00:00

Welcome back to Katching Up With Katie. It's been a couple of weeks since we've all sat down and done this, and it has been a while indeed.

00:10

That… that's a little combination of “did” and “done.” I've been combining words lately, honestly. Gorgeous. Gorgeous.

00:17

Yeah, gorgeous was the word this morning. Beautiful and gorgeous together. But it's just been a minute since we did a little debrief and talked about what's been happening.

00:27

It's been quite crazy. And honestly, this past seven days, past ten days, can step on a Lego.

00:36

I don't really know anything worse to say than that. It sucks, but we're just happy to be alive. We're all safe.

00:46

You might notice that there's a new little addition over to my right, so we'll talk about her in a moment.

00:53

Miss Lindsay is going to guide us in the events. Not all of them, there's too many, but the major events that have happened since our last little meeting.

01:04

So, the last thing we kind of touched on was Coco's birth and the eggs and D and D and whatnot.

01:13

Since then, the first thing I have on the list is the barn update. It's coming along. Yeah.

01:21

Right now it's obviously done a little bit later than what I had initially intended.

01:30

Wow. I do think there is someone in this room that had doubts about my timeline.

01:42

Big doubt. To be fair, if the weather had been perfect every single day, I think it would have been close. But we had lots of stuff happening.

01:53

So right now there are horses in the barn. Well, kind of. They're in the overhang outside of the barn because we had to put up some of the stalls.

02:02

We had already planned on doing some outdoor stalls, and so the quarantine mares, which we'll talk about in a second, and then a couple of the younger horses are out in those outdoor stalls just to give space for all the new foaling stalls.

02:17

Honestly, I should probably call it the foaling barn going forward. That's probably what it'll be known as and used for.

02:26

The OG barn. Yeah, the OG barn, the foaling barn, the big barn.

02:30

And then the new barn is basically where the training horses, yearlings, and all that good stuff are going to go.

02:36

So it's rocking and rolling. Pretty sweet. Yeah, we need to go look. We need to go do a little update video.

02:44

So, that… and then I guess we can go ahead and talk about this little peanut.

02:53

Oh. Are you stuck? I just woke her up. I just woke up a sleeping baby. I'm so sorry.

You got a new dog? Shut up. Shut up.

03:07

So I do want to get ahead of some things. I'm going to put her back over here. She's tired. This is Frankie.

03:14

She has lots of nicknames. Franken Beans and Frankenfer have been the ones that I've been using the most. Yes.

03:21

Frankie Panky, Frankincense, Francis, Francesca, Francine, Frank.

03:29

I call her Frank, Bob, and Frank a lot. So anyway, this is Frankie.

03:36

Frankie is 10 weeks old, or almost 11 weeks now. My friend Jenna Sepa helped me find her and then brought her to me and hung out for the weekend.

03:46

It was a good little weekend.

03:50

I want to get ahead of some things. On Katching Up With Katie, since we've begun, I believe in the early episodes the topic of a new dog was no, not getting one. Don't want one.

04:04

I think the next one needs to be Jonathan's dog. That was the consensus. You remember that? I remember that.

04:12

This is even earlier. This conversation was happening back in the Airbnb when we were

04:21

filming. That was a long time ago, and I was like, “No, no new dogs.” To be fair, that's been like two years ago.

04:28

Since then I started talking about getting another dog.

04:34

I started saying, “Well, I don't think we want to get a hunting dog or a whatever dog.”

04:40

Since then, the rhetoric has been, “Poor Jonathan.

04:46

Jonathan didn't get his dog. She's so spoiled and gets whatever she wants and runs over him.” That's been the consensus.

04:55

And I just want to point something out. Jonathan bought me this dog for Christmas. I did not. She didn't even know.

05:03

I didn't get this dog. This dog was a surprise.

05:07

He knew if I ever got another English Bulldog that I had lots of things on the list for health testing, yeses and nos about breeders.

05:18

He did the very smart thing and reached out to one of my friends that knows more than he does, and then she helped him. So I didn't… he bought me this dog.

05:27

Okay, number two. I believe that my dogs would have been dead long ago if he was the only one looking after them.

05:36

Okay, love the man to death, but animals… he can build a fence so fast.

05:45

He can build so many things. He's so good at so much stuff. He's been amazing foaling this year. He's been so hands-on.

05:56

No, you stay up here. But his brain just doesn't work in animal care.

06:06

He doesn't think, “I should probably feed the dogs. I should probably check and see if they have water.” Yeah.

06:15

“They probably need to go to the vet.” That does not go up there.

06:19

And so I would love to help him have a dog that he has companionship with in the future when we have the space.

06:26

You're going to be like, “You have a farm.” We don't live on that farm, and we live on a 55-mile-per-hour highway. I want to live somewhere else before we get a working dog that needs the time and space.

06:39

We had talked over the past year about how Winnie is like four. It would probably be good to get a puppy before she's old and crotchety.

06:47

Yeah. We decided that we wanted… I wouldn't call bulldogs low maintenance, because a well-bred one isn't super high maintenance.

06:58

But you give them some toys, they go outside a little bit, and they're pretty chill just hanging out with you.

07:07

They're not in need of a lot of exercise beyond a normal amount.

07:13

They're not like a really high-energy dog, like a Border Collie or a hunting dog that needs lots of stimulation. Winnie will play, but she'll get tired.

07:22

Not tired, but she'll be like, “I'm going to go lay down.” So we were like, you know what, that kind of fits our needs right now. Then he surprised me with her for Christmas.

07:32

So Frankie… I just need y'all to know that if he took care of the dogs, I would have no problem with him getting whatever dog he wanted. But he doesn't.

07:40

He has no hand in keeping them alive. He just doesn't have that in him. No, he doesn't have it in him. That's okay. Yeah, we all have our strengths.

07:49

So anyway, that was another addition. I think it's been almost a week. She's been here for six days. Last Friday.

07:57

Yeah. So Frankie, Frank the Tank… that's another one. Frank the Tank. Has anyone watched Old School? Oh yeah. That's a good one.

08:04

No one else had seen Old School. I like it. The Will Ferrell movie. It's a classic.

08:11

I'm aware of the movie. That's about as far as I know the tank of that. Frank the Tank in my life. Just look up Frank the Tank, that part.

08:20

There's a book. Plus we have new women. Yeah, we have three new women.

08:26

We have three new women. Ladies. The paint horses. Whatever. It's a horse, Lindsay.

08:37

We have three horses. Honestly, it's more like five new horses.

08:42

Oh, I forgot about the… We weren't even there. Yeah, I'm lost. They're hopefully not even coming to the farm.

08:49

I did purchase some new Thoroughbred mares. A friend of mine, her dad was sick and getting older and was selling off his Thoroughbred herd.

09:01

So I bought a couple Thoroughbreds, and we're hoping to put embryos in them.

09:05

Didn't you also happen to purchase them— Lindsay, relax. Lindsay, slow down.

09:15

Okay, no one knows about that. Oh, okay. I didn't know we hadn't said anything about it yet. So yes. Oops. We'll talk about that later.

09:24

The two Thoroughbreds, their names are Kimberly… sorry, Kimmy. That was just her name. Kimberly and Melody.

09:31

They are hanging out at my friend's house, and hopefully they'll just get bred and then be sold with the embryos in them.

So you're buying them to sell them essentially. Yes. Okay.

09:44

So because the recip farms where you rent a recip, it's like $4,500 to $7,500 to rent for a year.

09:54

Wow. So if you can own some mares, it usually works out better. You just don't have the convenience of having a mare ready whenever you want it.

10:04

So those two aren't even on the farm. But the ones on the farm are New Woman, Big Yellow Machine, and Out Maneuvered.

10:14

Outmaneuvered is sick. Yeah, Outmaneuvered. Cool name. I've shown y'all their pictures before.

10:22

I don't think I've shown the ladies' picture, but New Woman is a 16-two-hand red Thoroughbred mare. She's huge.

10:31

Big one. Yeah, big girl. She's 16'2", red, big white stockings, white belly spot. So she can be registered.

10:40

I'm going to have to look up the exact rules because rules change a lot within APHA, which is the American Paint Horse Association.

10:51

I would have bought her regardless. But I think if I register her as a Paint broodmare, even though she's a Thoroughbred,

10:59

you can register Thoroughbreds with AQHA and APHA as broodmares to have appendix babies.

11:05

If I register her through APHA because she has qualifying white markings, I think her babies can be double registered.

11:15

Okay. If I breed her to a Quarter Horse stallion, I think her babies can be double registered. I will double-check.

Forgive me for asking this… Being double registered means they can show at both Paint Horse and Quarter Horse shows. Okay, cool.

11:28

So they have a double whammy. You can win many things. Or you just have the availability to choose.

11:38

She's really cool for that reason, and she's a Thoroughbred that moves amazingly. She's five and has never had any babies. We're going to breed her to Code Red.

11:48

Last year, this is why I've shown y'all these, I told my friend Jenna,

11:55

“Hey, no rush. Whenever you see something that's a nice

12:02

mare within my recip budget… recip being a surrogate mare budget… let me know.” I said, “If you see a nice mare that could possibly have her own

12:11

baby and is loudly colored and double registered, let me know.” That's a tall order. Very.

12:18

I'm like, that's a tall order. Just keep an eye out for that. I had these two horses bought an hour later.

12:25

She's like, “Oh yeah, here's two.” She served it on a platter. And I was like, dang. Okay.

12:33

So I bought these mares. They stayed in Colorado until a couple weeks ago.

12:38

We're trying to breed Big Yellow Machine. She's a palomino overo. We're trying to breed her to Denver.

12:45

Then we're trying to utilize Ariel, the red one, as a recip this year. We'll see in the future.

12:52

Next year, if all goes well, because everyone gets mad at me about having all red babies and bay babies, if this breeding season goes well we'll possibly have a Sophie baby, a Blondie baby, and a Buttercup baby.

13:08

So we'll potentially have either buckskins or palominos. Wow. They're all still going to come out red.

13:15

Yeah, they're all still going to come out solid red. Whatever you order, it's going to be the complete opposite. But yeah, so we have the new mares.

13:24

That all was happening last week. We had a really busy last week. And I think right now I don't have any plans of buying any more.

13:35

I think we're full. You never do. I think we're full. I need y'all to acknowledge how many I say no to.

13:43

People just serve me horses constantly to buy. I've said no so much.

Dang. Has there been any horses that you're like, “I really want it, but I just can't do it”? There's been a couple. I wish you would tell us so I can be like, buy it.

14:00

No, I've had a couple. You know, we'll see.

14:04

But do they— That's the new horses. Sweet. Cool. Oh, and you're forgiven for that question, by the way.

What question?

14:13

My “forgive me for asking this.” I just wanted to let her know that I was forgiven. She is forgiven.

14:22

Thank you. By the way, if it stinks, it's because she did it. She did it.

14:27

Okay. Right. Her little tootsies do be stinking so bad.

14:36

Puppy tootsies, so bad. I just hold her paw. I do too, all the time. It's so meaty. I love when she puts her head in your hand.

14:44

Have we… could you see her eyebrow? Look at her eyebrow. Oh, yeah. Can you see her on camera? So cute.

14:52

Yes. Look at her eyebrow. I'm sorry. You go back over here. Kimmy, thank you so much for laying with her.

14:59

They haven't really loved each other yet, so this is good.

15:02

This is so, every time a horse has been born, which I think the only birth we haven't talked about on here is Lexi.

15:13

Yeah.

15:13

And Lexi's baby's name is Benedict, which is hilarious because in his birth video, I think I'm like, “His name is Tater and Pater,” calling him something completely different.

15:23

His name is Benedict.

15:25

And so I want to flip the script and ask you, okay, about… because this is your first foaling season.

15:32

I want to know your thoughts on Lex's birth. Okay. So, wild process. Obviously, the horse… the baby came out fine, whatever.

15:42

And then, which that was another foal alert call of being like, “Foal alert! Everyone awake!” Where was everybody?

15:49

I don't even know what time it was. I don't even remember. It was 5:30 in the morning.

15:54

Oh, I was tossing and turning in my bed, and you— Yeah, this is the daytime one. Yeah, this was the morning one. That was a brutal day.

16:02

I didn't go to bed till like— Yeah, y'all looked so defeated when I got here. We all stayed up so late playing Dungeons and Dragons.

16:08

Yeah, y'all were so, so dead when I got here. I mean, nobody… I didn't think… yeah.

16:16

Because she was also really early. Yeah. So, she had him at like 322, 323 days. We were watching Charlotte. We were watching Charlotte. Yep.

16:23

And then I get up, I'm putting on my shoes, whatnot, and we get there, and she's starting to have the baby.

16:32

Everything was going great. I wasn't worried or anything about what was happening.

16:36

But then when the baby actually came out, they were like, “He's moving, but he's not really picking his head up. He's not being…” He looked pretty deceased.

16:48

Yeah. And so I was like… which, I'm laughing now because we actually had… we'll get to that.

16:55

Don't take my funny demeanor right now as… it's totally a trauma response.

Anyway, yeah, you looked concerned, but you told me that you and Matt had been like, “Yeah, this one’s toast. This one’s toast.”

17:10

But once y'all tilted him upside down and all the… I don't know why he had so much fluid, because the bag hadn't broken or anything like that.

17:20

And so when he came out, I heard him try to take some breaths, and it was just like… it was so blocked.

17:28

So probably within literally a minute of him coming out, Jonathan and Austin… I was like, “Come over here and support him in this way.” And then they tilted him completely upside down.

17:39

Do you remember the initial rush of fluid out of his body? And then after that, it was like a slow trickle. We just let it trickle out for a bit.

17:47

But yeah, I was shocked. I've never seen that much fluid come out of a baby. But yeah, that was crazy. And then once we got the fluid out of him, he did okay.

17:55

But he was like a mild dummy foal. Yeah.

18:00

So, he was up and pooping and walking around and curious and definitely trying to eat, but you never noticed him like…

18:09

You noticed latch, but not even latch. He wouldn't really turn his head. You'll see a lot of them kind of suckle the air, and he just really wasn't suckling.

18:17

He was kind of wandering. He was just kind of wandering around. And so we did the Madigan squeeze and all that good stuff.

18:22

So, it all ended up well, but I feel like we're putting your nervous system through it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I cried yesterday because of the goats. You did?

18:36

I texted Rachel. I was like, “I'm going to cry right now.” When? After I left. I'm okay.

18:46

She's my favorite. I was really sad. And it'll be okay. It's better that it happened when it did. So, okay, for context, yeah, that's why this week can go step on a Lego.

18:56

And it comes in threes, so maybe it's done. I really hope so. Maybe it's done. So, last night, and it's always at 4:50 when everyone… when you were trying to leave.

19:05

It's like when we're leaving to go home is when things happen. So, we were pulling in after being at the barn all day.

19:14

We pass by the goats all day, every day. I pretty much take a little quick mental note, subconsciously, every time we see them.

19:24

There's not many of them, so you can kind of see all of them at once, and generally they're all together.

19:29

And I looked out there and I was like, “Honey's not out there.” And they were like, “Yeah, she was.” And I was like… so we literally stopped, backed up, and she wasn't out there.

19:38

So we pulled around, and we saw her sitting in front of the kidding castle. That's what we call their little house.

19:45

The door was open, and she was just standing in the door. I'm like, “Mm, that's not… yeah, that doesn't look good to me.” Because generally that means something's wrong if they've gone off by themselves.

19:56

And so we went in there, and of course when we went in there, all the goats came rushing in.

20:02

She didn't look sick, and she wasn't acting really weird by any means.

20:11

At first glance, I'm like, “You look okay.” But then she turned around, and she had afterbirth on her.

20:20

Yeah.

20:20

And then we went and did some investigating, which I'm very glad you were not in there. Very glad you stayed outside. What do you mean, investigating?

20:28

Not digging. Just like… investigated around. I'm very glad you did not go in there.

20:35

Because there were three little kid fetuses. Fortunately for her, she wasn't very far along, so it was probably a very easy passing.

20:47

And so she wasn't due until the end of May, so we're two and a half, three… she's only like halfway through her pregnancy.

20:55

And so she had triplets. So what we did… I called my vet, and we got her cleaned up, used some warm water and some soap,

21:03

got her cleaned up, gave her some antibiotics last night, some antibiotics today.

21:10

Just because we didn't know… because goats will eat their afterbirth a lot, like most animals will.

21:19

You want them to pass everything if they're birthing or if they're miscarrying, whatever. You just want them to get everything that's supposed to be out, out.

21:27

And so we did give her oxytocin this morning. Made sure that she expelled everything.

21:32

We're going to go give her some Banamine after this so that she can kind of calm down. And keep an eye on her.

21:40

But yeah, that's just… and from a lot of goat breeders' standpoint that I've talked to or seen comments from, it's a lot more common in first fresheners than anything.

21:51

Yeah.

21:51

I mean, it's common kind of anytime, but especially with the first fresheners, which she is.

21:57

So, but that's— Yeah. I texted Rachel. I was like, “I know I don't have any right to be upset, but—” No, you do. How do you… why not?

Yeah. Why don't you have any right? Because they're not mine. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they are. They are, but not really.

22:12

But even if they weren't… I mean, I'm around them and whatnot, but— No, they are. But even if they weren't yours, it's okay to be sad about sad things.

22:22

I mean, she's technically my puppy, but you're allowed to be sad if something bad happens to her because she's your friend.

That's fair.

22:30

So they don't have to be under your ownership for them to be your friends and to be sad about when they're hurting. That's just compassion.

22:38

And when things stop bothering you is when you shouldn't be farming anymore. True. Because then you're disconnected from it.

22:48

It's always about the love of the animals, and it's always about doing what's best for them and being stewards of them.

22:53

And when you get hardened to it… which I'm not going to say I'm not hardened to it a bit… it's different. You definitely know how to handle it.

23:00

I handle it in the situation, and then I go, like… yeah, break down afterwards. So, kind of leading into that situation was with Charlotte.

23:08

So Charlotte had a stillbirth this week.

23:15

We had been watching her like her due month.

23:20

We had been watching her for so long, and she had been just kind of holding out.

23:26

She was at 357 days, and she was finally… it was a Sunday evening, I believe. Yeah, I think it was a Sunday evening.

23:34

5:30, I think. So it was such an odd time. Yeah. 5:30 in the afternoon. Which makes me think something happened, and then she went into labor quickly.

23:43

That's why I think the baby died right before she foaled, because that'll usually cause a mare, or any mammal, to just go into labor.

23:51

And I don't believe she would have chosen to go into labor at the end of the day when there's a hustle and bustle in the barn.

23:58

I think if she had been in the correct state of everything, it would have been when everything's quiet.

24:04

But she went into labor at like 5:00, 5:30, and I was showing some of my family members my new puppy, who I'd only had for like a day.

24:15

I was in my pajamas, literally in my pajamas, just hanging out at the house, and the foal alert goes off.

24:22

And I'm like, “Oh my God.” So I jump and run.

24:25

Jonathan was out of town— No. Yeah, Jonathan was with his mom at the hospital because she had had a surgery.

24:34

Nobody had gotten here yet because it was so early, and it was right after everyone in the barn had left. So I was just by myself.

24:42

And so on the way over, I was calling Stephanie, who's our new trainer. She wouldn't answer, so I sent her a text.

24:48

I called Rebecca and Evan, who are five minutes down the road, and said, “Hey, I have no one. Please come.” Yeah.

24:56

And then Jonathan got the foal alert call, so he watched on the cameras and saw that I walked in by myself.

25:02

He noticed that I was by myself, so he's calling my dad and calling Stephanie and got them to come down.

25:09

And so then, honestly, Charlotte… I think it's hard to say that I'm glad to have seen her in

25:24

this birthing situation with the outcome that we had, because it was a sad outcome. But take away the sad outcome, she did fantastic.

25:35

She's the one I've been nervous about.

25:36

She's been the one that I've been like, “Oh, please don't kill your baby,” or, you know… Who knows? Hormones might have rushed differently had she gotten to see it and lick it and all the things.

25:47

But she already had the head, neck, front feet out. She was doing fantastic.

25:57

Hi, honey.

25:58

And hold on just— And she wasn't frantic or anything. She was just doing it like a broodmare.

26:07

Yeah, she was being like a seasoned broodmare. I wonder if she kind of knew. I don't know. And that's what… I'm waiting on test results still.

26:16

So, we sent off the placenta and the foal for testing to see kind of like a postmortem, like a necropsy kind of deal.

26:25

But when the foal was born… and here's the thing, there's always a moment when you don't see any life.

26:32

When it's coming through the birth canal, it doesn't really wake up until after that chest pressure has been released. So sometimes they're completely out of the sack and completely whatever, and there's nothing.

26:41

So I wasn't really worried at that point. And then when it popped fully out, I was like, “Hello.” Yeah.

26:50

I was like, “Hello, wake up.” Started vigorously rubbing it. Nothing's happening.

26:56

My dad hollered at Evan, and they got a bucket of water really quick while I was calling the vet.

27:02

Doused it with a bucket of water because sometimes that cold water will shock them. That's kind of more like an old cowboy technique, but it works.

27:13

Doused it with a bucket of water. Nothing happened. Still sitting there rubbing.

27:17

I got on the phone with Dr. Emily. She's like, “Do you feel anything?” And we felt the faintest of heartbeats.

27:26

Or at least what we think is a faint heartbeat. It's like, I don't know if in that moment it was adrenaline and feeling something.

Yeah. I don't… who knows, honestly. Yeah.

27:39

But she was like, “If there's an inkling of anything, get it here ASAP. Leave the mare. If you can leave the mare, leave her.” So, my dad's truck was pulled up.

27:48

We grabbed the baby and got it in the back of the truck.

27:51

I was in the back with him because we laid the seats up, or they were already laid up perfectly, actually. I get in the back seat.

27:58

Stephanie and Rebecca stayed back with Charlotte, and I'm so grateful for them. They made sure she was good.

28:04

And they said that after we left, she was just eating, letting them tie her placenta up, not mad at them or nervous or anything.

28:14

She was just good.

28:15

And so I did CPR the whole way there, which is not easy on a foal that's taking up most of the back seat.

28:26

And then I'm trying to make sure its neck is elongated so that the air actually gets somewhere, and trying to see if it's inflating anything.

28:36

But we got there, and obviously we tried when we got there with oxygen and listened and all the things.

28:42

But before we got there, I think midway there, I kind of just knew.

28:49

Because the meconium expelled from its body, and I was like, “That's not right.” So that was just freaking sad.

29:01

It was a perfect little bay filly. Just really freaking sad.

29:06

But it's one of those things where, yeah, calm in the moment, trying to cover everything, cover all the bases.

29:14

We get to the vet, and I'm probably seeming cold, honestly, because I'm like, “Well, this happened, this happened, this could have happened.” And I'm just kind of racking my brain for answers or whatever.

29:27

Dr. Christine even came over and hugged me, and I'm just like, you know… Yeah. I will always take a hug from Dr. Christine because she's kind of like me.

29:37

But it… I wasn't in that mode yet.

29:41

And then all the way home, we were kind of quiet because my dad had been the one to drive me there, and my vehicle was at the barn.

29:53

And I was like, “Yeah, probably just go drop me off at the barn. I'll go check on everything because I still had to give a couple of horses their meds.” Like Woody and stuff.

30:02

And so he dropped me off at the barn, and I started walking away from the truck.

30:07

I was already sobbing like 10 feet away from the truck, and then I hear him stop, and I just hear the car door.

30:13

And then he comes over and hugs me from behind, and it was just… like, then I just lost my ever-loving mind and threw up from crying so hard.

30:23

Like, just lost it. Because there was nothing else I could do at that point. There was no more trying to fix anything.

30:30

So I literally threw up in the driveway. I was crying so hard.

30:34

And that's why I texted y'all being like, “Hey…” because sometimes, honestly, it doesn't affect me that much, and I can go on and I can work the next day or whatever.

30:45

But I texted Lindsay and Elena, and I was like, “Hey,

30:50

I need a day off tomorrow. I need a break. I can't do tomorrow.” And hindsight's 20/20. Worst day to call off.

Oh, yeah. So much stuff needed to happen that day. I missed so much. Worst day to call off.

31:07

But I just needed to sleep. Yeah. I couldn't just be professional that day.

31:18

That's probably one of the only times… because even when Cool died, that morning I think I interviewed Rachel later that day. I think I was in robot mode.

31:26

But I don't know what it was about Charlotte's baby that I was just like, “I need to not do life for a day.” So yeah, this whole week has freaking sucked.

31:35

Oh, yeah. And Maggie had colic surgery at 300 days pregnant. Sheesh. How is she doing? That's next on my list.

31:42

She's doing great. Literally as good as they could be doing.

31:48

And so it's still hard to navigate because I've never had a mare have colic surgery that late in her pregnancy or whatever.

31:56

So it's an abdominal surgery, so immediately you go to thinking about pushing. What's that going to look like when she has to push this baby out?

32:06

And I talked to the surgeon about it. So what happened was her colon was displaced. Okay.

32:13

So, from the beginning, horses… I'm not going to question how they're created. I'm not questioning it. There's probably a plan. I don't know the plan, though.

32:22

The way that horses are put together is beyond weird. Yeah. And so their colon is just kind of hangy and floaty, and it shouldn't be.

32:34

And you can't tack them down the way that you tack dogs' colons down because they rip. They're more fragile.

32:41

So they are just kind of moving, even if they're healthy.

32:46

But it got on the wrong side of her body, and this is speculation, but it could have been the foal getting into position and moving it around.

32:54

So sorry, there's so much hand movement going on.

32:58

But the colon ended up getting underneath the foal on the wrong side of her body, and then the foal laying on it caused all the swelling and gas to build up within it.

Oh my goodness. So she's just in the worst pain of her life. And they had to go in and surgically move it back to where it was supposed to go.

33:19

And luckily, it was a healthy colon still. We caught it so quickly that it hadn't died or become a situation where they had to do a

33:27

resection or anything, because if they had to do any cutting out of it or sewing it back up, it would have been a very bleak situation.

33:36

But it was all good. Baby was good. She's like 304 days today, I think.

33:43

And so we would love for her to cook another month at least, if not six weeks. That would be fine because that would give her more time to heal.

33:53

But in the past, she's gone in the 320s, so that's like three weeks from now.

33:57

So I did ask them, “Can she need to come back to foal at the clinic? Can

34:04

she have her baby at home? What does this look like? Can she even push?” And they were like, “Honestly, we'll keep an eye on her,

34:11

but we think she can foal at home. If you feel like she needs to come back,

34:16

we can do that, but I don't think it's in her best interest to go sit in the hospital for

34:22

six more weeks. I think if she can be at home, it's better for her, especially around friends.” And she can't really go out yet.

34:29

She has to be on stall rest for another six weeks, I believe, with hand walking. And then after that, it's limited, and then she can go up from there.

34:37

It's definitely… in my opinion, some people have bred their mares after colic surgery. In my opinion, she's a recip mare.

34:46

Her job is to safely carry embryos that are super expensive, and that's the business side of it.

34:53

And then the other side of it is I see no reason for her to foal out another baby. Yeah. We're not using her genetics. There's no reason to really risk it, in my opinion.

35:02

She's a 9-year-old sound Thoroughbred.

35:06

And so I think our plan for her is, after she foals, after hopefully everything goes well,

35:17

after she foals and weans, then with Stephanie here at the property for the

35:25

next 60 to 90 days, maybe, or however long it takes, start her under saddle.

35:34

She's already been a racehorse, so she's been broke to a certain extent. So, start her under saddle, cattle, and all that.

35:40

We have a really big hunter community in our Middle Tennessee area, and they don't have to be a registered Quarter Horse. They can just be a horse. They don't have to be registered.

35:50

And I don't have her Jockey Club papers, but I'm sure I could probably get them.

35:53

And she's like 15.1 hands, so I think if we could get her going to then be a really cute hunter pony project for somebody, I think that would be her best-case scenario.

36:07

She's sound, she's sweet, she's cute, and she's a mover. I see no reason for her to sit in a pasture for 20 more years. I think she can go have a job.

Yeah. So I think we're going to do our best to set her up for that. But yeah, I feel like I just talked about a whole lot of sad stuff this entire time.

36:24

It was a week. Yeah. Unfortunately, that is just how it's been. So the cuteness factor does help.

36:33

The timing of this potato in my lap right now has been great.

36:42

It's been a nice little reprieve from sadness. Yes. But yeah, it sucks.

36:49

We've got like four babies left, four big babies left, two little babies. And then, yeah, the goats… it's sad that that happened.

36:58

And she is… let's see, how old is she? She's like 20 months.

37:03

And so I might do a little digging on what breeders think about, age-wise, first fresheners, because it might be in her best interest, if she is going to have babies in her lifetime, to go ahead and have some within this year.

Yeah. For the fact of her age. So it may be the case where Taz comes and hangs out with Honey and Bella in like April or May.

37:27

Yeah. For some fall kidding. Yeah. Just with two of them. I haven't decided on that yet, though. We'll see. That'd be fun.

37:35

So, yeah.

37:36

Was that about… I think that's about it as far as all the crap that's happened over the last two weeks. Yeah. Other than… oh, Stephanie is training. Oh, yeah.

37:44

If you haven't watched that video, putting saddles on the horses… what's your… what have you been enjoying watching that?

So, I've enjoyed watching Stephanie altogether. I've never been around a trainer. She just aura farms all day, truly low-key, though.

38:00

She just is too cool.

38:03

And whenever she does that little thing with the whip, so she holds her whip different and does it from the back, and I'm like, it's nice. It's so cool.

38:11

It's nice. It's pretty cool. It's farmy. Yeah. Yay. And she just doesn't care. She's so nonchalant and just does her stuff.

38:21

And I love the team of women. She's a baddie. We have baddies here.

38:27

So yeah, we all have a crush on Stephanie. It's fine. She's awesome. But seeing them… seeing Daphne buck was funny. Or Crossfire.

38:37

We're going to do some videos for their first rides. We haven't really done all their first saddling on YouTube. We did a video about Stephanie if you want to go watch that.

38:45

And we're going to try to get her in the hot seat on a Katching Up With Katie episode to kind of interview her and find out more about her. But yeah, I look forward to that.

38:54

I think, such is farm life, this past couple 10 days or so have been sad, but there are so many happy moments within it too.

39:05

It's just a very up-and-down mix of emotions. So yeah, I think that's everything that's happened over the last couple of weeks.

39:16

We have so much going on right now that I do think Katching Up With Katie is just kind of filling in as needed. I don't think it's an every-week thing until we get back to a normal schedule.

39:24

So let us know what you'd like to talk about on the next episode, if there are any videos that you want to see. And if you haven't checked out the new merch, there's new foal merch.

39:35

There's all kinds of new designs. KatieVanSlyke.net. Go check that out. And we'll see y'all in the next one. Frankie, wake up for them.

39:44

Say goodbye, Frankie.