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The "in's and out's" of breeding "the list starts here" Help out!

4K views 27 replies 11 participants last post by  myhorsesonador 
#1 ·
Ok I have decited that we could really use a thread that has all that needs to be known about breeding. It's easier to sticky some thing than it is to have a 100 page argument about breeding.

Se here is what I need ya'll to help me with, I need every one to post stuff about breeding. I'm going to save it all and start a new thread with a list.

I would do it my self but I'm really tired so any way this could be fun!
 
#2 ·
I have learned that you dont just breed because you want to play with a baby horse, it takes time and careful selection. not all foals grow up to be the perfect little angels, it takes training. be sure you want to breed your mare. cos just remeber, there could be a life at stake!!
 
#4 ·
Hmm:

Know what you are breeding for and then select the sire and dam with the right build and mind for that sport.

If you can go to an auction and find the same thing there for cheap, don't breed for it.

Even when you do everything right, there is still a chance of injury, death, or a subpar foal.

You can't ride papers, but if you want your horse to stand a chance of a good life if no longer in your ownership they usually help.

You can never garuntee you will always own your foal. Life happens. Set it up for success.

Always be aware of genetic diseases and testing for things like HYPP, HERDA, etc.

Proper vet and mare care are essential. Breeding is going to be more expensive than buying in most cases and is always less certain. Be prepared for emergencies.

Make sure you be willing to put the age appropriate training on your horses it needs while it is in your care. Either do it yourself or have someone else do it. It may be 'cute' now, but will it be cute when a full grown horse does it to you?

Most good studs will not be offering a fee of $200.
 
#14 ·
Now there is a good negative post that gives little or NO information.

So I will post and quote from another thread where someone actually posted GOOD INFORMATIVE.

If you are thinking about breeding to raise and eventually sell a foal, or if you want a foal to raise to keep, but feel like breeding would save you money over buying a prospect, there are some important things to consider and check into.

Check around in your area to see what a comparable foal would sell for/could be bought for. For example, the actual selling prices of foals by the stallion(s) you are thinking of breeding to, out of mares with the same type of achievements and bloodlines and looks/size/type as your mare.

Check with the appropriate breed associations to see what it would cost to register your foal once it is born.

Add up stud fees, mare care costs while being bred, transport costs, registration fees, what is costs you to feed a pregnant/nursing mare for 16 months (additional feed and supplements for pregancy plus the amount of time the foal will be nursing) and feed for the foal for 5 months....add in pregnancy-related vet care (including fertility/uternine checks pre-breeding, vaccinations, ultrasounds, palpation, Rhino shots, newborn foal exam, IGg test, foal vaccinations, foal feet trimming, etc.).

Once you have a total for what breeding/pregnancy/foaling/foal care would cost, from the day you book your mare to the day you wean the foal, see if the amount you will be spending is more or less than the realistic price you could expect to get for a weanling/pay for a weanling in your area.

Things that could really screw up potentially breaking even or making any profit would be; difficulty getting a mare pregnant, complications of pregnacy/birth, injuries to mare or foal, having a foal born with crooked legs or anything else that needs ongoing veterinary care, ending up with any condition which is NOT fixable and which would affect the value of the foal, etc. Also there is the potential of the death of either a mare, foal, or both-- not common, but possible.

If you have a truly good chance of selling a foal for more than it costs to produce it from start to finish, then taking a risk on breeding might be worth it. But often, even with some very nice horses, it is not likely to be able to produce a foal for what it actually ends up being worth in this economy.

If you want a foal to raise, you might find out that you could buy a good comparable foal for less than the costs for breeding and raising your own.

With nice 'pleasure riding' type horses, it is usually easier to break even or profit by buying a young prospect for cheap, putting some time into it, and re-selling it for more, if you are capable of that type of training and have a decent facility and reputation which will attract buyers.

All of that said, if you have looked at all the costs and risks, evaluated your mare for quality and broodmare potential, and you come to the conclusion that you really want a foal from YOUR mare, my best advice is to go with the highest quality, most complimentary stallion you can afford, who is owned by a communicative, professional, responsible stallion owner. Look at several stallions. More importantly, look at their offspring, especailly as adults-- almost all foals are appealing, but they need to grow up into good adults. Talk to experts in your breed/discipline. Take your time deciding. You have several months. make sure you are prepared for pregancny and housing a new and growing foal. Ask questions. Get help.

Good Luck!
 
#7 ·
Oh!

What has the stud and mare done?
For show horses, they should be showing and winning consistently at a competitive level or at least have a solid track record of doing so. Just because your mare wins at the local gymkhana every week does not mean she is a good candidate to breed for barrel horses.

Good ranch horses are worth their weight in gold too. Is the horse built well? Does it have the good mind, cow sense, and workability that you would want passed on?
If youre not breeding for a show horse that's fine, but you should still breed for quality. Most ranch horses I have been on would have no problem transitioning into the show ring to sort cows for example. At least at a low competition level. This is the perfect sort of example of breeding for an all around horse.
 
#8 ·
If you have to ask other people if your mare/stallion is of breeding quality, it is a pretty sure thing that you don't have the knowledge needed to breed.
 
#9 ·
Kinda like what Dove said above, but there already a lot of "gentle family horses or trail horses" available for very low (usually under $300) at auctions, kill pens and rescues. Instead of breeding more horses make more "family" horses, why not adopt a horse in a situation like that instead?

Also, if you do plan to breed two horses, ask your self:

"Where might my foal end up in the future?"

If the foal's parents have nothing to there merit, there may be a chance the foal will end up at an auction, kill pen or rescue.

If the parents have been shown to a fairly high level of competion, more than likely your foal will enjoy a good life and be used for competion and loved by his owners.
 
#11 ·
If you are young and plan to go off to college, are your parents fully on board to take care of, exercise and feed your mare and handle and train her baby while you are away?

Are you knowledgeable in all aspects of caring for a mare in foal, foaling etc.? Can you spot problems immediately and have a vet on hand?

Are you willing and have the knowledge to train a youngster?

If a colt, have you facilities to separate mare and colt once he is weaned?

If breeding to sell on and the foal does not sell, are you willing to keep it for ever and not finally dump it for next to nothing or to an auction?

Do you know the horses up-front in your mare's pedigree, very well? Their faults, strong point, their temperaments, what they have produced before etc.? Same for the stud horse you plan to use.

Can you actually afford to breed? Breeding a quality horse does not come cheap. Stud fees for a quality stallion are usually over $1,000 and often a lot more.

If you are breeding to sell on, consider every expense which you will incur, including stud fee, vet fees, farrier and more, until the foal sells. Will you even be able to ask that much for the foal? Will he/she sell easily or are there tons of his sort and breeding already on the market going unsold?

Consider that even when very knowledgeable people breed, the offspring are not always just what we had hoped.

Lizzie
 
#12 ·
I think an important thing to do is look at the market. Go on websites (like craigs and dreamhorse), talk to breeders and talk to rescues. You are responsible for the life you create. So...here are seven things I think are important (some of them may be repetitive to the previous posts).

1. Is the breed of horse you produce in demand? If you are going to breed a Quarter Horse you are probably going to have a harder time selling it as a foal opposed to say a Friesian or Warmblood.
2. Are a ton of them for sale but not selling?
Supply and demand people. If one day you decide to sell the foal or something happens you want to be sure your foal has a chance at some type of future (as stated many times above, but can never be stressed enough). I'm sure you don't want your foal ending up in a kill pen!
3. What are you looking to produce?
It's important to look at what you can buy as opposed to what you can produce. Say you want an Appy foal with a blanket, you would really like it to be a filly and you'd like it to be either a black or a dark bay. Well, I'm sure that your chances of getting what you want are more probable if you buy rather than breed. You need to realize you may not get what EXACTLY you want.
4. Realize there is a LOT of work that goes into producing a sane and sound usable horse when you breed.
If you just want a foal to have one or want to produce amazing colors play an online game like horseeden or howrse. That way there isn't an actual life at stake. OR if you just want to play with a pretty cute little foal go volunteer at a rescue or friend a breeder. I'm sure they won't mind if you go play with a baby. If you decide to breed you are committed to paying a stud fee, mare care fees, vet checks, proper feeding. Then you are responsible for knowing A LOT about the birthing process. What is and isn't an emergency. What to look for before, during and after labor. You need to think about having to shove your hands up your horse and help a foal out if necessary. You need to think about the possibility that you may walk out to the barn and your mare or the foal might be dead. If you are breeding a mare for the first time you may have to deal with aggression you haven't seen before toward you. A mare rejecting her foal. A mare becoming violent toward her foal. A mare not producing enough milk. Then once you get past all that you've got a 300 pound nutcase on your hands. You've got to halter break it and teach it how to stand for a farrier and on and on until you finally (after 3 long years) you have to put a saddle on it or pay someone else to do it for you. By then you are probably thinking why didn't I just buy a two or three year old three years ago.
5. Have the funds to pay for any type of emergency.
I can honestly say this is the ONLY thing keeping me from shipping my girl up to a Vanner stallion. Horse medical emergencies can be costly! If in the end you end up having a dead foal or mare on your hands because you didn't have money for an emergency was the breeding really worth it?
6. You really got to know your horses and what will work together to produce a nice foal. Don't breed because Missy has a uterus and the guy around the corner happens to have a horse with testicles. (I've been there and turned it down) It's no longer the day and age where every person needs a horse. We, as a responsible civilization, need to realize this. We need to stop producing such a large quantity of animals that will NOT have homes. There are so many people wanting to get horses, dogs and any other thing but there are far more animals looking for homes.
7. Strive for quality.
That pretty much speaks for itself. You can have 10 mediocre mares, breed to a decent stud and have 1 nice foal. Have to pay the stud fee...yadda yadda for all ten mares and then the care of the mares and their foals. OR you can have one really nice mare and breed her to one very nice stallion and you are more than likely going to get one nice foal. Let those mediocre mares live out their lives being trail horses. They'll never miss having had those foals.
 
#13 · (Edited)
I'll add a few practical pieces of info, for those who have already decided to breed (meaning you have a proven mare and a proven stud and won't make junk and are aware of the responsibilities even if your amazing perfectly bred foal does not sell). To add on to ShutupJoe's comment about the amount of work involved, also realize that it costs close to $10,000 on average to put a healthy foal on the ground. There are those who do it for less, there are those who do it for far more, this is the average as determined by one of the leading theriogenologists in the United States. Costs include stud fees, trailering and/or hospitaliation while cycles are characterized, culture and cytology, infusion, oxytocin, ultrasonography, prostaglandin injections, shipping fees for semen, vaccinations, deworming, progesterone treatments, etc. etc. etc.

Maiden mares over the age of 7 or 8 will most likely have significant difficulties catching the first season you attempt to breed so expect to have your veterinarian get very involved.

Start with a breeding soundness exam the year before you intend to breed, ideally. If this is not possible start EARLY ie. march, to give yourself the best chance possible at getting your horse bred.
 
#16 ·
Maybe a slight over reaction but I am sick and tired of seeing every breeding thread posted on this forum being turned into a don't breed because you can buy a nice foal"...MOST people have brains enough to realize that. I bought several foals, trained them and had to sell them as being not useful for what I wanted..I ended up breeding the best horse I ever had. I wanted specific breeding that I knew would work. If I came here now and showed you the mare I had, I would be bombarded with negative responses but I knew what I wanted and what I wanted it matched up with. AND I TOOK THE RISK.

Then there is the "if you can't give it a forever home then don't breed"..well don't even buy ANY horse because dollars to donuts you probably won't keep that horse forever either.

Then there is the economy one..." No one should be breeding until the economy gets better" and while this has some validity, to arbitrarily stamp that statement on every person that even is thinking of breeding is a little too all encompassing.

Then there is the scare tacit by saying " your mare could get hurt giving birth and you risk losing her". Well Oh my God that risk is there even in humans but WE succeed in over breeding.

No wonder this forum is known as an anti breeding one out there in the cyber world.

People will breed no matter what you say and more people have left this forum due to the above comments that rarely, if ever comes with constructive information like the post I quoted above.
 
#17 ·
Oh I totally agree with you Spyder and sorry if my post came out otherwise. I just wanted to do a brief post (I did it at some insane odd hour in the morning too so that's why It may have been less than coherent) of the arguments about breeding.

If you are educated and understand what you are doing, by all means weigh the risks and benefits and make your decision. Regardless of the economy, good horses are still selling and I think there is plenty of room for horses to be bred.

Once again, sorry if my sleep-deprived ramblings made it seem like I was one of the NEVER BREED EVER YOUR HORSE WILL DIE types.

Generally I think most people who should breed are not going to look on here for breeding advice though I suppose there could be some people with breeding worthy mares or stallions who may be breeding their first foal.

I think most of the points in my first post have already been elaborated on well, so I won't do so here but I did want to try and clear up where I was coming from.
 
#20 ·
So far the only things you seem to want to accept for your "thread" are reasons to not breed. These are the ones you are saying " good ones" and while they are a part of breeding they only cover a side of breeding that is negativity based, so it you plan of putting up a thread with all these ideas please title it " Breeding..Reasons to not do it".

The post I copied from the other thread is what SHOULD be thought out before breeding.

This may have been started by you but you want the in and outs of breeding...well guess what, some people find great joy in it. The selection of stallion, the anxiously waiting. If you are lucky enough to be there then seeing your baby get born. All the time and effort you put into this comes down to that one precious moment.

There is no greater joy, and I was blessed with the whole package. Watching his efforts trying to get up on wobbly legs to taking his first suckle from mom and leaving the barn knowing that a precious new life entered the world today.
 
#21 ·
Just because you are the only one to supply a "positive" spin, Spyder, doesn't mean the OP isn't also looking for the "positive" things. From my understanding, she just wants to avoid the drama caused from calling out other posters on some such nonsense or other.

I have nothing else to add, so this will be my only post in this thread. I just felt that something needed to be said, as I only saw one post I felt to be truly negative, and it was not Spastic's.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
#22 ·
Spyder- The post you copied has most of what you said in it.....stuff you are sick of hearing.

You- don't breed because you can buy a nice foal"

Copied post-see if the amount you will be spending is more or less than the realistic price you could expect to get for a weanling/pay for a weanling in your area

You-
your mare could get hurt giving birth and you risk losing her

Copied post-
Also there is the potential of the death of either a mare, foal, or both-- not common, but possible

You-
o one should be breeding until the economy gets better"

Copied post-
I think the first half of the post is about the financial cost of breeding and the first part is about selling the foal and the economic reasons on why you should or shouldn't breed.

Is it that nobody is wording it the way that poster did?
http://www.horseforum.com/#ixzz16aVBMQlc





http://www.horseforum.com/#ixzz16aUNIzfy



http://www.horseforum.com/#ixzz16aUF4Ewn
 
#23 ·
I've been reading through some of these threads and notice that a few members are 100 percent against breeding. That's okay, but if you're going to come on here and yell at me for considering it, then you're not going to do anything but waste your breath (or perhaps bring yourself one step closer to carpel tunnel).
No truer words said and reflects what many people think and the reason why some people will never come here to post.

I can be thankful for one thing.

All the spam breeders pretty much avoid this forum like the plague
 
#24 ·
Well we seem to have disseminated into the argument the OP was hoping against. I just wanted to make a comment, mostly in response to Spyder. I agree that breeding is very important and should certainly not be something that people are unilaterally against. I work for a very prominent reproductive specialist, so of course I am not against breeding.

However I AM against your average breeder which, I'd have to say is what 90% of people posting on this forum are, no offense meant, but when you work with someone who knows what they're doing it is hard to take "my mare is just so CUTE" as a serious reason to breed. I think you are right that most breeders (real breeders, not one time deals) avoid this forum and rightly so, because most of them have plenty of experience or a qualified repro specialist to whom they can direct their queries. Maybe working with high end sport horse producers has jaded me, but hearing some of the questions people are asking, at the stage they are at (ie. the mare is already bred or the semen already ordered, etc. etc.) causes a lot of concern for many of the people posting on this forum. Too often people breed because "they just love this mare", instead of having made a calculated decision based on producing quality foals.
 
#26 ·
Oh I agree 100%.

I also know that just because you have had a lots of RIDING experience ( even to the point of being considered at an advanced stage) that you would not necessarily know much about breeding.

People need to know ALL sides. The expense involved, the time involved, what genetics work with others, the risk involved ( and the percentage that MOST babies are born without complications) what sort of registration available. The difference in breeding methods as well as what conformation faults can be inherited and which may be overcome with correct selection of mare to stallion.

THIS is what this thread should be about. This is information that a serious potential breeder needs and this is what is lacking in virtually every thread involving breeding.

And when I decided to get a mare to breed I had no knowledge of any of the above and had no resource other than to go to the breeders themselves. In the general sense you could say I was a backyard breeder with a mare that did absolutely nothing to prove her worth other than she was bred the way I wanted.
 
#27 ·
Folks, please stay on track! As it was mentioned, this is informative thread and everyone is welcome to share own opinion (whether it's for or against the breading).

I have no problems with "home" breeding given the breeder did the homework (although I don't think I'll ever breed my girls even though they have nice lines). Unfortunately too often "home" breeders = BYBs. And in this case I feel sorry for the baby (and sometime mom as well). BTW it's true for some breeding facilities as well....
 
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