We have a TB stallion who is in high demand. This is our first year of standing him to the public. How many mares per day and how much time between breedings per day? In Kentucky they breed up to 8 mares a day. Just was wondering how much time should lapse between allowing him to cover another mare.
To gain an accurate impression you will need to establish his daily sperm output and recovery times. This is best achieved by collecting the stallion twice one hour apart and determining the number of sperm in the ejaculates. The second one should contain roughly half (or more) of the number that were in the first. If the second ejaculate contains somewhere between 20-70% of the number of sperm in the first collection, then multiply the number in the first ejaculate by 27.5% to estimate the daily sperm output. Bearing in mind that the number of sperm required to reliably achieve a pregnancy is around 500 million progressively motile sperm, and that second ejaculates after 1 hour will typically have about 50% of the first, one can start to "guesstimate" the number of mares that can be bred in a single day. By reviewing the amount of time needed to get 50% in the second ejaculate, one can estimate recovery time.
For what it's worth, 8 mares a day would be on the high side of normal, and with most stallions result in very poor overall pregnancy rates.
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