Day 22 ~ the Hartpury Stud Farm

Today I spent my first day up at the Hartpury Stud farm! Hartpury has around 5 stallions and 24 brood mares. Three currently have foals, atleast 4 are with foal, and one is due July 1st (the average gestation period for a mare is 11 mos)! When I arrived up at the stud farm, which is a good 10-15 minute walk up a large hill at one end of the campus, a guy named Matt gave me a tour of the facilities and showed me around to all the yearlings, and 2-4 year olds. Here, the horses are kept out to pasture in a natural environment, still being messed with in-hand by people, until they reach the mature ages of 3-4 when they are started under saddle. The majority of the horses are warmbloods and thoroughbreds. After the tour, I met Lotta who is the head of the stud farm. She is from Sweden and has been working with artificial insemination for over 30 years! After lunch, I go to see the collection of semen from a stallion using a dummy and an artificial vagina. I watched Lotta run a lot of tests on the sperm to check for multitude,and motility under a microscope. She let me see and it was actually very fascinating to watch the little swimmers! Then, we inseminated the mare using an insemination rod. At Hartpury, they do not use any frozen semen  because there is a smaller percentage that the mare will take, and upon thawing the semen there is a shorter window (12 hours) in which it can be implanted (so the mare better be ready to ovulate!) So fresh is best because you have a 48 hour window in which the sperm can live in the uterus and the mare will take up.

Artificial Vaginas

The dummy

Introducing the stallion to the dummy

Getting ready to collect, Go Lotta!!!

After the insemination, a farrier came out to trim the foals' feet! His name was Barry and he was the most knowledgeable, charismatic farrier I have ever met! Incredibly intelligent, and an older gentleman, he explained everything down to the tee so that I would understand what and why he was doing what he was to the foals' hooves. He explained what he was looking for (the heels to be as close to the ground as possible) and the toes to be slightly pointed out or straight. The foals ranged from 15 days to 4 weeks old and had already been seen by the farrier every week of their little lives! That was cool. This way they'll grow properly and learn how to walk and carry themselves appropriately and stretch their tendons to prevent injury in the future! When he was finished, he took Matt and I out to his truck and showed us an amazing photo album of some extraordinary corrective shoeing and farrier work that he had done! This man was truly the best farrier I have ever seen. So kind and compassionate with a genuine love for horse feet! Awesome! After Barry left, I helped Matt and the other stable girls clean up the barns, then I got a lift back down to the main part of campus and went to dinner. Tonight will be a relaxing evening in my dorm with my laptop and a good book! Thanks for reading!

Me playin' with the foals!

"I'm so sleepy!!!"

Hi Mum!

"yawn"

Nap time!

Barry trimming feet

The foal pastures from the top of the hill!