Phyre Lyte

Phyre Lyte was the first foal born here on Shadow Ridge this season. She is the daughter of Phanze Phyre, (our gray Arabian mare and the full sister to my gelding)and the bay Egyption related Arabian stallion Tsarlyte. Her mother was due to deliver on April 7, and we had been on foal watch for several days. For those of you who are not aware of what foal watch means, it is getting up every hour of the day and night and walking out to the barn and looking to see if the mare is showing any signs of labor. There are three of us here, actually, two because my step father is usually to drunk to help, so it falls on Mom and me. We split the nights and days up so each of us gets at least a couple of hours of sleep each day/night. Well, at 5 am, I staggered down to the barn, ready to start my watch and walked in on a miracle in progress. Mom was already there, had been for a while, and Phanze was looking very lovingly at the newborn foal on the ground at her feet.

Phyre took a while to get up to her feet, and a while longer to get the hang of staying there! Eventually, she realized that in all the looking around, and she had done quite a bit of that, she had forgotten a very important fact...she was HUNGRY! She tried to grab a nipple, and must have tickled because her Mom jumped and Phyre fell right down on her tender, active little nose! Back to her feet, finally, then down again; up; down; up; down, finally she got to her Mom's side and reached for the nipple again....Mom moved! Phyre was NOT amused. She stamped her little foot and glared at her mom! SHe let out a little wicker and reached for the udder again. Guess what? This time she made it! She grabbed the nippe and stood there for a minute, looking around as though saying "Uh, NOW WHAT???" Finally she got the idea and started sucking with a lot of gusto! Suck, suck, suck...she wasted no time after she figured it out!

We gave her the first shot, dipped her navel and spent quite a bit of time imprinting her on us. Phanze, her Mamma, if wonderful and very trusting, she had no problem with us annoying her baby! Her baby, on the other hand, very quickly got tired of us annoying her and demanded in no uncertain terms, that we leave her to her breakfast and nap. After all, being born was HARD work!

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