June 16, 2009 – New Newsletter

Well, I’m sure some of you have seen our various experiments in starting electronic newsletters. I’ve finally got one going that I think will work out well. It will just give us another way to distribute important information quickly. I think it would also be nice to have some different write-ups in the newsletter on topics of interest to all of you. If you have something you think would be neat to discuss, please let me know!

To sign up for this new newsletter, there is a contact form you can access by clicking here.

Thanks for your interest and support!

June 16, 2009 – Dryhead Horses

It has been a fun summer watching the Dryhead horses. An early surprise, of course, was the birth of Blizzard and Strawberry’s beautiful colt. For everyone who has gotten a chance to see him and who has continued to worry about his leg injury, he’s doing very well! I think (and hope!) that he will be just fine in the end. Here are a few of the things I’ve seen with the Dryhead horses this spring.

One recent event that a number of people have gotten to enjoy is the birth of a colt to Admiral and his mare Seneca. The foal is a bay with a really unique blaze – He is very reminiscent of his older half brother Exhilaration.

Bristol’s young mare also had a foal this year – It is her first, and it is likely Bristol’s first offspring as well. The foal is a nice dun colt.

Durango is, of course, one of my favorite Pryor horses. Seeing him is always a lot of fun for me. This spring, he and his harem have been in one of the more remote areas of the range; and so finding them can be a little challenging. Last time I saw them, they were in a canyon that had a small watering hole in it. Earlier this spring, Durango’s mare had a dun colt. He always seems to be a bold little thing when I see them. Also, Durango’s son from 2007 has really gotten to be a great looking horse. Last year he had his minor leg injury, and he was still recovering from that into the fall. Coming out of the winter, though, he’s doing great.

Durango’s daughter from 2005 is currently with Merlin. This spring, she had her first foal. She has been going back and forth between Merlin and Starbuck this past year; and so I would guess Starbuck is the foal’s sire based on its color. She is a really pretty foal; but she has unfortunately gone missing recently.

I am sorry for my delay in writing a new blog lately. I’ve got a couple ideas for some other blogs, and I will try to get them up as soon as I can too.

May 21, 2009 – Life and Death

In the Pryors, I sometimes find horses missing from their harem. Sometimes I find them with a different harem, and sometimes I just can’t figure out where they are. If they aren’t seen for a year, then they are believed to be deceased. This of course changes if their remains are found, but it can be difficult to find a deceased horse. Recently, though, I found two of these horses on the same day. I found one by hiking out to an area I saw a lot of ravens at. As I got there, I realized it was Wounded Knee, a dun mare that had been with Teton.

Wounded Knee was one of my favorite mares. She was born in 1992 to Froggie and Froggie’s dun mare. Though she ended up living as a Burnt Timber horse with Teton, she started out as a Dryhead horse with Sir Lancelot. I couldn’t see anything too obvious about why she died, but she had been looking very healthy before she died. I am very interested in the genetic representation of the horses in the herd, and she has been one I was hoping would foal again because she only has one offspring on the range and this is her only offspring to have reproduced – Merlin.

Atlantis is a mare that was with Duke. In October, I found her and her foal to be missing from Duke; and I just couldn’t find her at all. I now know that she, and presumably the foal, died. She died a short distance from Wounded Knee; we found her walking back with Wounded Knee. There was not much left of her, but there was enough there for me to know who it was.

Atlantis was born in 2001, and so she was a younger mare. I couldn’t tell why she had died from her remains.

But the Pryors aren’t just a place of death, there is also a lot of new life out there, especially this year. I’ve found 14 foals to be born thus far, and here is a photograph of 12 of them (the other 2 I have only been able to watch with a spotting scope thus far). Please click on this photograph to get to the bigger version of it.

There are still a number of pregnant mares out too, and so we are far from the end of this year’s foaling season.