Horse breeding.

[lockedhearts]

IMO , and I do breed, and am very selective in my breeding. You look at the mares overall health. I had a QH mare that delivered her last foal at 25, he was healthy, he was a large foal and it was a hard birth, so she was retired from breeding. I have a QH mare now, I have known her from the time she was born, and have owned her for 20 of her 23 years. She LOVES being pregnant. I was going to retire her, but she did so well after her foal this year, I bred her back to my stallion for one more foal. This mare produces babies that will Halter and Ride, she puts a nice neck. large hip and great mind on her foals. I think you have to take time to assess the entire situation, purpose for breeding, value of the foal, health of mare, desireable qualities of mare and stallion.

I have worked hard and chosen my mares carefully, and even though I show Halter and have done large Breed Shows, I am working towards getting Halter quality horses that ride and are HYPP N/N . I have owned N/H and H/H, they do not scare me, but AQHA is making it so even N/H horses will not be registerable soon.

My Stallion is an own son of World Champion, Ima Cool Skip , he is also Black, has a Gelding Mentality and is HYPP N/N all but one of my 3 QH mares is N/N and the N/H mare is up for sale.

People may call me a backyard breeder, as I do not have a large operation, but I do breed 1-3 of my mares a year and most of the foals are sold , at some point , to help pay for upkeep. I am not getting rich and sometimes do not break even. I am also extremely picky about what outside horses I breed too. My stallion is worth a lot to me and I do not want a bunch of garbage out there , just for the sake of being able to make money off of him. He will have one outside foal next year.

I write "novels" every year on my broodmares, from day 1 , I keep notes. I can say that I am pretty good at knowing my mares and can usually tell if they are bred before my vet comes and does Ultrasounds. I can tell you right now that I have 4 mares in my pasture that are most definitely bred to my stallion. 3 belong to me, of those 1 is for sale. The 4th mare was ours and was bred back , as soon as we wean babies, her new owner will come and get her.

This was a good year, I got 4 foals, all healthy, one does have a Birth Defect (not genetic) from an in utero injury. A friend of mine lost 2 this year, a beautiful Palomino Colt, sired by a Multiple World Champion, we medicated that foal 3 times a day for 2 months and lost him anyway. The second was a yearling filly, freak accident, she broke her leg. Another friend had a mare that he had been wanting a foal out of for a couple of years, 3 years ago she had a filly and it got taken by coyotes, mare slipped her foal last year, he got her bred back and this year, she had a lethal white. I bought a pregnant mare a few years ago and ended up losing both the mare and foal. It is heart breaking to breed. It is also very joyful.

I make it a point to know each of my horses, especially my broodmares, if I know them, then I can usually sense when something is wrong, early enough to help. 2 years ago my older QH mare got slightly impacted, it was very hot that spring/summer and she lost more weight nursing than usual, despite my efforts. Since I knew just by looking that something was wrong, I immediately checked her stall and realized, this mare that poops mounds had not pooped. I called my vet, went ahead and sleeved and lubed and went in , luckily I was able to clear most of the impaction by hand, then I mineral oiled her from both ends and gave her some Banamine. Luckily by the next morning she had passed everything and was back to normal.

My main point is, I do not think age is as big a factor as Health, History and capabilities of the owner. I have done this for many years , I learned some hard lessons over the years. I have enough experience and knowing to handle a lot on my own and be able to look at any of my horses and know something is wrong.

It irritates me to no end to see mares in a field, pregnant as can be and virtually nothing to eat, I drive by a pasture every week, there are probably 6-8 Arabian mares out there, the fencing is in poor shape and definitely not foal friendly, most of the mares are on the thin side, but every year they are bred. I have do not see feed pans/buckets out for these horses and this pasture is located between 2 houses and I am certain neither of those houses owns the horses, I assume they are not getting grain, at least not regularly. But because they are mares, well lets just breed them.......

MY fencing is not immaculate, but it is safe and we do regular maintenance, we do not have lush pastures, but I buy good quality hay and they get that daily and I feed good quality feed, I scrub water troughs regularly, my horses are wormed, have shots, feet trimmed and vet care (if needed) .

Right now, I am unemployed, have been for over 2 years, we sacrifice what we have to so that we can care for the animals.

 

[patandchickens]

As you are new to breeding, it would be awfully good to start with a PROVEN broodmare of not-excessively-great age (like, early teens or younger) who has foaled within the past couple years, ideally this season. Alternatively (not as good), start with a maiden never-even-been-put-to-a-stallion mare with a clean bill of health from a vet in the reproductive regions.

Buying a middle-aged or older mare who has either never been bred or it's been some while is really a cr*pshoot. Sometimes you will get lucky, but a lot of times you will find yourself a year or two down the road, out a lot of money not just for the purchase and upkeep of the horse but for a buncha *attempts* to get her pregnant and then to figure out why it isn't working, and STILL not have a foal.

Just as with people, not all individuals are equally fertile, and just cuz someone had a few babies at one point in their life does not mean they are still equally capable of it.

It is therefore kind of irrelevant to talk about DIY ways to tell if a mare has foaled before, because you really really wanna pick one with a DOCUMENTED GOOD track record (or very believable no-track-record-at-all, for young mares only) and HAVE it vetted thoroughly including repro exam.

Good luck, have fun, think very seriously whether you have the money to lose doing this and what you will do with a 'problem' foal should one occur,

Pat

 

[andalusn]

We love our horses for so many reasons but that does not always mean they are meant to reproduce themselves. If after you evaluate your mare and still think you can produce a marketable foal the next best step is to spend the money and have your vet out for a repro exam. Pay the money for the ultra sound/ palpation. Have a heart to heart with them and use the time your paying for to learn, ask questions and maybe have he/she give an opinion.

It makes better dollars and cents logic to pay for the exam and know the mare is as healthy on the inside as the outside. They can help you establish a breeding plan so your time and money is well spent. Nothing would be worse then to pay for the stallion, mare care and no foal after months of "trying" when an exam could have let you know before starting that maybe she never would be able to get pregnant due to some internal issue.

 

[onthespot]

Try running an ad right now, to "sell" the foal you hope your mare will produce, assuming the very best outcome, perfect markings, right sex, right color. See how many people beat a path to your door. Then think if you want to breed. Second, go to dreamhorse or equinenow dot com and do searches for foals in your area to see what people are asking for them. Not trying to totally discourage you from breeding. I LOVE breeding horses. Have not produced one for three years, breeding two this year. Time will tell if I end up with any next year. One is a maiden with low thyroid, one has foaled a time or two, still young, healthy, but did the splits in pasture last summer and was sore behind. Moving almost normal now. Crap shoot again.

 

[laseterlass]

Are you breeding to keep the foal as a replacement for your older mare or to sell. Everybody assumes it is to sell. I would not risk the life of an older mare to reproduce a horse that you do not know if anybody wants. It may be different if you plan to keep the foal. Below is my post about our old rescued Arab Mare. Her Sire was a Multi National Champion and the McCoy line is known for its intellegence and levelheads.



Back in 2002 I got back into horses and drug my daughters with me. I purchased a large draft cross mare that had them running scared. My youngest fell in love with an old grey mare at our boarding stable. First she got a pair of boots and lessons on her. Then the barn owner told me that she was for sale. I jumped on it and paid a thousand dollars for an 20 year old grey mare with a few teeth all bad . Panama McCoy! A Real McCoy daughter! And a lover of everyone under the age of 12. How in the world did a horse with the bloodlines of this mare get to Alaska? Her million dollar barn went broke. The horses were auctioned to the highest bidders and all of that high dollar stock became worth whatever horses were going for the pound. A trailer with 10 of them made it to Alaska. I thank God everyday that it did.

My daughter had a rough go of it for awhile. Magic, her barn name, was her rock, her shoulder, her life. She told that mare so many secrets. She learned from that little mare and my daughter taught other children on Magic. They barrel raced and took a N.B.H.A reserve championship! Magic was 26 years old and dusted horses a quarter of her age. Yet after running a race like that ? A quick saddle change and a 8 year old could hop on her and she would adjust to walk thru the poles.

The Spring she turned 28, she looked great. She had made it another winter and was rearing to go. I visited with her one morning and just a few hours later I got a frantic call. She had flipped her gut and I had to make an awful decision. I raced to the barn, told her goodbye and had the vet euthanize her. I can honestly say had she had proper dental care before I purchased her she would probably still be with us, her kin live well into thier 30s, she was feeling her oats and kicking up her heels. The special feed we fed her hangs in the gut instead of being spread evenly like natural forage. Due to her lack of teeth, she did not forage.

I bought her from people who own a world wide famous night club here in town. It was just pure laziness and lack of concern that she was in the shape she was. We rescued her from rich people. Twice.

I guess my point is that you never know what is under that undernourished unloved coat of ratty moth eaten hair. Our lump of dirty snow turned out to be a million dollar horse. In the literal sense and the figurative.

 

[Peaches Lee]

Quote:
Well, if you are looking at a mare to breed that's being sold as a broodmare, most likely she will be registered and the owner will have some sort of record on breedings and foalings. Some registries even want to know the method of said breeding (i.e. live cover, A.I, frozen). You can have your vet do a full reproductive exam to make sure she is healthy and capable of foaling. You could "eye" the mare for previous breedings, but unless she has been broodmare her whole life, the signs really don't show. To me, there is no "too old" in a sense that ALL mares should not be bred at age X, it strictly comes down to the individual's health and fitness.

Good luck and have fun.

 

[Lifesong Farm]

So far very good and experienced advice. I only have one thing to add on what has been said. It was welsemmer chicks comment about twins. If you end up with a mare that has twins you are going to have a VERY expensive pregnancy. Not every set of twins has to have one aborted. However like what happened here lest month at the equine hosp the owners had to pay for a month stay for their mare at the hosp. She had two healthy foals but the mom and babies were at the hosp for 3 months total. I think the total bill was somewhere around 10-15 thousand dollars.

 

[welsummerchicks]

That's the usual reason for aborting one twin, but there are a lot of other reasons too. First of all the mare has to nurse two then, and that will usually pull her down an awful lot.

Too, there may not be room for two full term foals - it means another weanling stall too (some people put two weanlings to a stall).

But the bottom like is that one foal is often very weak and under-size just because a mare's placenta is unlike a dog's and two fetuses get the same amount of nutrition as one. There is just a limitation of the type of placenta all mares have.

Oh there is one other thing I left out. Many people do not have their farm set up so that they really can wean the foal. The foal may get too bound to his mama. I did mention weanlings really are safest and do best with other weanlings, aside from this problem with actually entirely weaning them not being practicable on a small farm. So a good many people board a weanling out with other weanlings for some months til they are really weaned. Usually, and I do mean mostly usually, after some months, the youngster will give up staying so close and nursing once he's been away from the mare a while.

 

[petchickenlover]

I see a lot of people talking of selling the foal, if I do decide to breed. That will not be the case. I don't sell my animals unless 10000% necessary.

I would be breeding to Bacardi Afire, who is actually a resident of the stable I board at during the winter months. I would keep her at this stable near foaling time, as the owner is an experienced Arabian breeder.

Thank you all for the very informative posts!

 

[laseterlass]

Quote:
What is her breeding? She looks very familiar to me