Covering age

Backyard breeder? :? :roll: :(

I will say that I heard of a true accident where the 7 month old colt was still in the pasture his his dam and had not been gelded yet. The result was actually a nice horse. Talk about luck! :shock: The colt got gelded, but suffered no ill effect. Men. :roll:

Some people want to know what they are going to get as soon as possible. I don't think waiting an extra year (as a 2 year old) is waiting that long. But some people.

Trouble is that her friends have taken an interest in him as a stallion and want his first foal...personally I do not think he is stud material but then what do I know ! She is not the backyward breeder type she is actually very sensible most of the time..maybe she is seeing more than me in this case and in which case I bow to her opinion.

On another point what base colour is a Leopard spot appy who has both black and brown spots on the body - asked about the points as I presumed it was a bay..is this normal in appies ?

It is somewhat common in Apss. *nods* Probably bay, but could be black. Tough call.

I think yearlings are really hard to judge. If you'd have seen Frodo when he stepped of that trailer you would have said "Geld it!" :laugh1
I do think breeding a yearling is a bit early, but if she's planning on breeding anyway, a year won't change anything. She's not going to cover 20 mares right???

Lipi, what breed as it would be hard to register a foal sired by a yearling in most English/European studbooks.
We (in our dim and distant youth) once put a nine month old Arab colt on my PB mare for a bet with our farrier and he sire a very nice colt, but he only had that one, experienced mare til he was two, a few mares in his two year old year and then I am afraid he was expected to work for his living and he took 30 mares from then on.....people were breeding more in those days!!!
I would not use a yearling, knowing what I do now, but I am happy to use two year olds, and do as norm, irrespective of their maturity level, Carlos was as thin as a rake and knee high to a grasshopper, had never been handled etc etc...I still put him on an experienced, quiet mare I had and to be honest it was the making of him, sharpened him up no end, gave him a real reason to like halters ( ;) ) and jump started all his maturity levels.
Of course he got loads of feed, was only used in hand, and was properly looked after.
He is still an idiot, but he's a fat idiot who can cope with breeding mares loose and will run with stallions and colts all through the winter, so I do think it depends on how they are handled, how they are fed and what is expected of them.
Still would not use a two year old.
Most Societies agree with me, too.

I read you can safely breed a 2 yo but only like once every 3? days with a few weeks between and only to a very few mares a year as it could hurt them in some way.

We accually had some of our soon-to-be geldings in a field with mares and we did not have any 'accidents' until they were a solid 3 years old. I cannot believe a 7 month old would be that mature. But idk because TB's in general surprise me with how fast they mature,just dosn't seem natural.

I would think a yearling wouldnt be a good Idea personally.

[quote="lipigirl"]
On another point what base colour is a Leopard spot appy who has both black and brown spots on the body - asked about the points as I presumed it was a bay..is this normal in appies ?[/quote]

It depends...is it one or two "brown" spots that are just sorta floating around? Apps can get "sunspots" or "palomino spots" where the colour just doesn't seem to come thru' properly. Casey has one that's a pale gold colour, right next to a black spot, actually. Both are on his torso, and he is, as far as I can tell, definitely bay (choices are bay or black).

On the yearling breeding? Nope, no way. As a 2yo? A couple of mares, give him a clue as to what his job is, while he's still 'baby-minded' enough to be more mindful of the human even with hormones racing (cuz he's not quite sure what the hormones mean :laugh1 ). But definitely not as a baby.

Diane

The two year old every three days thing is news to both me and all the two year olds I have used over the years.....
I have found two year olds to be as fertile as any other age.
My Palomino base near leopard bred five mares of varying types as a two year old as I wanted to know what he threw, and he bred and set them all in one week.....in hand, of course.
My Arab nine monther was unusual, but there have been many, many TBs born from yearlings, by yearlings, when they have not separated them soon enough.

I can't remember where I read that about 2 yo studs, it wasn't that they weren't fertile, it was that it could hurt their development in some way but I don't know where I read it and doubt the truth of it.
I'm stunned at TB's, that just is not natural in any way to me from my experience.

Oh yes, I know an Oldenburg breeder who had an unplanned foal resulting from yearlings running together. She now separates her colts from her fillies.

When I was considering using Cory at two (which I did, he covered two mares) Rabbit told me that I needed to make sure his first mares did not scare him too much or he might become reluctant to breed. Maybe that was the warning you're thinking of.

I really want to say that it said it could hurt them in some way development wise, but I don't remember.
Never seen a stallion that was reluctant to breed, always see them chomping at the bit to do it whenever they could!

Thats right, if the mare is too scary for them it can put them off covering and / or sometimes they will not cover coloured mares if the mare that scared him was coloured ect.....they do need to be shown nicely IMO.

My two year old is quite able but not too ready to breed yet, I tried him on one mare a week ago and she would not stand for him (experienced mares will sometimes not stand for a young colt even if they are in season, it is natural that they would want a stronger, more able sire for their foals!!) he did not push it and neither did I.
Carlos was all over the place and without going into gory details on a child friendly forum, his "timing" left a great deal to be desired the first few times!!!!.
Rabbit was a LUNATIC as a two year old, and he had a very nasty, life threatening experience as a result.
I had had very little experience of running stallions and thought he would be OK with the "set" mare's as his sire was.
HE was OK, but one of the mares came in season and one of the set mares took exception to him breeding her, backed up and kicked him in the tackle.
I was lucky his fertility came back, but hos confidence never did.
To this day he will not breed a mare unless I am holding her on a halter, even if I turn her out in his paddock with him!!!

One of the reasons I bought Tickle in the first place was that she was near Cory's size and had a history of standing nicely to be covered. yeah, I bought my colt a mare to learn on who cost more than he did even when you add the cost to ship him from Virginia... But she's an asset to the program and very much worth having.

There is a long standing anecdate that the Arabian stallion Raffles was a shy breeder, so much so he was pronounced sterile at one point, and had to be worked with extensively to overcome his anxiety and be able to cover mares.

[quote="lipigirl"]Thats right, if the mare is too scary for them it can put them off covering and / or sometimes they will not cover coloured mares if the mare that scared him was coloured ect.....they do need to be shown nicely IMO.[/quote]

That can happen even when they're older! We had an outside mare for Ace, and when he went to mount she suddenly squealed and kicked. He backed off, and it took us another 30 minutes to convince him that it was okay...

Diane

I knew a breeder whose senior stallion took an hour to be convinced it was "okay" to cover his first mare because he had been disciplined so strongly by his previous owner for ever "dropping" while being worked.

That is one of the problems with training stallions, some people just do not seem to understand them........

Yes, wacking their bits with a cane is definitely stupid and insensitive and it really upsets me that they think this is acceptable behaviour when dealing with stallions. :evil:

I am glad that Luna was a perfect gentleman until he was 2 1/2 (when he bred his first mare) and as it was Maya (she was very non-agressive and permissive - :laugh1 ) that he had no problems at all... And although he is 3 1/2 (going on 30 :bounce ) I am sure breeding Maya back on a foal heat would have been a different story with a foal at her side (no where near as obliging) - so I didn't.

Still debating if I am going to breed her back to him as, although Goldie is georgeous, there are other considerations. Goldie had a home before Maya was even bred the first time - not the case now. Do I really want another grade QH foal, no matter how much I like mommy or daddy? :sign Nope, not now - too many good ones out there going to waste. :sad

our boy had a slow start to his breeding career due to an awful couple of mares that belonged to his previous owner. She had tried to breed him as a two year old to them unsuccessfully and sold him to us with the proviso we give her two services. We bred him, at three, somewhat timidly to our mare who is a tart and absolute sweetheart but he was very timid towards the girls and when we went to breed the one of these mares for her we found out why, she would act all ready and up for it but the second he would get up over her she would just go berserko....snapped a brand new set of breeding hobbles with one swift kick and squelled like a banshee, really put him off the whole thing :o . She got AI'd to him this season.The other one obviously had hormone issues, our mares would horse to her and she never showed any interest in him. :?
So we left him another year til he was four and sent him off to the breeding centre for AI collection and to be trained with a dummy, he successfully bred quiete a few mares this season, alot more confident in himself about the whole scenario. He is an absolute sweetheart about the whole thing serves in an ordinary halter and won't get up til I say go, if I say no he will wait or just back away. He runs out in the paddock with our preggy girls and he just adores them.
His now gelded yearling rising two year old son we gelded at 10 months as he was already showing signs of being colty towards the fillies, we seperated him from them at 7-8 months old. Funny thing the vet who did him said to me its rather early to be gelding :shock: ??? I mentioned I'd heard of younger colts than him serving mares successfully!

One of the stallions at a yard I worked with had an incident, very nast chestnut mare teased in, stood quiet then bronked as he tried to mount, one in the stifle and one in the balls. Poor guy was lovely, only 4 and covered polite as you like and never tried anything unless he was in his 'breeding halter'. I had to cold hose him every day for a week (less than impressed he was). Once he had recovered the owner offered a half price breeding to one of her friends as she knew he had a very .....friendly mare lol. Bless the poor guy she was practicaly having spasms and squeeking with her legs apart and he spent about 1/2 an hour 'talking' to he and saying hello to the front first then working his way back with little nibbles. Every time her tail or legs moved he lept about a foot in the air. He got over it fine but still takes his time getting to know chestnuts.