Hypothetical till I pay the money and have him home but here is a rough plan.
Let him be for a couple of weeks, groom, walk, lounge to get him loose and supple, chiro and massage appointments. He will be trailered from Santa Rosa CA to Ladner BC Canada. He's 5 and never bred, he's very nicely mannered, and has been shown extensively. I plan on giving him a year off showing, doing some trails and working on his dressage so we can show next year.
Year 2, lightly showing dressage, and collecting him at a breeding station.
Here's where i really have questions, I only plan on breeding him to 5 or 6 mares at first. I planned on only collecting 2 or 3x the first season, is that realistic?
I don't want to continue breeding him if his foals aren't great, this takes time, therefore I thought limiting the mares until I can see some yearlings of his.
Of course he gets gelded should he not remain a gentleman. Please let me know if this is unrealistic, I want this horse to be able to show and produce, but also be a horse. My thoughts being limiting the covering allowing me to show and ride him, and pick the mare that would be suitable. Am i being fair to the horse only having him collected 2-4x a year? Should I allow him to settle in, show, then breed or try show and cover in the same year? No live cover, only AI while he's been shown/riden and never collected on my property.
Moya, I am not sure on the collection issue, someone else will have to answer as we currently only do live cover. But for showing and riding, I know many breeders that breed from jan-may and then show from that point on with great success. I also know many fellows that do well with breeding and showing at the same time. You have to change the fellows mind as to what he is doing and what is expected of him and if you are able to do this then all else should fall into place. Change of equiptment for work vs breeding type thing, where work is preformed and where breeding, or collection is done.
Gelding him in the future ... yes he should stay just the same with no problem. Less testosterone (sp) should not impact a already good behavior.
If you breed him to mares that respond well to cycle manipulation, you could hypothetically collect him once and breed all six, if they were all in heat at the same time. My six year old stud regularly gives us enough seamen on one collation for ten mares! But he has supper sperm. Realistically, you can probably get five or six mares breed in two or three collections, if you had some nice fertile mares, and a good repro vet. A more conservative number might be a collection per mare if the mares are not hyper fertile, or if he has not so super seamen. Also my stud does every kind of breeding, AI to Hand even pasture in a pinch. He is all boy when he thinks it might be breeding time, but when he sees his work halter, he shuts right off. I can pull him out of his pasture with a mare and throw a saddle on him to go gather cows. He won't be the happiest horse on the place, but he can deal with it. If you don't think your horse is smart enough to be able to adapt to the change, your not giving him enough credit. I think the best thing to do is treat him like the change your asking is no big deal, and hope full he’ll agree with you. During his maiden breeding season my stud was still finishing his training so he went from breeding a mare to the ropeing arena, he doesn’t seem to traumatized by it.
That's awesome! thank-you. I had a feeling i was being overly cautious but then again, it's easier for me to have him collected off the property. I highly doubt he's got super sperm, as friesians are usually notorious for having just the opposite. He's a smart one, but more interested in people then other horses so it will be interesting to see how he reacts to breeding and if he changes. My gut tells me I won't have a problem with him understanding his jobs, and the differences between them. My gut also tells me that I'll have to collect each time I need to breed. So you don't find any fatigue or lack of energy when it's breeding season and showing or working the horse? How do you schedule breeding around showing or has hormone manipulation taking all that craziness away? moya
My stud covers a lot of sub fertile mares who don’t respond well to hormone manipulation, so we tend to bend to the will of the female side of our breeding equation; our mares dictate when he gets to go. We think we may have a plan that will solve that next year so hopefully we’ll be able to do some better cycle management. Fortunately for us in the rodeo world, you don’t have to pick which horse you’re going to ride before you head to the event. Stud isn’t really serious about any of his jobs at the moment other than being a porn star, but he is headed back to school to finish making him a barrel horse and calf roping horse at the end of this season. Then we are planning to go all AI after that. The main reason for that is to keep him from getting beat up when he is on top of his rodeo game, not because there is a difference in his behavior. My stud has done two live covers in a day then gone on a 5 mile trail ride no worse for the ware, but he is young and really happy to be doing anything. Someday either his energy level or libido is going to slow down, but at the moment it’s no problem at all.
My stud covers a lot of sub fertile mares who don’t respond well to hormone manipulation
What sort of hormonal manipulation are they not responding well to, and in what way are they not responding? Most of the hormones used in reproduction are hormones that are actually also produced by the mare, so it is rare and unlikely to have a mare not respond to the exogenous hormonal treatment as long as it is being correctly presented.
They build persistent Cl's on both ovaries after their second cycles of the season. They will not break them down on their own after their second cycle. What happens instead is if we can short cycle them on one ovary, the CL remains on the other. They will ovulate breedable follicles but have no uterine tone, and are not about to stand for the stud horse. We have been unsuccessful trying to AI them under these conditions. These four mares are all very closely related, and all have conceived under a pasture breeding program in the past and are all cultured and biopsied clean. We were able to induce heat in one two of them after four days of Prostaglandin. The first Cl, on the ovary growing a larger folicle dissipated after one treatment where as the second didn’t until the fourth. They did end up coming in to heat enough to stand for the stud horse. They all cycle normally in foal heat and the cycle after, but if we miss the second cycle, it is a serious up hill battle. They don’t show particularly well during foal heat so catching the second cycle is difficult with out committing to daily ultrasounds. We have never been able to get these mares to short cycle using a prostaglandin F2á dose six to eight days post ovulation. P and E has been successful in timing the first two cycles, but after that they get the “sticky CLs” so we can't schedule them at all.
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