabians!  Most of these posts will deal with our horses, but there may be a few random thoughts here too!  

We’ve been enjoying the gorgeous weather this week, cold nights and sunny, cool days.  The winter was hard on the farm, so we’ve been spending our time doing spring clean up: repairing fences, cleaning out the run-in sheds, clearing downed branches and reseeding any bare patches in the pastures. 

The horses are shedding profusely!  A recent grooming session produced muticolored fur “carpeting” covering the yard by the barn.  The birds were happily swooping down to collect the loosened fluff for nests. 

We’re expecting a large foal crop this year and our first baby arrived right on time on April 2, 2010 at 6:10 pm.  Momma is our Abu Farwa Fantasy daughter, Chocolate Snowflake and daddy is our wonderful stallion, Moonlight Money Maker (MMM).  Abu Farwa Fantasy was Abu Farwa’s most champion producing daughter and Chocolate was her last foal.  So any baby out of our girl Chocolate is always a treasure!  While Choc is a veteran broodmare, this time the old girl has some trouble!  Her foal got stuck and wasn’t coming along.  After checking the foal was in the correct position by vaginal palpatation (front feet forward with head tucked up against them-often refered to as the diving position) we waited to see if things would progress on their own.  After 20 minutes of obvious contractions with no progress, it was decided to help her along.  So I reached on in and grabbed one tiny hoof and on the next contraction applied a steady pull.  One foot popped out a few inches, so I reached in and grabbed the other one and again applied a steady pull  until the second foot popped out.  Still no head…so on the next contraction I reached in and grabbed that little muzzle and again applied a slow, steady pull until a tiny, little pink muzzle popped out.  We quickly cleared the amniotic membrane from the tiny muzzle and saw little fluttering nostils trying to take a breath. On the next contraction, I grabbed one leg and Shawn grabbed the other and we applied the same steady pull, until suddenly the foal slipped out up to it’s hips and then got stuck again!  We quickly cleared the membrane we could, to see a very much alive, bright eyed baby hanging from her momma!  A hard snort cleared any fluid from her nostrils and she gave a big, snorty inhalation of breath and started looking around.  Two more contractions came and went, with baby just hanging out of her standing momma, still stuck at the hips. So on the next contraction, I lifted up her front and and we eased her to the ground as she slid free from her momma.  A quick inspection noted that she is a girl, a beautiful bay sabino filly with all the right parts!  After disinfecting her umbilical and the feathers on the bottom of ther hooves, we backed off to let momma and baby bond.  Everything after that went smoothly and Chocolate is a very good mother.  We dubbed the new filly, Fancy!  Now to figure out her registered name.  She is the spitting image of her grand-dam Abu Farwa Fantasy so we’re leaning toward something with Fantasy or Fancy in it. 

Fancy is now 2 weeks old and doing well.  She’s a refined little girl, with lots of bounce. Because of Chocolate’s age, we’re keeping a filly by our different stallions to be her replacements.  So Fancy will be her replacement in the broodmare band by Moonlight Money Maker.  We’ve also kept her daughter, STM Celestial Snow aka Shelby, whose by Magics Ala Breeze as a future broodmare. Shelby will be 2 this year.  We plan to try breeding Chocolate to Bourbon Caballero for a foal next year, but he’s sub fertile so we shall see… last time she didn’t catch so we’re trying again.

The next gal due is our Haflinger mare, Dunrovin Freya.  This will be Freya’s first foal and we’re watching her like a hawk!  She’s as big as a house but comfortable.  She’s due any time now and the foal watch rotation is in full swing.  Her foal will be a half Arabian sport pony by our stallion, MMM. 

As some people know, we sent our” for sale” boys to a trainer to be started under saddle and sold.  We recently discovered that the trainer did absolutely nothing with them, so we have them back which was not planned.  After scrambling to find room for them, we are trying to get them sold as quickly as possible.  Luckily, no abuse or neglect happened, the trainer just did nothing with them so they haven’t been handled in a while.  So one of our spring priorities is to get them handled daily, cleaned up and out of here!  I have requests for current photos and video, which I’ve been trying to get for two weeks now.  Sigh…everytime I’ve had the personel to showcase the horse while I snap photos or video it has rained!  The last two weekends it has poured and of course, this weekend’s forecast…. RAIN and thunderstorms.  ARRGHHHH!  Anyway, we’ve dropped the price on the boys to get them gone.  They will be started under saddle starting May 1st, at which point prices will have to increase.

One of the returned boys is Lucky Dream Time.  Lucky has finished maturing and we’ve decided that he should be gelded.  We’ve dropped his price ($750) to a fraction of what we paid for him as a yearling to find him a good home ASAP as I really do not have room for him.  He will be gelded prior to going to a new home. In the meantime, he’ s being worked with daily.  Today, after a lunging session he was saddled for the first time.  After a very brief sacking out session with the saddle pad, he was saddled and lunged again under saddle.  Nothing fazed him at all.  He was not the least bit concerned about the saddle pad, saddle, girth or having the saddle cinched up.  We plan to spend several days lunging him under saddle (riderless) and then start him with a rider next week.  So far he is as easy going and willing as I had anticipated he’d be.  Lucky is MMM’s full brother and the breeding really does tell….It constantly amazes me how willing and easy going Arabians are.  As a vet tech, I had the opportunity to work with many different breeds of horses and there was really no doubt Arabians are one of the most willing, intelligent and sociable breeds out there. 

Alot of people have been following the unfortunate saga of RWR Sonora.  A brief recap: Sonora is a bay tobiano and was registered with the AHA as a purebred Arabian (supposedly Sirokko Shaklan x D CR Sasha).  Her parentage had been verified by DNA when she was registered by her breeders: Killian & Drena Dill.  Her papers showed DC Ruda as Sonora’s breeder, which is incorrect as Mr. Ruda died prior to Sonora’s birth or the breeding that produced her. The Dills told me that Ruda’s executor had signed off on the registration form.  The Dills sold her to Erika Cronholm of AmErika’s Arabians in Sultan, WA.  Erika Cronholm had Sonora for sale as a tobiano purebred Arabian.  Since we are color breeders of purebred pinto Arabians, Sonora was of incredible interest to us.  After a lot of digging and talking to the AHA, the breeders and Erika we purchased Sonora.  There was a lot of controversy over Sonora being purebred so the AHA requested that her DNA be redone to reconfirm parentage.  This was supposed to have been done prior to us picking Sonora up in April 2008. Erika had lots of excuses as to why it wasn’t done but guaranteed that any parentage test would reconfirm.  We picked Sonora up in April 2008 and brought her home.  Over the next year, DNA was redone and checked out….but then the AHA requested bloodtyping.  We were fine with that as the DNA had check out fine so…….we had the vet out and sent the blood in.  In WA the Dills also submitted blood per the AHA’s request. Unbeknownst to  Erika and the Dills, Mr Ruda has sent in blood for bloodtyping on Sasha back in 1991 so that was on file.  When the registry compared the blood it was NOT a match.  Sonora’s dam is actually an unregistered half-Arabian daughter of Sasha, not Sasha herself.  We received a letter from the AHA on September 5, 2009 that Sonora was not purebred and so her papers were being pulled and she was also ineligible for half-Arabian registration due to the fraud involved with her papers.  We were devastated and shocked.  We immediately contacted Erika Cronholm expecting her to make things right as promised, but that did not happen.  New evidence came to light that Erika knew Sonora was not purebred prior to our purchase of her.  We have had to file criminal complaints for fraud and theft by deception against Erika Cronhom and AmErika’s Arabians.  The attorneys are currently working on things and I will keep folks updated as I’m able to.   

A lot of people were extremely rude and nasty about Sonora when we thought she was purebred.  While tobiano has never been recorded in the Arabian breed in modern times there is a lot of evidence that it MAY have been in the breed back in the desert so a purebred tobiano is not inconceivable.  For decades a lot of Arabian breeders denied that sabino or splash was in the breed, when it has in fact been there all along.  And modern mutations have produced one known bloodline of Dominant White in the Arabian that wasn’t seen before.  So tobiano was a possibility….as a rare crop out pattern or new mutation.  Unfortunately Sonora is NOT purebred so there is still not tobiano in the breed….

So that’s what’s currently going on at Shatormar Arabians.

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