[Clydesweiser]

Histories of congenital defects have a way of propagating through ignorant breeding. It may skip a generation of two but it is exponentially multiplied through the breeding of offspring.

[provencowgirl]

well as i do agree with what some people said and i do not agree with others i think it is a very touchy situation. I have a friend with a mare she bred once because they 1) wanted to have a foal to raise and train 2)since they wanted that and loved their mare they breed her 3) they did keep the filly she had. The thing is alot of people feel, oh if it is a horse with great bloodines it either cant produce a good foal or they are going to get rid of it which is not true. breeding for kicks and giggles is wrong yes, but weather you sell a foal from a horse with great lines or from a horse who's you dont know, they can end up at the same place, a auction. i do not like the fact that people think the only horses who should breed are the ones with great blood lines, it is wrong. I dont do any big showing just very local, so why would i have the use for a horse with these lines? to pay the money for sires and dams? no, my mare who god only knows her lines is perfect to me, sweet calm, kind, funny, a wonderul personality, loves kids, can do it all, and we have had people with some nice arabs with lines want to breed with her but we never did because we didnt have thetime to raise a foal at the time. horses with great lines or unknown lines can end up in a meathouse. yes there are foals out there who need a home, but saying not to breed your mare because it doesnt have great lines is wrong. i would of loved to of bred my arab but with not having the time i couldnt. i had some people on myspace say, why she doesnt have ay kind of lines, isnt "perfect" i should just go buy one but to me lines do not matter and they never will, i dont do any circuit work or big shows and no horse is ever perfect. we used to be at the same stable as a paint who i cant remember his name but he was big in the halter showing and had all these great lines but to me... he was ugly and i would of never bred a mare to him. so more or less to me if you are going to breed for kicks and giggles, dont but telling someone not to because there horse doesnt have any kind of fancy bloodlines is wrong because to some people bloodlines dont mean anything ( aka me). ive seen horses/foals with bloodlines and unknown lines end up at auction, so taht does mean lines do not mean everything to everybody. i admit, i want to breed my blegian mare at some point. she loves being a mom and seems to be a really great horse from what i can tell so far. just because i want to breed her doesnt mean ill send the foal to auction. i plan on keeping it, training it and riding it. and the whole if it doesnt turn out right, etc, and you would end up auctioning it, that can happen to a horse with great bloodlines. to me when people say dont bred your horse unless it has great bloodlines because it will end up at auction, is a bunch of horse poop ( to put it nicely) any horse has a chance to wind up there.

[ebbygirl]

Hi everyone I'm new to the forum but if you don't mind,I'd like to share my story.2Yrs ago my husband got back into breeding racehorses for ourselves,now bare in mind as we go along,he had done this 25 yrs ago,but this is my first experience at it,never been near a horse in my entire life until now.Years ago in Australia,Hendra virus,Equine Influenza or Herpes Virus were unheard of,they are now.We bought ourselves a 17hh mare,exracehorse,a winner herself on the track,good breeding good bloodlines,already had 2 offspring on the track,we get her in foal,all's going well until 6mths in everything went wrong.She developed Herpes Virus Type 4,it's like a chest infection,you would have heard about it maybe.Anyway,we get her back on track,bucketloads of meds,everything's going well,between us and the vets we thought we beat it.Then the day we'd had all waited 11mths for came,2wks early but the vets said that's ok,don't worry.I was with her the whole way,right through,then everything went horribly wrong,my girl gave birth to a stillborn filly close to 80 kgs in bodyweight,built like a tank,perfect in everyway,ebby had no trouble giving birth,vets said it just happened that way.We blame ourselves for this,we should have armed ourselves with more info.more knowlege,we have since changed vets but I don't think I have the strength to do it all again.It cost us all our savings all out time,all our hard work over 11mths for nothing.If you still want to breed after this,think very carefully,you have to be prepared right from the word go not only financially but emotionally because everything can go wrong in a split second,and you'll will end up like me no foal and grieving mare,and oh yes I'm grieving right beside her,make sure you have good vets and arm yourself with as much knowledge as your brain can stand.

[Maisie]

I bought my mare because I loved her on sight & had dreamed of owning a horse all my life. She is unregistered (the result of careless breeding ! ) but she is a looker, a beautiful mover & has a super temperament. When I first had her everyone was telling me I should breed her, & it was a terrible waste not too, I was a first time owner & was made to feel I didn't know one end of a horse from the other by these "knowledgeable horse people" they kept up the pressure for a couple of years but I refused to breed her just for the sake of it or for monetary gain, I have never regretted it ... she is my forever horse, & dearly loved for her own sake alone.

[easygoer]

Originally Posted by ebbygirl

It cost us all our savings all out time,all our hard work over 11mths for nothing.If you still want to breed after this,think very carefully,you have to be prepared right from the word go not only financially but emotionally because everything can go wrong in a split second,and you'll will end up like me no foal...

Hey, I'm new too and enjoyed reading your post.
Many people don't realize how expensive raising a foal can be, until they do it themselves. It's not even just losing the mare, or losing the foal, or not ever getting the mare in foal, or losing the foal before it's born. It's all of the above you have to deal with when you're breeding horses.
We began breeding a few years ago. We run a fairly large TWH breeding facility - about 15 mares and one stallion. All of our horses are impeccably bred, show quality, and most of our mares are proven producers (the ones that are not are 3 y/o or less). About half of our mares each year are bred to outside stallions (not our own).
The first year we bred we weren't located here in the middle of Walking Horse country - we were in South Florida and thus were shipping semen. We were very excited about breeding a 4 y/o maiden mare we had. Stud fee was $500, each semen shipment $225, and God knows how many ultrasounds at $40 apiece. We had the vet out about 3X per heat cycle to monitor her heats, shipped semen twice, and she never got in foal. We lost the money we'd spent on semen shipments, the vet, and the $500 stud fee.

Recently we decided to take a chance on some mares we were offered who were superbly bred. We traded one of our younger 10 y/o mares, who was checked SIF (stud fees paid in full), for 2 mares carrying highly sought-after old time bloodlines. One mare was 20 y/o and the other was 19 y/o. What the h*** were we thinking??
We had the 20 y/o all of 2 weeks before she came down with colic and died while she was down at the breeding farm to be bred (yes, we still had to pay the mare care and vet bills she'd thus far acquired).
Now, the 19 y/o is a whole other story.
We took that horse down to be bred, she didn't die but as you could probably guess, she sure didn't catch. A week's worth of mare care and vet bills there. Took her to the vet's the next cycle, monitored her for almost the whole week before determining that she was transitioning out of heat for the year (it was early Nov.). Better luck next year.
Or so we thought.
So, we bought her a new stud fee and began anew come spring. The first time we took her to be bred, she required a caslick's operation and - you guessed it - didn't catch. Another week's worth of mare care and vet bills, down the tube.
Next heat cycle, take her to the breeding barn again. She catches. But it's not over. She has conceived twins.
Our vet ruptured on twin (another week of mare care and the typical week's worth of palpations for monitoring her heat has been paid). We brought the mare down for weekly check-ups to make sure the other twin was OK for 3 weeks in a row. Each time the mare gets a shot of progesterone. Cha-ching!
On her safe in foal check, she is losing the foal.
By now it is late June and there's no more option of re-breeding her until October.
The first heat she comes in to in October is around the 12th. We have had her palpated twice so far, but she doesn't seem to be doing anything for us. Back down to the vet's tomorrow, we'll probably hear then that we're going to have to wait again until the spring to try to get her in foal. By then she will be 21 years old.
Meanwhile, the mare we had gotten in foal and traded for this piece of s**** has foaled a beautiful palomino stud colt (both parents are blacks, so that is pretty amazing), with no complications for mom or baby, and we have lost not only those two but $1,500++ in vet bills alone, to wind up with one, open, 20 year old mare.

The first year we had foals, our best mare came down with complications and died 2 days after foaling.

Our best producing mare, an 11 y/o with fantastic lineage, who was a show prospect herself, was 10 months in foal to the 2007 World Grand Champion TWH when we bought her. She had produced a World-Class show horse with the sire of the prize winning stud she was in foal to, so needless to say, we were very excited about the baby.
Baby arrived right on time, alive and, seemingly, healthy. Beautiful with perfect conformation, the filly never did stand up. She lived less than 24 hours outside her mother's womb before she died. To the vet goes the mare, who is not eating and very sickly. 4 or 5 uterine flushes, countless tubes of Vitamin B12 and ProBios, and a Quest Plus later, the now underweight mare has finally recovered enough to begin to pick her weight back up so we can attempt to re-breed her 30 days later.
That one has a happy (so far) ending though - mare is back in foal to the stallion and due on May 14 next year.

Breeding does have happy endings, sometimes. We are *attempting* to get 4 mares in foal this fall, and I joked to my mother that if we catch 2 of them that would be just fine, as our normal breeding success rate seems to be about 50% .

So, the point of giving you all my life story is, don't go in to breeding with any expectation except to spend money, and to be disappointed. These are two things you are virtually guaranteed when you're breeding horses.

[iloverockies]

I am a new breeder in our area. We have had 2 mountain horse foals born in the last 2 years by my 1 mare. Last year we traded a gelding for a 6 year old mare to be bred to our 4 year old stallion. This baby is due January/February 2010 and will be the first baby born to our stallion. The main reason we got into breeding is because in West Virginia there are not a lot of Rocky Mountain breeders. I love showing people these horses-many in our area have never even heard of them. That is our reason for breeding and as long as we are able to sell them we will continue breeding. At this time we only have the two mountain horse mares and our other mare is a tn walker.

We hope that this next year we will have some outside bookings. We will never be a big breeder as my hubby and I both work full time jobs and we don't have lots of room for lots of babies. However, I know lots of people fuss about the over breeding of horses, but we feel that the market will pick back up and that we have horses that we can sell due to the limited amount of them for sale near where we live.

There is nothing more exciting than seeing that baby born. We have been pretty lucky so far with our birthings but we know that one day all will not be well. However, we think that the good outweighs the bad.

Kim