Spring Creek Basin Mustangs

Before my vacation, I visited the pintos, who were in the southern-most meadow of the herd area – in the WSA – across from the Black Snag Road. I posted pictures, and I hinted at surprises to come. Well, I found the first surprise today.

Kiowa and Spook and baby makes three

Your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s a baby for another mare that got the PZP, and nope, not a spot in sight. She’s a little muley bay that could be Liberty’s twin. Copper, the current band stallion for this group, is muley bay, but the time line doesn’t fit. The bachelors didn’t kick Bruiser out until late August. Kiowa is mama, and Spook is her yearling filly.

Bush baby

Dumb bush, gettin’ in the way of baby. 🙂 But I like how Spook is checking out the new little.

Mama leads

Based on baby’s size and angles and curled ears (!), I think the foal is new, just a day or two old. So I’m giving her – I think it’s a filly – a birthday of July 1.

Zig zag

Mesa, bay, and Ty, black or grey, bring up the rear as Kiowa leads her band into the hills. The rest of the band is out of the frame to the right.

I stayed well away from the band to keep Kiowa from feeling like she had to run. When I first saw them, I was on the road and saw the horses heading up their hill. Rain along the eastern boundary of the herd area and more coming from the west. Naturally, I parked and headed in. (To clarify, there was no lightning or thunder.) When I got up on the hill, I stayed on their trail and saw them through the “island” of trees. They were grazing on their way east. I got to the edge of the trees, and they disappeared over a hill. When Mesa finally cropped the final blade of grass from his spot on the hill and followed them, I went on up and saw them walking on. I’m still not sure where they’re drinking. There’s a big arroyo that drains down to the road below their hill; maybe there are some puddles there (the side arroyos I cross to get to their hill were totally dry). In the above pictures of them walking, they were going closer to the hills, so not to water. I took some long-distance pix and slipped back down my side of the hill. Plenty of time to see the baby when she’s older so Mama doesn’t get worried.

Chipeta has a belly … Chipeta also got the PZP. Are you starting to wonder, like me, whether we got a bad batch of PZP?

But a new life is something to celebrate, and so we do. 🙂