I once had an old sage of a repro vet tell me that it is not the age of the mare but her breeding health. He maintained that the average broodmare would give you 10 foals over her breeding carrier. (Any additional foals were a plus but don’t count them until they hit the ground.) He said that is because each foal causes scars on the uterus making it just a little bit harder for the next foal to attach and grow to term. (Thus ten foals equal much scaring.) He also maintained that any mare, no matter her age, was a good candidate to breed for first foal, if the uterus was clean and healthy on palpitation and the mare was in overall good health. And I know of one standarbred mare that he foaled out at age 29.
A Fine Romance’s dam was 22 the year that he was born. The mare was healthy and looked and felt wonderful, but I had already decided that this would be her last foal.
When I bought her at age 14 she had had 4 foals, but had been barren for 6 years since the last one. I had 3 foals from her, and every one was a ‘small victory’.
Since then, I arbitrarily stopped breeding them at 20.
I feel they have done enough.
I’m so glad I found this thread. I have a mare who just looooves being a mama and has been a bit off lately, seemingly out of boredom or equine ennui…hard to tell, physically checks out well so ???
At 22, I think I’ll let her have another. She is a super mom.
