Help me decide on a stallion to breed my mare to! Update #120

[dutchhollow]

I would contact those who have bred to them, see how they like the foals, especially temperment. A crappy temperment in a horse is a hard thing to deal with, especially in horses of this size. There are a lot of great stallions out there (same with stud dogs) that are very accomplished in show, or field, who will never be able to reproduce themselves, or anything close.

 

[georgialee]

Oh, I didn't answer your question Pat.

I want to breed her for overall conformation. She has great hair but I would love to breed for more as well as a wider chest. Color is important b/c that's what is selling the best, but I'm not going to pick color over conformation. I guess I'd be looking for all-around improvement in her foal. I don't want to focus on one thing in detriment to another.

 

[Funky Feathers]

Oh, I love the first 3 studs! All gorgeous!!

Now I want one of these horses!

 

[patandchickens]

Good for you, then.

Yeah, you've got to see the foals these guys are producing.

I don't know what your issue is with #3 but to me, much as I love that color and he is an exceptionally good example of it, and much as I love generic draft horses, he looks pretty generic-draft-horse-y there rather than Vanner-y, to me. I strongly suspect that he is significantly butt-high and with a, shall we say, "loose" back (topline), and his head does not look as square as I think of Vanner heads as being, it is small and small-muzzled (fine for some things of course, and I have no clue what the Vanner standard actually calls for, but it is not very typical looking for the breed, to me)

I suppose of the four you've shown I would lean more towards investigating #1 more closely. Yeah, it would be a bit of inbreeding but not to a problematic extent (that's plenty common in horse breeding with no problems), and he seems decently shaped from what little you can tell, and is good n wide at both ends. You'd want to see a bunch of his offspring. One advantage of him, IF he is a good candidate otherwise, is the breeder's color guarantee, which could potentially result in your getting a second breeding at a discount.

Oh, btw the other thing to consider STRONGLY is how you are going to get your mare bred and what each one's track record is for that method... definitely something to look into. I am guessing you are maybe talking AI and transported semen? Try to find out a) how each breeder is to deal with, I know that in other breeds there can be considerable variation in peoples' level of orgnization and responsiveness and um number of brain cells available for the project, and b) what each candidate's success rate is via shipped semen. You don't want to be spending a buncha money on stud fee and containers and shipping and vet and all that, on a stallion whose success rate (be it because of his biology or his owner's psychology) by that method is rather low. If alternatively these would be live cover, again try to talk around to enough people to get a sense of how the farm managers are to deal with, because there's definitely some significant variation that way too.

Pat

 

[georgialee]

Thank you for all that info.

We'd be doing AI. The breeder has some pretty in-demand stallions so I would think she's on top of the whole process. The thing with Sir Keith is he's a 4 yr old, so this will be the second year he's breeding and I don't think he did much last year. His foals so far are impressive. The oldest ones look to have wide chests. His daddy (Goldie's half brother) threw tons of foals with wide chests, including Sir Keith.

His hair doesn't look good in many pics but they were taken as a 2 year old and their manes don't really get to full form until around 5 years old.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, I still think you should ask around about "customer satisfaction" so to speak, just cuz someone does a lot of shipped semen does not mean they do it well (thinking of a couple people in particular here... LOL)

Pat

 

[georgialee]

I will definitely do that. Thanks, Pat

 

[Frogdogtimestwo]

#2 I

his color and his mane/feathering is gorgeous!

 

[welsummerchicks]

I can't decide because I can't see the mare's conformation or any of the stallion's conformation.

Color is relatively unimportant to me, but conformation should be important to everyone.

 

[georgialee]

If you look a few posts down there are links to plenty of other pictures, as well as discussion on conformation.