# Stallion not producing sperm



## Penny Kleinschmidt (Sep 26, 2016)

I have an 13yr AQHA stallion out of awesome bloodlines thathas never been used for breeding. He was born on my farm & has never beenkept locked up in a stall. He has his own barn & pasture that he can come &go as he pleases for exercise. I recently purchased 3 mares that are in foalfor April babies & decided I wanted to breed them back to my stallion. Itook him yesterday to collect off of him to see what his sperm count was &see what we needed to do to get him ready for breeding season in 2017. Thefirst collection we missed…waited abt 45minutes & was able to get himcollected the 2nd time. His sample was rather dirty looking (browntint to it vs clear) & after putting it under a scope, we were not able tosee any sperm. The breeder said that he had never had one that didn’t at leastproduce dead sperm so he is at a loss but is not wanting me to have him geldedwithout further investigation & research. Both testicles are down, welldeveloped and his libido is awesome. 
I changed his feed to a better quality feed (Nutrena) but Iam actually looking to change to Tribute Essential K as I have read thatSelenium, Omegas, & Vit C help with sperm count & this is the only feedI have found that has all this in one deal. I started feeding him a good Alfalfa/Orchardmix hay once a day and getting ready to switch it to twice a day vs giving himaccess to round bales of grass hay.
My concern is that there is a deeper issue and that myStallion is just a gelding basically & nothing I can do to get him toproduce sperm L:runninghorse2:


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

I would take him to a good vet hospital/breeding facility/university. You say you missed the "first collection" and tried 20 mins later. I wouldn't write him off yet, on just that one bad experience. Take him to a vet who is good with reproduction and have them evaluate him. When I get Skippy ready for breeding season, we do 3 collections to 'clean out' and evaluate the last one. They are NOT done on the same day, let alone in the same hour. 

Feeding him good feed, keeping him in excellent physical shape and so on, is all great and will keep him very healthy, but if he's just got a very low sperm count or is producing no sperm at all, it's not going to change much. If he's good enough to breed, he's good enough to have thoroughly evaluated.


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## Dehda01 (Jul 25, 2013)

Yup, take him to a good university/repro vet and have a full evaluation. They will do a full work up with morphology and be able to go from there. 

I will say that Kathy and Jos At Equine Reproduction have been very kind about answering stallion/breeding related questions. And have helped when even some very good vets have been stumped when one of my mares reacted in a ways we did not expect to frozen.


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## Penny Kleinschmidt (Sep 26, 2016)

Thanks for the feed back. I spoke with my vet today and he agrees that he needs more time to clean out and get unblocked. We are looking to make sure no soundness issues either that may be causing issues after he mounts. He is mounting but wants to lay his neck and head on the mares back to pull himself up on the mare vs standing up on her :-/ Even with issues I'm actually pleased that he was easy to handle during and after his first time actually having contact with a mare.


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## Dehda01 (Jul 25, 2013)

He has had over a decade of being told that mares weren't for him. There can be emotional blocks for stallions that he may need help to get over. I think there was one book that discussed one tb that needed to be housed away from other stallions because that shut down his SC/ by being stalled around mares and incouraged to tease increased libido and the resulting SC. Which is often what we don't want with a performance stallion, but sometimes we shut them down too far.


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## Dreamcatcher Arabians (Nov 14, 2010)

Penny Kleinschmidt said:


> Thanks for the feed back. I spoke with my vet today and he agrees that he needs more time to clean out and get unblocked. We are looking to make sure no soundness issues either that may be causing issues after he mounts. He is mounting but wants to lay his neck and head on the mares back to pull himself up on the mare vs standing up on her :-/ Even with issues I'm actually pleased that he was easy to handle during and after his first time actually having contact with a mare.


Without video or pics of what your stallion is doing, hard to say if it's soundness or just laziness. Skippy is normally pretty lazy but can get pretty motivated during breeding season. He is ALWAYS a gentleman with the mares and handler, we don't allow anything else. So, for him to be easy to handle is a big plus in my book, I've gelded for a lot less.


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## daystar88 (Jan 17, 2013)

Last year we got a stud who had never been around mare until last year and he was 13 as well. We did not check his sperm count or anything but just put him in a field with our mares. Well to the day he now has 2 babies on the ground that we know of (the other mare bred to him was sold and we don't know if she foaled). Both babies are 100% healthy. The palomino is 3 months old standing 12.2h and the chestnut is 2 months standing roughly 9.2h. Their sire is 14.3h and mares are 15.1h and 15h.

I'd honestly say just put him in a field with a mare who is not pregnant and see what happens. Maybe he just needs some time with a mare to know he can breed.


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## Zexious (Aug 2, 2013)

Subbing~


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## EliRose (Aug 12, 2012)

Dehda01 said:


> He has had over a decade of being told that mares weren't for him. There can be emotional blocks for stallions that he may need help to get over. I think there was one book that discussed one tb that needed to be housed away from other stallions because that shut down his SC/ by being stalled around mares and incouraged to tease increased libido and the resulting SC. Which is often what we don't want with a performance stallion, but sometimes we shut them down too far.


That was dual Classic-winner and very good sire War Emblem, it worked for a little while but then he quit touching mares - even when he lived in a field with them for several years. What had REALLY worked for him was breeding small, I think chestnut, mares, but one day the Japanese owners tried a bait-and-switch. They showed him his favorite mare, then tried to switch a champion mare in for her - a big, brown mare. War Emblem never bred another mare again.

War Emblem is a smart, bad actor in general and just didn't like breeding. At all. He's now a gelding and was sent back to KY from Japan, living behind double fences at Old Friends


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

Well'. according to the OP, this stallion does not have a problem performing the breeding act, but just seems to be producing no sperm
The assumption being, that whoever collected him, actually was sure he ejaculated
I am confused, so, some questions for the OP
- was he taught to mount a phantom, and collected properly?
- when was he allowed to cover a mare, before, or after that semen evaluation?
In other words, was he allowed to breed mares, failed to get them in foal, and then collected?
Or-did someone just try and take a sample after he dismounted, assuming he had completed the act?


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## Smilie (Oct 4, 2010)

Normal appearance of semen is also milky white-not clear! 


https://www.vetstream.com/equis/Content/LabTest/lab00123.asp


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