# Stallion and mare



## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Because most people own mares and don't have herds or run stallions. They have what they have and are looking to improve what they've got. Those that breed look for the best of each as well as those lines that are known to cross well and produce better than what you have. Arabians, QH, other breeds place emphasis on mare lines as well as they recognize the influence a mares breeding has. It isn't just the influence of raising that the mare has or carrying which puts her care and nutritional support in your hands.


----------



## Bob The Snob (Apr 13, 2021)

I'm not an expert on horses - but I've picked up some knowledge from chatting with people.

I breed therapy rabbits, and the male is for the colour and size, and the female is my temperament. The babies live with their moms, and they will pick up any good or bad habits from her.

Horse-wise, I know of a mare that was stubborn, but gorgeous, and even with a super friendly stud the colt was stubborn (and pretty) just like her.


----------



## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

Every animal has its own unique set of genes. Not getting into maternal mitochondrial DNA. Every animal passes half of what they have - if your female is homozygous in all traits you desire passed then that makes her solid for what you are breeding for. Personality wise you can pass certain traits but the mare's manner in raising sets the stage for how they end up.


----------



## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

In my opinion, people own more mares than they do stallions. People are also in love with their mares, so tend to overlook their faults. So they are looking for perfection in the stallion. Not that that is wrong, but they should also look for perfection in their mares. Breed the best, and only the best.

You are right, the mare is the foals first teacher. She will teach both her good habits, as well as her bad ones. Case in point. I had a really good Joe Dee Reed mare once upon a time. Her dam had gotten tangled up in the fence, crippled herself, and doggone her if she didn't teach every one of her foals the same thing. So I had kept a daughter of her's, and she did the same thing.

I see people with colored mares that if the mare is nasty and evil, they think that breeding her will "change" her. It doesn't. She will be just as nasty and evil afterwards. Plus, she will teach that to her foals. So breed the best means so much more in so many different ways than people give it credit for.

This is why you see youngsters out of well proven mares (mares that have been there done that, and won a lot) sell for a lot more than foals out of mares that have never done anything. The mare's side is very important. Every bit as important as the stallion's.


----------



## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

I think buying a two-year-old used to be cheaper than raising one. So, I never saw the point in breeding a mare unless she was spectacular. I feel like with a really good mare it is worth breeding her. I almost feel like it is hard to get a really nice stud to breed with, because of limitations in how far you want to haul a horse and how much money you are willing to pay for a stud fee. I guess AI opens a lot of doors that way, but I haven’t given it too high a consideration because I don’t really understand how much money it takes to do all of that, and what goes into it.

I AI the milk cow, because we’ve no jersey bulls around and also because I need to keep milking her and can’t haul her in with bulls and get her milked easily. That is simple, but only because there is a girl here who does it and already has semen and is simply a phone call and $50.


----------



## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

If only AI on horses was as easy as it is with cattle. But it's not.
With horses, it all depends on the vets involved. You can't have excellent vet on one end, and the latest 9 year old they gave a DVM license to on the other. Been there, done that. You absolutely MUST have excellent vets on both ends. Otherwise, it's an exercise in frustration. and it's expensive. 
I tried shipping semen. Stopped it for that very reason. 
Plus, not every mare is a good canditate for shipped semen.


----------



## Knave (Dec 16, 2015)

That is good to know @Zimalia22. I always wondered if I should consider it. Now with my accidental breeding and Lucy’s baby coming, it will be a long time until we consider breeding another horse. Barring any negative things of course.


----------



## dustyk (Nov 14, 2020)

Zimalia22 said:


> If only AI on horses was as easy as it is with cattle. But it's not.
> With horses, it all depends on the vets involved. You can't have excellent vet on one end, and the latest 9 year old they gave a DVM license to on the other. Been there, done that. You absolutely MUST have excellent vets on both ends. Otherwise, it's an exercise in frustration. and it's expensive.
> I tried shipping semen. Stopped it for that very reason.
> Plus, not every mare is a good canditate for shipped semen.


What would make a mare a poor candidate for shipped semen?


----------



## Zimalia22 (Jun 15, 2021)

If you are considering a mare for shipped semen, she must be:
Pass her vet exam and tests with flying colors
no maiden mares (this is what I was told)
She must have recently foaled - in other words no mares that "well she foaled 5 years ago so we know she's good".

You absolutely positively MUST have an excellent equine reproduction vet. Otherwise, you're wasting your time, and the stallion owner's time, in my opinion. 

Every time I collected and shipped, I always heard back from them "oh he's got excellent semen, outstanding motility and numbers". But then when the mare failed to take, it's the stud's fault. ROFL One even said he had "uremia". I called him back and said "Nice try, but you can't have it both ways. Urine is a natural spermicide, and you already said he had excellent semen arrive, good motility and numbers". 

Now if you haul your mare to the place the stallion stands, and they inseminate her, things might be different. But one thing that needs to be TOTOALY and COMPLETELY CLEAR, not all vets are equine reproduction vets. Without that on both ends, it's a futile effort. 

Yes, big stud farms use it exclusively. But! They have their own vets, they are right there from collection to extention, to insemination. And it works! But speaking as a stallion owner, it's FRUSTRATING to collect, extend, ship, and then some moron on the other end either does not have the mare ready, or got their DVM out of their last box of Cracker Jacks screw it up!


----------



## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

Zimalia22 said:


> If only AI on horses was as easy as it is with cattle. But it's not.
> With horses, it all depends on the vets involved. You can't have excellent vet on one end, and the latest 9 year old they gave a DVM license to on the other. Been there, done that. You absolutely MUST have excellent vets on both ends. Otherwise, it's an exercise in frustration. and it's expensive.
> I tried shipping semen. Stopped it for that very reason.
> Plus, not every mare is a good canditate for shipped semen.


Ditto all this, especially the vets. There's nothing more frustrating than to have bred a mare, you KNOW that mare is pregnant when you send her home but the mare owner's vet says she's not. I went through this a couple of years ago with a mare. The mare owner wanted to send the mare back (thank God it was July and we stop breeding by June 1). I refused and told her the mare was in foal, Skippy had never let me down. Her vet insisted until the day that mare delivered that she was not in foal. Here's the mare and foal that weren't. MMMM hmmmmm. It's amazing to me how many absolutely clueless vets are doing repro work.

Some mares are allergic to the extenders used in fresh, cooled, shipped semen. You won't know it until you try. Other mares just won't catch, no matter what you try. I have had good luck bringing those mares to me and collecting and inseminating fresh, raw semen that's just been spun. That seems to work ok. Some mares just won't catch unless they go to the stallion and are bred live cover.

I was also told that no maidens should be AI'd and had not had great success. And then I got Patti, who will not show to a stallion even when she's about to ovulate, and it's the only way she WILL take and the only way she'll allow herself to be bred. Picky little heifer. Since then, we've come a long way, but I still prefer to either hand breed or collect and inseminate right then on the maidens and difficult mares. My own path has led me to give the mare 3 tries and then we move on to the next mare. 

I think the emphasis on stallions comes from a certain amount of 'fairy tale' mentality. The stallion is always said to have produced the most phenomenal babies. And, while I've heard mare owners trash a stallion unfairly, I've heard stallion owners do the same to mares. Bred to a stallion who occasionally throws color and your loud Paint mare throws a solid baby? Stallion owner will blame the mare every time. Even NOW when we have the genetics to prove where the color comes from. 

I think they're 50/50, maybe 60 (mare)/50 (stallion) on the outcome. You can put 2 pieces of paper together and get a hypothetical amazing foal and in reality, it's still a crap shoot. Once you find a winning combination, keep that mare with that stallion. You could be disappointed but I think it's a lot less likely than if you breed from one to the next to the next. That's 'Stallion du Jour' breeding, do it long enough and you may get lucky. And that brings me to "spaghetti on the wall" breeding. That's where a stallion owner will breed his stallion to anything that stands still long enough to see what happens. I call that throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what sticks. You breed 400 mares, get 1 National Champion (in Arabs, preferably a colt) and 399 also rans. That's just running the numbers, not applying any real knowledge. 

You have good mares, great mares and mares....... A good mare has the foal, let's it follow her around and nurse. A great mare does all that but teaches the foal how it needs to act and to have proper horse manners and be respectful of the herd hierarchy. They let the foal know that humans are not the enemy and that hanging out with humans can be a good thing. The foal learns that while with his/her dam, the other horses will let them have a pass if the baby makes mistakes. They also learn that they don't "wear mom's stripes" once they're weaned. Most adults will still look after them but won't tolerate any nonsense. Those are the good foals, they're easy to handle and easy to train. The ones who grow up thinking they wear mom's stripes are tougher. 

Mares, said like a 4 letter word, are tough to breed, a pain to handle during pregnancy and delivery and pretty much kick the foal out into the world and that's the end of it. They're the rejectors, won't let the foal nurse, or even get near them. Those mares get one more try here, if they do the same thing with the 2nd foal, they're gone. Raising an orphan foal is a lot of work and when it's a orphan that has a perfectly good mom who just can't be bothered? Time for mom to get a new address. 

Stallions are important. They contribute a lot and obviously, without them you don't get foals. But the good & great mares are worth their weight in gold.


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

Zimalia22 said:


> If you are considering a mare for shipped semen, she must be:
> Pass her vet exam and tests with flying colors
> no maiden mares (this is what I was told)
> She must have recently foaled - in other words no mares that "well she foaled 5 years ago so we know she's good".


That's interesting. There's a horse at my barn that the owner keeps trying to breed via AI, and it keeps not working. I wonder if some or all of these are the problem -- I don't know if she's ever had a foal, but she certainly hasn't had one in the few years she's been here, and she was a working carriage horse before that.


----------



## QtrBel (May 31, 2012)

They don't even have to have an allergy. Just being sensitive or their uterus pooling fluid and not emptying can mean a mare won't settle. There are protocols to prevent that but there are vets that don't believe in using prophylactic care. Some mares just won't take with one stallion but breed to another and she does. And don't get me started on progesterone. Yep. Have to have great vet care at both ends.


----------

