[QUOTE=Home Again Farm;7317802]
I am not criticizing your arrangement, Canterbury. I do have a question, though. How do you guard against twins? I assume that when pasture breeding, you do not know if a mare double ovulates. Do you do pregnancy checks a certain number of days after seeing a mare bred? If not, how do you know if a mare has conceived twins and eliminate one?[/QUOTE]
The mares are ultrasounded at an appropriate time. What has been interesting to me is that where previously I’d had as many as four out of eight mares twin in a single year, I have had none with pasture breeding even with a mare with a history of twins three times before. I guess they have the timing down better by themselves than with human assistance.
That is very interesting, Canterbury. Thanks for sharing.
Several years experience
I am on my 6th stallion pasture breeding. The first experience was because the stallion was so big and the circumstances so imperfect to be safe I refused to handle the stallion for fear of getting hurt by either the mare or the stallion. We paddock bred instead. The stallion had live covered but never been loose with a mare. He was a thug and the mare taught him you do not gallop and jump on any mare unless you wish to die. The same mare was an every other year mare and we could not breed in anyway the years she had a foal at side though in a subsequent year we had a different mare foal out with the stallion and it was lovely he was a grand daddy. I still think the other mare would have killed him in those years she had a foal at side. We bred a colt to a young mare and never saw the breeding, never saw any stallion interest, but had a foal next year nevertheless. In the last few years we have done it and the stallion’s first year is very rough. The older stallion ran himself to rags and bits, got all his mares in foal and half were over 20 years old. He ran his mares actively til he was pulled out for winter and he came in skin and bones as he would not eat while on the mares. The mares adored him except they would steal his food relentlessly. This was a herd of all dominant mares and we gave them a couple weeks to work out their heirarchy and then brought a few of them in heat and put the stallion in with them. The next year he was better, calmer, held his weight better. We tried to add two mares and the other mares would not let the new mares in. So in our case we make the herd before the stallion is put in. The first year for Laird was tough. The mares did not like Laird and he was a thug. He had to learn manners and they were willing to teach him. There were two mares that would not say no to him and he would run them down…they would lay down…we removed those mares. He had gone into a collection facility early in the year and he had been a challenge to handle…he is very big. The next year he went in to be collected and he was a total gentleman amd the teaser mare ruled. His second year with the herd mares was pretty peaceful. He was still hammered a few times but he ate better (a LOT of feed)and held his weight. He is just coming in from a second group this fall. In general you can tell the mares are bred by the side scrapes if you don’t see him cover. He has 100% in foal, no twins, no mares slipped. It is likely that if there were twins one reabsorbed as nature took care of it. The mares were not pregnancy checked until the next spring or summer. Again half the mares are old and some are problem mares. There are two very old mares that remained open when with another stallion, they are close to 30. We have some mares that we just wouldn’t put out with the stallion for a few reasons, value, they are still being ridden, one is a very dominant big mare who could seriously injure a stallion and at the least we would want him to be much more experienced managing his mares before she is in a herd. Those mares we live cover or AI in the late spring. We want late summer fall foals from the herd mares. The stallions do their commercial breeding earlier in the year and their farm breeding late in the year. It is absolutely dangerous for the stallion but they do figure it out…they are also happy to put the equipment away for the winter. We pasture foal the mares as well as pasture breed. There are mares this doesn’t work for…they have to be easy keeping, no care mares, it helps if the mares are friendly as the foals handle better if the mares are social but even if not the foals come along fast once weaned, The mares should be sturdy and happy in herd and not all mares are good out in the back. The stallions need to be the same. The feet and vet work are done before the stallion goes out. We have one stallion that can have mares come and go and he can come and go with no problem and he keeps the mares from fighting but he is the exception in my experience. We set the herds and leave them alone and that works for us. PatO
I’m glad this work for so many. Being honest, it makes me twitch but if the benefit outweighs the risks for some, I am glad it works.
It is a leap of faith at first - I believe I had a good stiff drink before the first day. It works for me - he is merely turned out with the girls, everyone comes in at night so in my opinion I get the best of both worlds - a socialized stallion with an easy, safe for the humans breeding technique, but everyone is still managed/fed/handled individually. Bear in mind I have owned this stud since he was a weanling and he has been well socialized, and I do not stand to outside mares - I would not do this with a mare I did not know well or own.
I have used pasture breeding with great results. It takes a lot less time to just notice when they stop ‘breeding’ each other and you not it for ultrasound for twins, than the time it takes to arrange and administer fresh or frozen.
We both pasture breed (paddock breed as someone earlier called it) and in hand live cover with our stallion. He’s a gentleman both ways.
Like Sherian said a few posts above, we only do pasture breeding with our own mares. We started it, because my mare came in heat, my husband’s work schedule for the next three days didn’t work out that he could help me during daylight hours, and I didn’t want to wait till next month to breed her. So into the paddock they went.
Worked so well for us, that from then on, if my husband wasn’t convienent to help me do in hand breeding, I just paddock bred them after teasing. In our case, I’d turn the mare out for a bit to let her get accustomed to the area, then turn Sparky out. I’d watch for a while, make sure they were not racing around crazy, watched a cover or two, and then leave them for a few hours. Sparky loved the socializing. Only once did I have to take him out of the paddock. He and our one mare were just crazy about each other. He covered her almost 6 times in less than two hours, so I separated them.
Last year, we had two mares come into heat at the same time, so we hand bred the one mare in the morning, and turned the second mare out with him for the afternoon so they could take their time. The next day, we reversed the mare’s times. And the third day, reversed it again. Both mares went out of heat the fourth day and were in foal.
We’ve not had any problems other than a few superficial scrapes. If your stallion was breeding outside mares, or had a huge book, pasture/paddock breeding wouldn’t really work. I’d never pasture/paddock breed an outside mare to our stallion. Doing it this way, we’ve had 100% in foal. We had two mares slip this year, which is a first for us. But one has bad cysts and has always had trouble holding her foals, and the other didn’t handle shipping from PA to KY when we moved this year very well.
Sheila
