[Acme Acres]

All depends on the horse. Some studs just plain know what mares are for regardless of them ever covering a mare. Personally, I see no reason to even breed a stud you have to THINK ABOUT it being stallion quality. They either have it or they don't and if you've gotta ask, then they don't.

[CowGirlUp1833]

To the O.P. I do not believe either of the above horses are breeding quality. Only Horses of superior quality should be bred. Although these may very well be wonderful horses, they do not possess the qualities that should be present in horses that are to be bred.

Important things to consider before breeding

1st and most important: Could I fiind what I want by buying a foal already on the ground?
Overall health (Is the mare healthy enough to carry a foal? Do either the mare or stallion have health conditions that may be passed on to the foal?)
Proper Conformation for the breed (Do not breed horses that are poor examples of the breed standard or have other conformational flaws that can be passed on, i.e. clubbed feet, short neck, weak hind end, etc.)
Temperment (Temperment CAN be passed on. Nasty horses may produce nasty babies)
Are these horses representitive of the type of foal I wish to get? (i.e. don't breed halter horses for a hunter prospect)
Do I have the proper resources? (Do I have the money to properly care for a preg. mare, any emergancies that may come up, post foaling care, extra feed for the mare, then for the foal after? Do I have the proper facilities? Foaling stall, proper fencing for a foal, etc.)
If planning to sell the foal: Is there a market for the foal? There is a surplus of horses already. Selling horses right now is hard. Prices are low. Unless breeding exceptional quality babies, it may be very difficult to even cover the costs from breeding/raising a foal to weaning.

Horse Slaughter is a very real and very big problem. Anyone who feels pain when the think about the hundreds of thousands of horses slaughtered every year needs to take a hard look at themselves and thier motives before breeding horses. Unless you have excellent breeding horses and cannot find what you want in a foal already on the ground, you are dirrectly contributing to the need to continue slaughtering excess horses. Horses should only be bred in an attempt to improve the breed or the speices as a whole. Breeding inferior horses only leads to the dilution of quality, not only in individual breeds, but in the speices as a whole. Diluting the quality leads to more genetic diseases, conformational faults as well as many other problems.

PLEASE, Really REALLY think before you breed.

[SpiritSaddle]

Well yeah i know, but if she's going to breed him anyways regardless of what we say, then wouldn't it be better if she had him collected and then gelded, then maybe she could put some showing under his belt or something and THEN see if she wants to breed and she could use the sperm? Or is that not how it works?

[Acme Acres]

That's up to her. Again, it depends on the horse and what they already know about mares. If you're going to collect, you have to teach them to mount and personally I don't like collecting a stallion off a mare. Way too many "moving parts" in there (2 back lets, 2 front legs, your arms, etc. So unless they have someone that would be willing to teach him to collect and has a dummy, they might as well just live cover. Sperm have a very short life. Excellent semen, properly extended can go 72 hours and still be useable. If they planned on keeping it for later??? Has to be frozen. More money, more work.

Its one thing to geld a proven stallion because you have a suitable replacement for it and you want your children to be able to ride him down the road, it's another thing to just cover a mare and geld him for the sake of doing it (breeding).

[Kicks]

Originally Posted by SpiritSaddle

Well yeah i know, but if she's going to breed him anyways regardless of what we say, then wouldn't it be better if she had him collected and then gelded, then maybe she could put some showing under his belt or something and THEN see if she wants to breed and she could use the sperm? Or is that not how it works?

It is costly to have a stallion collected, the sperm frozen/stored, and then the mare insemminated.

[SpiritSaddle]

Oh okay, i don't know all that much about getting the horse collected, so i didn't know how costly it was. But thanks for clearing it all up.


So who was he bred with? Was it the mare you showed us?

[Acme Acres]

Originally Posted by Kicks

It is costly to have a stallion collected, the sperm frozen/stored, and then the mare insemminated.

Can be The freezing is the most expensive part (the whole process, not just the actual freezing part). But like it's been said, why save the sperm of an average at best stud?

[SalemsMom]

Originally Posted by rusty123rus

ok well actually we would not sell the foal and we i was wondering because he we are going to geld him and we want to get something out of him and he is still growing he is only about 2 or 3

Neither are good in the conformation,and why would you want to use a two year old colt,he is just a baby himself,and this won't help his attitude,to many horses out there that needs good homes now! Do you have experience in training babies,takes a lot of work and know how! Sorry i have to say a big NO NO on that one!

[Lou3]

nope. Neither horse is breeding quality for many reasons.
This is a case of a breeding simply adding one more to the hundreds of average quality horses that the US is already overflowing with and not acheiving anything constructive. From a moral point of view the stud should be gelded and the mare should not be bred.

[Farnorth]

Nope, the world has enough excess horses.

Don't breed horses just because you can.

If you have use for a foal ..... rescue one that is already here... in the long run you could get a foal for less than the vet bill a pregnant mare would run up.