But in breeds that have embraced AI, there is no choice. Finding a quality sport horse stallion that offers LC is essentially impossible these days. So as a mare owner, you are once again pigeon holed into your options.
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The data presented in the studies summarized here do not support the claim that per cycle pregnancy rates are higher with live cover than artificial insemination with cooled semen.
Yes, a lot more things can go wrong logistically with shipped semen. But that is a separate issue from fertility/conception rates. (Taking off my pedantic scientist hat nowâŠ)
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Nor does it say that pregnancy rates are 10% higher with AI as you claimed.
It says these things are hard to ascertain because of the complex variables. And that both LC and AI have been shown to have conception rates as high as 80+% in the right circumstances.
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I know nothing about breeding, but in a recent thread on coth it was said that embryo transfer is hard on the mare. True??
Are you sure they werenât talking about ICSI?
Embryo transfer isnât really a big dealâthe mare is bred, and then the uterus is flushed so the embryo can be retrieved & moved elsewhere.
ICSI is a whole nother beast, where they go scrape eggs off the ovaries.
Perhaps pertinent to this threadâanyone remember the embryo transfer test case in Thoroughbreds in AustraliaâŠjeez, 20 years ago? More? A breeder live covered, then flushed & implanted in another mare. The live cover requirement was met. The Aus JC declined to register, but it was very much a test to see how theyâd approach the question.
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That statistic isnât my claim. Itâs Jos Motterheadâs. If you want to argue with him, go right ahead and reach out to him. I was simply repeating what an expert in the field has repeatedly reported.
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Regarding non-TB modern breeding, I used to adore a jumper mare called Funky Music that came from a high-performing family in Belgium. Sheâs been rather busy lately. I am not too happy about that. 47 babies that I canât get to fit on one page. Hereâs 2022 alone:
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Wow.
I hope sheâs absolutely spectacular.
Although of course, nobody would think twice about a stallion having that many offspring.
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Wow! That many offspring is a little bit mind bending. Stallions, of course, are naturally designed to produce multiple foals. Mares, by nature, produce one every year or so.
It worries me that show jumping breeding has ventured so far from nature. So by contrast, racingâs live cover is not so bad.
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With all the discussion on live cover vs AI & how it may/may not have in impact on the genetic diversity.
I thought this article may fit in here, rather than make a separate post about it.
Granted it just touches on one very small aspect.
I believe itâs been discussed previously as well, but I couldnât find the post.
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Before AI, Arabians had diversity on bloodlines (American, English, Russian, Polish, Old and New Egyptian). After AI and ET was allowed, that went away. The older bloodlines are now left to preservation breeders. The latest issue of Arabian Horse World was the stallion issue, and I dare anyone to find horses with desert-bred origins. Check with Al Khamsa, and youâll see sire and dam lines not prevalent in the show horses commonly advertised.
There was an article recently about a horse (in The Blood-Horse magazine) about a stallion descended from Byerley Turk, one of the three âfoundationâ sires of Thoroughbreds. This sire line is on the verge of extinction.
Rare Byerley Turk-Line Stallion Sold to Japan - BloodHorse
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I am an Arabian breeder. Weâve been averaging about 2k registered foals per year for several years now. The reduction in bloodline diversity is due to the dramatic drop in animal numbers, not AI (which has been around for several decades now).
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