Breeding shed manners

[MBlanchrd@aol.com]

Hello, Campers,

   While I am not a breeder, I spent several years of my teens working on a 
QH breeding farm. 
 I saw all sorts of machinations....keeping mares under lights ten hours a 
day to "fool" her pituatary into thinking February  was really May, pumping 
mares full of hormones to make them cycle, twitching, hobbling, blindfolding 
or doping a mare to keep her still long enough to permit the stallion to 
jump, artificial insemination (with its steel vagina, and a padded piece of 
wood or steel gomer), the whole nine yards. This was before embryo transfer, 
frozen semen, etc.

 And it always appeared to be far more stressful to the horses, both mares 
and stallions than it was worth. A mare that wouldn't stand for the stallion 
would be AI'ed, the vet always having his arms up in her innards, checking 
checking checking and no she didn't catch again. The stallion, freezing his 
butt off (because he's kept clipped  year round in order to be in "show coat" 
for prospective clients),  being led down the aisle to a strange mare he's 
never seen in his life, he's not even allowed to introduce himself and he's 
supposed to breed her right now..
And all for what? A January foal.  A Michigan January is a miserable thing, 
the ice is up to your hocks, it's snowing,  it's been below zero for weeks, 
the sun hasn't been sighted in months, you can't even let the mares out into 
the paddocks because the mud is frozen into ridges of ice that.

They kept their mares one mare to a  small paddock so that the only social 
interaction a foal had was with his mother. The paddock was small enough that 
a foal couldn't get up into a full gallop. Too dangerous. No playing with the 
other foals, he might get hurt. At six months he was ripped away from her, 
(they called  it weaning), stuffed into a trailer and shown at halter until 
he was sold. The stud never got to meet a mare unless it was with his 
breeding halter on. Otherwise he was kept in a lonely paddock by himself, no 
where near the mares. No  other horse, not even a gelding, to nibble his 
neck, no one to swat flies and swap lies with, just him in lonely, lordly 
isolation.
And though he was gentle and sweet natured, they never, ever dared let him 
near a foal because " Oh, my god, no. Stallions will kill a foal".


I used to wonder, "Why isn't this considered cruelty to horses?" Because the 
barn was palatial, the hay the finest alfalfa, the stalls hock deep in golden 
straw, the ribbons on the wall attesting to the purity of the bloodline?

Horses are intensely social animals. They live in herds in the wild. In 
natural settings, a stallion lives with his mares until he's displaced by 
another stallion. The mares allow him to breed him when THEY'RE ready. He 
knows who they are, he's eaten with them, slept with them, run with them, and 
he knows what he is supposed to do. 
The mares foal in May, when it's warm and there is green grass to eat. The 
foals run and play and fool around with each other, they get banged up, they 
try what they've seen the grown up horses do to each other, making all the 
mistakes when they are still babies and can practice without repercussions. 
They know  their  father and know all the other mares in the band.

The fillies watch the stallion breeding his mares. They learn that there 
might be noise, confusion and what sounds like fighting, but mom is unhurt, 
no one seems to be bothered by it.  The colts watch and later on, try what 
they saw dad do, and they suffer the consequences when they try to mount an 
old mare. Like other animals, they learn by watching their parents. By the 
time a filly is old enough to breed, she knows the deal, she's seen it done a 
hundred times, so while she may be nervous she's not afraid. The colt, when 
he finally wins a band of his own, knows that if he's not respectful of the 
mare he's about to breed, he's going to get nailed by a pair of hind hooves.

So many times in our modern horse world, the horse has been removed from the 
natural way of being a horse that he or she doesn't understand what we mean 
when we finally want them to be a horse.
 The virgin mare about to be bred for the first time may be honestly 
terrified of the stallion because she's never seen her own species mate 
before. All she knows is this huge stallion is yelling and roaring and coming 
at HER.................The colt may be a monster to handle because he's all 
hormones and he-man, and no one ever allowed a mare to kick his ass when he 
got bratty as a baby. I knew one mare who was terrified of her first foal 
because she'd never seen a foal before. She'd been a show horse for her 
entire life. 

While pasture breeding is probably not do-able for most breeders anymore, it 
still seems to be the easiest  way for a horse..any gender, to learn what it 
means to be a horse at breeding time. Yup, I'm sure there will be bruises and 
torn hide and probably offended neighbors who want to live in the country but 
without all that messy stuff, like roosters crowing at 3 AM,  coyotes eating 
their pet cat, smelly cows and and horny horses.

The problems one sees in the breeding shed may not be a lack of training by 
the owner, or a lack of brains on the horse's part..but a lack of experience, 
lack of knowledge of what is wanted and expected, and occasionally, outright 
fear.

It's a bloody wonder they don't hate us. Or go insane.

I can't remember who said it, but the quote goes, "The closer he is to 
nature, the happier your horse will be."

I'll step off my soapbox now.

Michelle