Introductions. Part 3.

Well, have you had enough yet?
This is three blogs in three nights for me and it's write this or watch a programme called Bob Triangle pants or something on the television with Angus. The blog writing won!

So to the subject of this 'introduction', it is Priscilla, Queen of Patou.
Priscilla was another one of our foundation herd members (don't worry there were only three) and will be ten years old this summer. Another of the foundation members was her daughter Bobby (resident spit fountain).

Priscilla arrived pregnant to Wessex Mateus, who I have to say is one of my favourite white males. I saw him again a couple of weeks ago and he still looks good, great shape to him. Now the more observant amongst you may notice two things in the below head shot of Priscilla. Firstly she has her tag in the wrong ear and secondly she has a white spot about the size of a 50p piece on her chinny chin chin. There are no other white fibres on Priscilla, none apart from her chin. That white spot would go on to have a bearing on Priscilla's cria and Priscilla herself has become a bit of an experiment in motion.

Later that summer the first ever Patou cria was born. Patou Henry a solid dark fawn with no white markings, (eartag number PAT001) arrived in textbook fashion and immediately thrived even though we had absolutely no idea what we were doing or what was going on. He was quickly followed by Lily and we were up and running as a herd.

That summer we mated Priscilla to the magnificent ATA Cambridge Centurion trying to get a nice black or brown cria. We had forgotton all about the little white chinny chin chin.

11 months later, again in textbook fashion, saw the arrival of the totally dapper Bo Jangles. A beautiful healthy boy with very handsome markings. The little white chinny chin chin was working it's magic.

Intent on trying to get that dark coloured cria we tried again this time with Canchones Witness of Inca, another black superstud. Eleven months later a huge brown cria, Jonah, was born. A white chin and a white spot on his foot proved that the chinny chin chin was still working against us. We decided to try one more time with a different black male. By this time the awesome Lillyfield Jack of Spades of Inca had arrived on the scene and we were keen to give him ago.

11 months later a lovely black cria arrived on the scene. Minstrel, Priscilla's first female cria since Bobby was again a textbook birth but that chinny chin chin was still proving a very difficult adversary when trying for solid cria!

As a result we mated Priscilla to our own boy, Cambridge Columbus. The theory being that if she is mated to a male lighter than her she will produce a solid colour. Priscilla is due in mid June and will produce our first Columbus cria, we are very excited but will the chinny chin chin strike again?