Critter
Creek Farms has two champagne, AMHR registered, miniature horses:
"King" and his dam "Buttermilk", and is helping the ICHR
find and get other rare Champagne minis registered!
L&S
Farms Champagne King
AMHR
Miniature Champagne Dun Stallion
ICHR # MH1998-00043
L&S
Farms Champagne King
AMHR
registered name - L&S Farms Big Boy
ICHR
registered name - L&S Farms Champagne King
Foaled
4/17/98, Registered Champagne Dun Miniature Stallion
Original
owner and breeder - Sue Pittman, L&S Farms, Palestine, Arkansas
Current
owners - Joyce Kehoe, Kay Lyon & Ginny Long, CCMF Miniature Horses, Winter
Haven, Florida
 (Photo
courtesy of Sue Pittman) L& S Farms Champagne King at 1 day old.
You can see the shoulder stripe and dorsal stripe. He appears to be
a grullo (black base color with the dun gene) in this picture. The
skin around his eyes and muzzle is pink and his eyes are blue.
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 (Photo
courtesy of Sue Pittman) King is at 10 weeks old. You can see his
shoulder barring and his blue eyes. Also his skin on his muzzle and
around his eyes is still pink.
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 (Photo
courtesy of Sue Pittman) This is King on the same day as the picture of
him above, but after he has been clipped. He is 10 weeks old in this
picture.
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 All
of these next photos are by CCMF Miniatures of Champagne King & were
taken between October 7th-10th, 2001. Champagne King is a registered
miniature stallion and is 3 years old. King has a base color of
black and carries both the dun gene and the champagne gene. He is
pictured here after being out in the sun all summer. He was not kept
in a barn.
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He was born with blue eyes, but they are now a beautiful amber color.
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 The
dark area on King's neck, left, is where his mane hangs and his coat isn't
faded. We pulled his mane over to the other side to get this
shot. (His mane is short because his previous owners trimmed it
straight across.)
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 A
close-up of King's muzzle. You can see the pink skin and the
freckling characteristic of champagne.
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 Here
is a picture under King's tail, showing the freckling there. It
shows up even better in person.
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 King
un-clipped, showing the line down his mane and back... most likely from
the dun gene which he has in addition to the champagne gene.
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 King's
lower legs prior to being clipped. They were very shiny and had a
golden sheen to them.
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 King
just prior to body clipping.
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King after being body clipped.
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Hidden
Meadows Grulla - aka Buttermilk
Registered
Champagne Dun Miniature Mare,
dam of Champagne King
Buttermilk
is a miniature mare that we rescued with the help of Sue Pittman who is a
miniature horse breeder in Palestine, Arkansas. Sue is also the original
owner of L&S Farms Champagne King (aka L&S Farms Big Boy). Sue had
owned Buttermilk at the time she had King, but eventually Sue gave Buttermilk
away. When we contacted Sue she tracked Buttermilk down for us and found
out that Buttermilk was in bad shape. So we arranged to get her as soon as
possible and drove from Florida to Arkansas to pick her up. Her teeth were
so bad that she could barely eat and the grain she was able to swallow passed
mostly through her undigested.
The
day we picked her up we scheduled an emergency dentist appointment because we
knew she wouldn't get better until she could eat. We knew of an excellent
equine dentist in Kentucky, but because we were coming from Arkansas it was
going to be late before we could get to the dentist. He said he didn't
mind so we ended up pulling into his place at 1:30 AM and he and his wife
greeted us warmly and took care of the old mare's teeth and then fed her an
alfalfa mash which she really enjoyed. Then we loaded her up and made the
trip home to Florida. This mare will live out her remaining days with us
and will be spoiled and pampered like a queen.
One
of the pictures of her is from three years ago and she was in bad shape then as
she had just been rescued at that time as well. So this poor mare has been
rescued twice in the last three years! The equine dentist said her teeth
were agonizingly bad for at least the last 5 or 6 years and that the only reason
she survived was because she was so determined. She had no grinding
ability as she had no side to side motion with her jaw and when she would eat
the grain just fell out of her mouth. She is much better already as she
can eat (and loves to!) and we are feeding her smaller portions more often
throughout the day.
(Photo courtesy of Sue Pittman)
This
is the only picture we have of Buttermilk from her younger days. She was
somewhere between 5 and 10 years of age in this picture.
(Photo courtesy of Sue Pittman)
Buttermilk
is pictured above (on the day King was born) in April of 1998.
(Photo by CCMF Miniatures)
Above
are a couple of current pictures of Buttermilk (taken October, 9th 2001).
These pictures are not easy to look at, but we wanted to share them because we
already love this old girl. We just rescued her this past weekend (Oct.
7th) with Sue Pittman's help, and we hope that she will be ok now that she can
eat. The people that had her were literally letting her starve to
death. They knew she needed her teeth floated because they told us that's
what they had been told by someone else, but they didn't have it done. It
wasn't due to lack of money, but probably out of ignorance. Anyways, she
is getting alot of TLC with us and is getting fed at least four times a
day. She loves to eat and we hope to post pictures of her in a few months
that hopefully no one will recognize as being the same horse as we hope she will
put on weight and be a healthy happy old girl. She has a home here for as
long as she lives... :-)
We
are very thankful to Sue Pittman. Without her help King and Buttermilk
would still be unknown to the champagne world.
CCMF Miniature
Horses Home Page
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