Well, in theory I agree with you Kat, BUT, this assumes that you have control of the animal all of it's life. I bred my negative mare to a stallion that I had been assured was also negative. He wasn't, turns out she hadn't tested the stallion, just assumed that because he had never produced a SCIDS baby, he must be negative. (Believe no one, even a "good" friend).
The foal was a colt, no problem, he's gelded now. However, if it had been a filly, I personally would never have bred it until tested. But, should health, age or what ever force me to sell, I would have no control over what the new owners would do and as the questions on this list of "what is SCIDS" indicate, there are a lot of well meaning people that don't have a clue, much less back yard breeders that don't care.
As a person breeding for my own use, I would have preferred to breed to a negative stallion, just in case it was a filly, in order to insure that I would not be responsible in some indirect way in the future of passing a gene on that really didn't need to be. It really isn't a biggie, there are lots of good negative stallions.
My preference would be to leave the furtherance of the good traits in those positive stallions to ethical breeders that have the knowledge and money and time to do it right. With ethical breeders, it would be possible to breed the SCIDS gene into oblivion in a rather short time and still keep the good traits of those bloodlines.
I might add, that I have a problem with my former friend who breeds no animals for herself and continues to breed her positive stallion to any one that will pay her fee. She does now disclose that he is positive and suggest that if it is an arabian, they should test. Few, if any of the people that she breeds mares for have any interest in the breed, only in having a baby horse to raise. And now we know how these things continue to plague animal husbandry of all sorts.
