Mature stallions can breed two or three mares a day throughout a long breeding season and maintain a good level of fertility, but young stallions should not be expected to handle this level of work.
When it comes to breeding horses, timing is everything. You only get one chance per month and only a handful of months each year, so proper planning is essential to produce a foal at a specific time.
Stallions Have Their Limits. Stallions may always be “on,” but that doesn't mean they can constantly breed. After all, they do need time to eat, sleep, exercise, and socialize. A stallion can typically cover one to three mares a day and about 30 to 40 mares in one year.
Most horses have a seasonal breeding cycle, going into heat for the first time of the season in early Spring and ending in late Summer. Mares go into heat every 21 days during this breeding season and are fertile and receptive to mating during 5-7 days out of their cycles.
Your mare can be turned out with other mares as long as they get along. A pregnant mare should not be turned out with a stallion or even geldings. Geldings, while they no longer have the sex drive of a stallion, can still get an erection.
By the way, there is a 100% fertility rate in wild mares because they live with and know the stallions.” “And stallions absolutely do know their own foals and make a point of spending time with them.
As a result, stallions have evolved strategies to safeguard against raising other stallions' offspring. And one of these instincts is to kill young foals – especially males – that are probably not their own, if the opportunity arises.
Minor accidents during natural mating are common occurrences during the breeding of horses. Mares may suffer from a variety of genital injuries including vulval separations, vaginal lacerations and, less commonly, vaginal rupture.
A mare allows the stallion to approach when ready to breed. Non-receptive mares generally kick-out at stallions and do not allow them to approach. The most intense estrus behavior occurs when a mare is most sexually receptive to a stallion and this intense behavior lasts about three days.
“The average conception rate (with artificial insemination) is 60%, which means it typically takes two to three cycles to get 90% of mares pregnant.” At that rate you've already doubled or tripled your veterinary costs just attempting to get your mare pregnant.
Mature stallions can breed two or three mares a day throughout a long breeding season and maintain a good level of fertility, but young stallions should not be expected to handle this level of work.
Leave the stallion with the mares until they have had time to fully pass through two successive heat cycles - 45-60 days. Pregnancy check all of the mares 35-45 days after removing the stallion. Observe and maintain records when the stallion is observed servicing a mare.
Stallions can be kept with mares if the latter are in foal to the same stallion, are to be covered by the latter, or are not in estrus. They must always be separated at the onset of estrus [16]. However, one must be aware that there is still a residual risk of unwanted pregnancies.
"Horses show affection and relationship towards one another by hanging out with the horses they like. Even pasture horses tend to break off into small herds of horses that get along well together and those who don't," Carmella says.
There are three phases of sexual behavior in horses: courtship, mating, and postmating behavior. During courtship, the stallion will approach the mare, prance, sniff her, nuzzle her, and groom her. The mare may squeal, kick, or move away to show the stallion she is not ready.
They may have evolved a stoic appearance to make them less appealing to predators in the wild (as scientists suspect), but horses have complex emotions that extend beyond happy and sad, including deep feelings of warmth and love for their young foals.
Mares reject foals for a variety of reasons including excessive stress around foaling time and separation during the early formative period. In some cases, there is no obvious reason. Foal rejection is more common in mares with their first foal (maiden mares).
Oxytocin levels in the mare normally fluctuate with a circadian rhythm that peaks at night. This way, uterine contractions will often not start in force until the time when the mare's natural daily production of oxytocin rises – between the hours of 8pm and 1am.
A horse has 64 chromosomes with the male and female each contributing 32 chromosomes to their offspring. A union between a horse and human would result in a shared chromosome total of 55. Therefore, the egg recognizes the irrational number of chromosomes and rejects the pregnancy.
Characteristic vocalizations throughout courtship and mating in- clude (1) loud, long whinnies and loud nickers by the stallion when approaching the mare, (2) sharp squeals, roars, and grunts from both the stallion and mare during aggressive interactions, (3) soft nickers from the stallion when approaching a mare in ...
Registered stallions and mares can breed with minimal human intervention, through natural cover in the pasture. Pasture breeding continues as an accepted breeding method recognized by many breed registries. As in the wild, a stallion roams with a band of mares.
Some mare suffering from placentitis show no external signs and simply deliver a premature or dead foal.
This finding suggests that horses form strong memories of conspecifics, able to recognise them even after a long period of separation. This finding also indicates that the mare-foal bond remains strong even when foals reach one year of age and when they have not seen their dam for a long time.
Even though spermatozoa production begins as early as 12 to 14 months of age in most colts, results of numerous research trials recommend waiting until the stallion is 3 years old before using him as a breeding stallion. Daily spermatozoa production is also influenced by season.