[QUOTE=khall;6506410]
They blamed me for letting him bite her! They had to hand breed the mare eventually, after schooling stallion pretty heavily.[/QUOTE]
What does “schooling stallion pretty heavily” mean?
I knew someone years ago who was a great rider but had never done any breeding. Decided to breed her stallion to one of her mares. They brought the mare into the indoor arena and had someone hold her. Brought the stallion in and up towards the mare. As he got close, he shouldered the handler (inexperienced with breeding stallions) off balance and knocked her down and charged the mare. The girl holding the mare tried to hold on as the mare took off. The mare pulled free and the stallion just ran over the top of the girl as if she wasn’t there. Fortunately she wound up with only minor injuries. That was an example of what not to do for sure.
I am sorry for the family, but horses are dangerous beasts. Period. Just about ANYTHING you do with them is fraught with risk because they are big, fast and VERY reactive. Add a tub of boiling hormones to that and it increases the risks.
I’ve seen a stallion enraged several time and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end. One time, like others have noted, this stallion would have killed the other horse in his pasture, as we could not get him off it, except for some very brave stock dogs who drove him off.
And with my first stallion, Kinor, he came to be as a spoiled 2yr old who had already pasture-bred a mare. He barely knew how to lead! It was late summer and I noticed my Arab (a VERY easy breeder) seemed to be in heat.
Because he was so wild, I turned them in together and the mare not only would NOT breed to him, but bit him, chased him away and thoroughly demoralized the young guy.:sadsmile:
1+ yr later the same mare IS teasing to him, and flirting like crazy!!
Do you know he refused to breed her!! She would stand on one side of the fence winking, peeing, etc. and he would be on the other, staring off in the distance, TOTALLY quiet, TOTALLY ignoring her. This went on for a day or two…finally I turned her in with him (very large pasture).
Not only would he STILL not breed her, he went after her!! Only the fact that she is a fast little bugger saved her bacon.
For the next 3 foals that those two produced (and they were beauties!) that time on, we did ONLY hand breeding. We had to drug the mare, blanket her, tease him on another mare, then slip her in. Using drugs we’d do it in just one cover.
Horses are not machines and even experienced folks get hurt.
HOWEVER, I’m not sure we’ve talked enough about the what part of these results come from how the stallion is raised, handled and housed…AND what will happen to breeding stock if they get like chickens and stuff…where they lose much of their reproductive drive…
Naturally that would take many generations, but do you think it would happen? If we start to do everything where the mares & stallions barely see each other…
Back in the old days when live cover was required, I watched a stallion take the ear off his handler while mounting a mare. Absolutely an accident…no evil intention on the part of the stallion whatsoever.
It’s a risk, but my Dad used to put the two-year old stallion prospects out with the broodmare band in the summer after all were safely in foal. Most of our colts got snipped early, but occasionally a good colt got to keep the jewels. Nothing can teach an unruly colt good manners like a boss mare. If the colt continued to be stupid, he got gelded in the fall. It just wasn’t worth the hassle and since we were breeding performance horses, my Dad didn’t want bad behavior in the gene pool.
Pasture breed
My stallion is out with his first herd of mares. It is a very frightening thing to do. He had a reflex of lashing out with both hind feet when being collected or live covered…I was very afraid he would lash out at a pasture mare who gathered too close. He did lash out one time and all the mares turned around and pasted him…turns out it was a bad habit and not a reflex reaction. He never did it again. He is ham “handed” and will learn subtlety. Many of the mares were brought into heat before he was turned out and it is the mares pastures as someone said. He is the interloper. The mares have had a stallion out with them before so they know how it is done and they are teaching him. At this point we do not go out into the field. We leave him and the mares alone. It is flat out dangerous to go out at this time. Each horse is perfectly safe to handle in other circumstances but with the shifting dynamics of their new herd you do not go out and expect your sweet girl to come quietly out of the herd.
The mares are actively managing the stallion and he gets confused about what he should be doing and where he should be. He had a day of lameness. We left him be. If it was an abcess it would resolve in time and slow him down…a little quiet time enforced by a hot abcess. If it was not an abcess he would come out in 2 days and we would hope the mares had settled. The next day he was sound. We leave him with the mares 2 months for sure. He is in week two and they are all very happy. The mares have scrape marks from the stallions front hooves.
The stallion has had the crap kicked out of him at first but he is very big and the mares did not mince “words”. He went out a silent stallion and will learn to talk to his mares. It is very dangerous, for both mares and stallion but it is something the mares love as well as the stallion. To see them progress from an unhappy stallion in a pen patrolling a fence line to a group of field horses all touching in a group. It is facinating to watch…could just as easy be horrifying. PatO
Wellll…I’ve seen and/or aided in the live-cover, hand-breeding of hundreds of mares to at least ten different stallions it’s been a long time but I came up with 10 right off the bat) and nobody has ever ended up under the horses. Nobody has ever gotten kicked.
Lucky? Yes. Did I just jinx us? Maybe. But competence and horse sense - knowing when to breed and when NOT to - are big factors.
