Well, I thought maybe people were getting tired of hearing from me about the twins so I haven't updated in a while. However, I'm getting email requests and requests on my blog as well for an update so it must be time.
It's been an eventful spring here and thankfully most of that had nothing to do with the twins. It's a relief to finally be out of the woods with the little monsters. They took up so much of my life there for a while if refreshing to be dealing with issues with other horses.
Since the last update, Trouble and Surprise have been seperated from each other. I know there are those that had this romantic notion that they would always be together side by side happily ever after. But I can assure you that Surprise did NOT have the same view of life as that rosy picture.
By the time I weaned them from each other, the only one complaining was poor Trouble. Surprise was sick to death of the little varmit jumping on her, biting her on the hocks and whithers and chasing her around all hours of the day and night. Trouble had no clue that Surprise's reaction to his aggression was not just the filly wanting to play. It didn't matter how hard she kicked or bit or even struck him, the colt thought the game was on.
Before one of them got really hurt, I split them up. Poor Trouble cried and cried until he was hoarse. Surprise didn't make a peep! Trouble I put right next to the other yearling colt so they could get acquainted. Poor Trouble didn't think that colt was any replacement for his beloved sister.
For Surprise we put a partial wall back up dividing the big stall they had lived in. Then I put another yearling filly there for Surprise to get acquainted with before we turned her out with all of the yearling fillies. I switched the fillies around so Surprise was able to met all of them before they went out in the field together.
Once the weather let up, I turned Trouble out into a small paddock with Suede and the fight was on. It wasn't a bad fight. It was the same fight that Trouble was always trying to get Surprise to participate in, except that Surprise didn't play the game like a boy and Suede did. From that moment on Trouble was pretty happy about his new roomy. Those two darn colts reared and fought and chased each other into exhaustion and then collapsed in a head side by side. Trouble decided hanging out with the boys wasn't too bad after all. While he did call out for his sister occasionally now, it was more to say "Hey, Sis! How's it going?" than the plantive cry he started out with.
The first day out for Surprise I wasn't really sure what to expect. She and Trouble are still smaller than the other yearlings (though not by too much) and there are a couple of really bossy fillies in the group. But I never should have doubted Surprise. It took about 2 minutes and she was running the show. She is defintely the boss mare in that herd! She teamed up with the biggest, oldest filly of the bunch and they are great buds! They ae currently stalled together due to a housing crunch at Rising Rainbow Arabians and the two fillies share their food including their grain and there is never a squabble.
Both Trouble and Surprise are still being trimmed about every three weeks to correct the issues with their angular limb deformities. I'm happy to report that it's finally looking like they will both be straight legged in the near future.
They were finally old enough that it was safe to have the chiropractor work on them. While we knew they were very crooked from being so compressed inside their mom, we didn't dare do anything to remedy the situation until we were sure their bones were totally hardened.
To date they have each had a couple of appointments with the chiropractor. Surprise was much worse off than Trouble in the "crooked" department. Trouble was deviated enough to make a horse crippled for life so you can imagine what poor Surprise was like. Both twins resonded well to the treatment and held their adjustments really well for how bad they were out. Trouble only had one follow-up and is only on an as needed basis. Surprise needs regular follow-ups for a while. She was so twisted in her pelvis, it is still influencing her leg postion but we are most pleased with her progress.
Somewhere here about a month or so ago, Trouble woke up. I don't know how else to describe it other than he just plan woke up. From the day of his birth I was always worried about him, he was just too quiet and submissive for one of my colts. He began showing the first signs of normalcy at about 8 months but even that was subdued compared to what we have today. The strange thing about it is, he really does act like he just woke up. Things he used to do so well, he know acts like he's doing or seeing for the first very first time. It's almost like he's come out of a coma and doesn't remember anything that happened during that time.
Anyway, to sum this up, he woke up with such a vengenace he is now a gelding! While as a midget stud muffin he was absolutely darling! There just was no reason to be putting up with that behavior. He is an absolutely gorgeous black bay gelding who hopefully will mature to full size. I just really don't need anymore testosterone around here. Even at that he woops the snot out of the older bigger yearling colt!
For those who don't know much about twins, this is the year we should find out how they will mature as adults. Usually twins that stay small stop growing in their yearling year.
I expect that Surprise will not mature to her genetic size due to the crushing of that hock. However, she is a sound as a dollar (the dollar is sound now, isn't it?) but the affected hock is larger than the other. Only time will tell.
As for Trouble, I have no idea what to expect about his growth. We didn't do the additional x-rays because of the added expense and he was going to be in the stall with his sister anyway so doing them was only so we could be sure. Even at that we wouldn't be anymore sure than we are with Surprise for his growth. For me there didn't seem to really be much point. Only time will tell for him also. But looking at him yesterday racing around the round pen with Suede, I'm thinking he's doing to be one pretty fancy country horse.
That would bring us up to date except for the big event! Their birthday party. Trouble and Surprise are officially one year old! I did give them a party. The story and pictures are posted on my blog at http://risingrainbow.blogspot.com.
We're having our annual open house earlier this year due to Daffodil having a fund raising ride for St Jude's Children's Hopsital on my normal weekend. The date for our open house is July 15 from 1-4. The twins will again be featured and would love to see any and all visitors. They are still the biggest hams I know when it comes to people!
