So I know there are still people that pasture breed horses. . . but I’m not sure how to find them. You know the part about never breed a horse unless you would be okay with a carbon copy of the mare? Well, I would be thrilled with one. But I’m not into that whole ai mess, and even live cover options, among quarter horses, seem to be limited. I’m willing to drive a pretty good ways, and I’m okay with a stallion that isn’t the flavor of the week, as long as he throws sound, pretty, good minded babies. Um, thinking maybe about breeding in 2019, so I’ve got some time to figure it out, I hope.
Well, consider that pasture breeding puts both mare and stallion at risk, AI is definitely a better mousetrap all around.
We hand and pasture bred forever, but AI was better for all once it was standard.
You can also get a better stallion thru AI than limiting yourself to what is available locally and as pasture breeding.
Not many want to risk their mares and stallion thru pasture breeding.
Even in TBs, that have to be naturally bred, hand breeding is the norm.
5 Likes
I am totally with Bluey. I won’t risk my mares to pasture breeding. All of our foals are AI babies. I am also leery of my horses being handled by others at breeding farms, live cover. I really just don’t want them gone from home. Way too picky on how I want them managed, so AI at home or Vet office suits me fine! Ha ha
AI is not that hard with qualified Vets or well trained personel who are really experienced in this area. Vet could come to you to bring semen and breed mare at home. You could also take mare to a breeding facility or farm, let them do the AI work for you and not risk herd injury to your mare. Boarding cost would be about the same as herd breeding. You can sure get a better stallion easier, doing AI, shipped semen, with much less stress to your mare. No driving with trailer miles and hours getting to the stallion, so money and time saved there.
1 Like
I would imagine that no one who is breeding professionally would do pasture breeding. You would want more control over the process and want to limit possible injuries to either mare or stallion. People who own their own mares and stallion are more likely to pasture breed, but even if they had the level of stallion you wanted, that would mean putting your mare into an existing herd, and having her negotiate the new mare mean girl hierarchy.
Also if you pasture breed you often don’t know the due date very well. My friend pasture bred (nice mare, nice stallion, lovely foal, all good) and assumed the mare would have caught in the first month, but that expected due date rolled by and she just got bigger and bigger. And when she finally foaled, we calculated that it had taken her several months to catch. Whereas if the horse is hand bred or AI then you know the due date and you breed when the mare is in heat.
1 Like
AI is so much safer for the horse then pasture breeding and even hand breeding unless it truely is an expert crew in a well managed facility.
The biggest problem with pasture breeding is reproductive parts infections for both followed by an unreceptive mare kicking the crap out of the stud when he tries to mount, sometimes getting the back legs and knocking him down. Or a stud roughing up a mare, hard biting along the crest and cracking her with a front hoof for example. And if there’s other mares in his harem? You get them and their pecking order creating more injury risk.
I wouldn’t take the risk with a good mare and wouldn’t think anybody with a decent stud wants a strange mare moving in with him away from supervision. Even hand breeding can result in some of this if the handlers don’t know what they are doing.
Anyway, it’s so much safer all around, gets you access to a much better stud and might look like it costs more but it pays you back with a better quality foal, known conception date, very few or no pregnancy complicating infections and no possibility of injury by an overeager or clumsy stud or mare who acted ready but changed her mind.
2 Likes
