Baby Batter

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Approximately two weeks ago, I awoke to the sound of two giant brontosauruses fighting. Honestly there I was, warm and cozy and cuddled up next to Clay. And the next thing I know, giant dinosaurs were having a giant squabble right next to my bed. At the crack of dawn.

Where we’re staying currently, our room is right next to the horses: the barn is essentially an extension of our living accommodations. We like it that way because if anything goes wrong, we are generally right there to investigate. Like in the event of a dinosaur fight.

I threw on a hoodie and ran outside in pajama bottoms and flip flops. And as I arrived in the barnyard, the two culprits looked at me with innocent eyes as if to say, “What’s going on? You’re up early…”

Argh. Mares!

Double Argh for mares that are stabled next to each other and are in heat…

As luck would have it, I had scheduled an ultrasound appointment with one of our vets, Tammi Roalstad for today. Since it’s time to start thinking about breeding again, I asked Tammi to ultrasound Chicolet (my original non-pro mare, turned matriarch broodmare) and see where we were at in her cycle.

Upon the ultrasound examination, Tammy exclaimed, “WOW! Chicolet has a big ol’ follicle…”

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I could barely believe my eyes when Tammy showed me a 40mm-sized follicle on her ultrasound monitor. What timing… Here I was trying to get a game plan in place for breeding and ordering semen. I didn’t realize I’d need semen today!

Armed with two cell phones in my pockets, I made a desperate call to one of our stud owners. It went a little something like this:

ME – “Hi Cinder Lakes Ranch. I need semen. Like, now…”
OTHER END “…Unfortunately Jenn, our collection days are odd days this month. And today is an even day.”

Of course it was an even day.

OTHER END “But, I did have a canceled dose from yesterday. If I stuck that under the microscope and it still looks good, would you be interested in it? I could get it on a flight to you and you’d have it about 5 hours.”
ME – A dance of joy that might have resembled Steve Carell in an episode of
The Office.

Cinder Lakes Ranch totally came through for me. Within a couple of hours, that dose was on a flight towards Chicolet and I.

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Early that evening, Clay and I whipped into the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport and found our way to American Airlines.

When I walked in wearing boots and jeans, the lovely ladies at the cargo holding area said, “You must be here for the Baby Batter…”

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The Baby Whatter??

“Baby Batter. It’s what we call shipments of little horses-to-be,” the ladies smile at me. “We get a lot of them at this time of year.”

Gotcha! Baby Batter… That’s brilliant!!

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Back at the barn, Tammi meets us for the second time today. But this time, it’s pretty dark.
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She checks the motility of the “Baby Batter” and despite the fact that its yesterday\’s dose, things are looking really good!

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You gotta love good vets and helpful stallion stations. I know I do!

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