I’m wondering what the effect of Covid19 will be on the breeding season. I planned to breed 4 mares this spring. One has foaled and is about to be rebred, and I assume that shipments from California will continue and be safe. The other mares i had not planned to breed until late April or May, which may likely be the peak of the virus. Will anything he shipped at that point? Vets visiting farms?
At this point I am putting off breeding my mare until this settles down. Hopefully may/June will be better. Fingers crossed. Right now my repro vet is not coming out for routine work- which is including breeding.
Well the foals that are on the way are coming regardless. In a lot of ways I wish I didn’t have a foal on the way any day because I am unemployed at the moment which I didn’t even realize was possible since I own my own business but here we are. I am sure shipments of everything are going to be harder to get in a timely manner as this drags on and no question people are going to have less disposable income for a while so it seems inevitable it will trickle down to Sporthorses breeding and sales as well.
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You obviously misunderstood the question.
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@Andrew There are travel advisories and restrictions in place for people. It affects horse breeding when people are advised to stay home.
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Andrew is a trump supporter. I think that explains it.
Ignoring the fact that your math fails to account for the fact that the US has not scaled up testing for COVID by any meaningful number…
Crashed markets can and do impact horse buying habits. Shelter in place orders can impact necessary service providers for breeding. Vets may even be struggling to maintain a supply of certain materials due to recent supply chain upheaval. There may be small scale breeders who find themselves at the mercy of jobs that have been shut down for an unforeseen period of time. Depending on where you get your semen, or may have difficulties being shipped to you if it’s coming from a country that is on a stringent quarantine protocol. There is a large amount of uncertainty right now, and that uncertainty is giving a lot of people pause. What ends up actually happening may not be worst case scenario but no one can say for certain at this point - and no one wants to be the guinea pig!
Ultimately, many of the breeders I speak with (including my barn owner) have really scaled back their plans for the year due to a combination of concerns. Most still are planning to breed some, but current events have really dramatically adjusted plans for 2020.
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Also COVID - 19 is a zoonotic virus, it was transferred from animals to humans, and could potentially be transferred back although I’m unsure if there are any animal cases currently.
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I may have to cut back on my breeding. I purchased breeding early to get pre-season discounts, not foreseeing how the world would change so drastically. I was not asking about zoonotic risk, but there is a dog in Hong Kong (i think that was location) whose owner had covid19. Dog tested positive for carrying virus but asymptomatic. We may be on lockdown for a while.
We are concerned about the same thing. We had a mare that foaled last month and we were waiting on a shipment from Belgium to arrive to breed her later this month or early April. We just ordered from a different (albeit impressive) stallion that was in stock frozen in the US already and will be breeding her when she cycles this week. I am concerned that we might have difficulty getting shipments, the veterinarian could fall sick, supplies could run short…there are just too many things up in the air right now, and this mare is one I feel we can’t miss a year on. We are beginning to wonder if we should cut back on the number we breed this season as well. I hope all of our concerns are for nothing, but I do feel that these are scenarios that should be considered.
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You do realize that dogs have been tested as being carriers of this virus, don’t you? That means they can give it (back) to people. Just because it doesn’t cause the disease in them doesn’t mean they can’t have the virus.
And you are clearly not understanding the current numbers in context, as well as not understanding the question asked.
I think it’s safe to assume that if a dog can carry it, they can give it to people 
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I think you all are right to be concerned about the impact this pandemic will have on the economy going forward, and the ability of people to buy the horses you are now producing - and also for your ability to support them.
The recession that began with the late 2007 crash HALVED the number of sporthorse breeders in the US. Most of them did not come back, and foal crop numbers never again approached the high point of 2007/2008. If you plan to sell these horses under saddle, you will have less exposure than if you plan on selling them as weanlings/yearlings/2yos. When the money did begin to come back into horse sales in 2011, those that were looking, were not looking for babies. They wanted out-of-the-box…ready-to-play-with.
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We just bought a farm so I could get back into breeding. At least on lock-down I am at home to play with the horses!
Hi guys, I don’t post much, but wanted to step in and correct some misinformation, which has being gathering steam on the internet. I’m a microbiologist, so this is what I do and what I know.
A dog was tested “positive” in Hong Kong, but that means they swabbed the dog and it had some viral DNA on it. The dog was no more infected than a door handle. In fact, the virus (and most viruses) survives better on hard, inanimate surfaces. There is zero evidence that the virus is multiplying in dogs (or horses). Also, the presence of a virus does not mean that it is present in high enough numbers to cause disease (the minimal infectious dose). It is a good idea, in these times, to wash your hands after petting someone else’s pet if they may have been exposed.
The virus likely came from an animal, yes, possibly a bat. Bats are remarkable carriers of all sorts of potentially dangerous microbes, from viruses and bacteria and fungi. Just why is up to debate. They often spread the disease through another intermediary species, which is currently unknown in regards to this virus right now. But the current data do not indicate that this virus has a proper animal carrier.
To answer the original question, I agree that the economy will be the biggest factor in the hit taken during this years breeding season. My vets here are currently limiting patients that they’re seeing, especially new patients. Shipping has been a major issue over the past two weeks, and I only see that getting worse in the immediate future. Shipping has been more erratic. We get important patient samples from across the country, and even for those overnighting had become a lot less reliable. I could see shipping of fresh-cooled semen in a timely manner to be difficult.
Stay healthy and safe everyone.
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I mean if I was a breeder I wouldn’t breed this season. So many folks are losing their jobs already and there will be more to follow. I think a lot of people will be forced to sell their horses. My guess is there’s going to be lots of nice horses for sale and not enough people to buy them. The breeding game is risky enough without a pandemic adding to it.
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Having been a pro before, during and after the 2007 recession, I observed that breeders all but halted breeding. At the time, I predicted that the market six years to ten years hence would be a seller’s market, because all of the babies not made would leave very few going horses to chose from. The other effect was to weed out the backyard breeders, and the low-end breeders. One one hand, this reduced the number of unwanted horses later, it also increased the value of the nice horses who were bred.
By the time the economy recovered, GOING horses were indeed MUCH more expensive…more than inflation could explain.
Unfortunately, one of the blow-backs is that there USED to be some very nice, well-trained “ordinary” horses who were primarily trained by their dedicated but not super wealthy Ammy owners. They were easy, not expensive, and perfect for the next Ammy to learn on. Those owners who could not afford full training, and barely could afford their horses at all, but MADE it happen…were priced completely out of the horse world.
Foals born born this year and the next few (depending on how deeply the economy sinks), will have real value only after they are under saddle, and I’m afraid that the market for selling babies will be all but caput.
I have a foal due this June. An ET Dutch foal who should be high-value if genetics ring true. I’m assuming I’ll be keeping this one for a long time. If I’d been banking on selling this foal for what the mare’s last one sold for…I’d be delusional.
My one data point: I was looking at buying a 2-year-old at a spring sale in the beginning of May. I hope to know whether or not my own income will take a hit before then. I am that “good ammy” who can make up her own horses with a bit of help. But I won’t go into debt to do that.
These are all good points, all affecting or potentially affecting the breeding season.
I have a friend who was supposed to leave for Germany last week to pick up frozen semen. Obviously that trip has been cancelled, and the shipping of the semen is now in question.
As a breeder and former stallion owner, the reliability of shipping is paramount. As others have already mentioned, the shipping during this pandemic is a big unknown, and that would give me pause.
Still, if one is interested in breeding, perhaps the solution, other than frozen already in your tank, or close at hand, would be to source out suitable stallions within easy driving distance.
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Seems like a good time to brush up on AI techniques. It’s impossible to predict the economy we’ll be facing by the time you’ll want to market the product of these pregnancies, so that will have to be a personal choice. As a horse owner, and very occasional breeder for myself, I would want to keep our limited veterinary resources available to deliver this years foal crop and deal with emergencies. The less we see our vets the more likely they are to stay healthy, so if you have access to the equipment and education to DIY it, maybe do.
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