A little bit of history made on our farm these last months. We had our very first foals from Artificial Insemination from Frozen imported semen
Firstly a beautiful little black filly from Gja from Haldane and superstar stallion Kveikur fra Stangarlaek. Followed by two more fillies from Ljosfrid and Aeskaros also by the same stallion.
Technology has moved on so much since we first started breeding Icelandics here in Australia. We were always told that "icelandic semen doesn't freeze well" so instead we imported live stallions to do the job and improve the genetics.
In the last few years the Australian breeders have been lucky enough to be offered the opportunity to buy frozen semen from really good stallions based in Denmark.
There are already some lovely foals on the ground in Australia over the last few years from these stallions. We're a little late coming to the party as we had mares already pregnant or the timing was off. But late last year I sent mares to Total Equine Genetics for insemination and was lucky to get three out of five mares pregnant using AI. All to Kveikur frá Stangarlæk 1.
We have decided to call the first little one Læla from Haldane which according to Worldfengur the international database of icelandic horses means : "Icelandic spelling of the female name "Laila" which means "the night, the dark beauty or the wise one".
The other two are called Dalia ( the bay with star) and Mabil ( the one that looks steely grey but most likely is a smokey brown).
We're spending lots of time out in the foal paddocks mostly just hanging out with the herd and watching the fun antics of the foals. Looking forward to seeing how these little ladies develop.