February proved to be not only cold and snowy but also very busy for the rescue. The first week of February, the rescue took in 5 horses from owner surrender situations. Three of those surrenders were due to an emergency and the other two through our safety net program. This brought the total number of horses being cared for by the rescue to a total of 29 across both the Fredericksburg and Brodnax farms as well as horses in training foster homes.
At the beginning of February, we transferred Chase, our 3 year old Mustang cross, to training at Advantage Horsemanship to work with Scott Purdum. Chase has proven to be a smart and challenging young horse that was in need of a higher level of training than we could provide through our volunteer trainers. During his first month, Chase has been able to complete several of our initial training goals including being able to be caught and lead from different locations through out their farm. Chase leads daily from the barn, the turn out paddock and the round pen for training. Chase has always had an issue with bolting as soon as he sees the open space around him and this has proven to be our biggest challenge with his training. Chase will be featured in a series through their TV show featured on RFD TV, Cowboy Channel and Horse TV.
In February, we finalized two adoptions on horses at our Fredericksburg farm. Sugar was adopted by the Jones family locally here in Culpeper. She has joined CVHR Alum Kash and Buster with a wonderful family that also volunteers their time here at the rescue. Sugar came to us in December as one of our six Christmas ponies. She was the first to be made available for adoption and the first to find a home.
Our second adoption was sweet and spicy Marco. Marco is a mid teens Paso Fino that was adopted by a wonderful family in Louisa. Marco has been with the rescue for a little over a year and has been kept at our Brodnax location with Cindy. Marco was a volunteer favorite and we are very excited for his new mom Eleanor as they begin their journey together.
At the end of January, we officially announced that the rescue had moved to Fredericksburg and put an ask out for volunteers. February was a busy month with volunteer orientations and training. We are excited about the response that we received in our local community and the number of volunteers that are interested in working with the rescue to help the horses in our care.
Christmas has been able to move into an actual large pasture with one of our herds. His body condition score has finally improved over 3 and hes currently between and 3 and 4. He is enjoying having new friends and a larger space to be able to run and explore. We estimate that it will still be several months before he is available for adoption.
Nick has improved to a BCS of around 4.5 and we have started evaluating his training needs and soundness for riding. Nick had some soreness in his back that has gone away after a chiropractic adjustment from Dr. Moga. We have started with his ground work first in order to build muscle before attempting his initial first ride.
Frosty continues to improve daily and has almost fully reached his desired weight goal. When Frosty came, he required a tooth extraction, a serious bath and a lot of weight. We had anticipated a full 6 months needed to get him to the weight that he should be at however he has come a long way in the 2.5 months that he has been at the rescue. He has transformed from our sweet scared underweight bulldozer to a sweet mostly well mannered gentle draft. He has learned to walk appropriately on the lead line and will more often than not allow us to pick up his feet for cleaning. We look forward to doing his first ride evaluation in the month of March.
We continue to move full steam ahead into March which has already proven to be a busy month for adoptions. I look forward to the next month recap! As always, we appreciate all of our sponsors, donors and volunteers. It takes a village and all of you make up THEIR village!