# Large mare bred by mini stallion



## cjacobucci (Apr 17, 2006)

A while back there was a post by someone and she thought her large paint mare had been bred through the fence by her mini stud. I was wondering what ever happened to that mare and if she had had her baby yet?

It turns out that one of my clients has a mare that is now pregnant, well the only stud around was her mini stud. They never got loose together but lived in pens next to each other. We don't know exactly when or how it happened.

JUst wondering if everything went well with the birth and what we might expect? what happens when you cross a mini and a regular sized mare? how big will the baby be? Will it be tall enough to nurse? Has anyone else ever had this happen?

Any help would be great.

thanks

Carrie


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## The Dynamic Duo (Apr 17, 2006)

BUMP :saludando:


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## LizardBreath (Apr 17, 2006)

No, nothing yet. She's driving me nuts!!

Her belly keeps dropping, then going back up. One day she'll look ready to pop, and the next, not preggers at all. She absolutely refuses to let me touch anywhere near her back-end.

We can't really go by how big she gets, as we don't expect the baby to be all that big

Don't worry, when we get a baby, there will be lots and lots of pics :lol:


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## Songcatcher (Apr 17, 2006)

cjacobucci said:


> what happens when you cross a mini and a regular sized mare? how big will the baby be? Will it be tall enough to nurse? Has anyone else ever had this happen?
> 
> Any help would be great.
> 
> ...


From what I read years ago about a shetland stallion and a full sized mare, the foal was born about the regular size for a big mare, but did not grow as fast and was much smaller at maturity.

I also read years ago of shetland mares crossed with big stallions. The result was a regular size Shetland foal that grew rapidly and was soon bigger than its mother. I do not want to try that experiment and I think the case I read about was totally accidental. This was many years ago.


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## Dairygirl (Apr 17, 2006)

I have seen this man who have Belgiums that they breed to anything. Well he has a grulla Quarter mare that might be 14 hands that this years foal came out maybe a hand shorter than her. I couldn't believe my eyes.


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## Dream (Apr 17, 2006)

An actual study was done where pony mares were bred to draft stallions. They did not see any increase in foaling problems. The conclusion was that the mare is able to control the size of her foal so that she can manage to deliver. This is not true in cattle where a heifer bred to a large bull could be in BIG trouble.


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## Minimor (Apr 17, 2006)

Someone on another board recently mentioned an experiment done at New Bolton years ago, where 10 or 12 small Shetland mares were bred to a Shire stallion--sounds like it was just to see if a small mare could carry and deliver a foal by a stallion that is much, much larger--and in all cases the mares had no problems delivering their foals. The person that posted that was just offering that as proof that there was no problem with breeding a small mare to a large stallion and didn't offer any info on the mature size of the foals. Not something I would try.

This post, though, makes me think of the evening several weeks ago when the neighbor's QH mare got out & came over her. I was late getting home from work that day but my mom was home & heard the commotion. She went out to find that QH mare--in a strong heat--hunkered down as low as she could get, sitting on the fence--and our 33.75" stallion was doing his best to get up there and breed her. He had his front feet up on her croup & was reeeeaching....Mom said had the fence not been there so the mare could get down a little lower Scooter might just have managed it but as it was she didn't think he had succeeded before she got on the scene. The mare owner would be some surprised if her mare delivered a little palomino appy foal next February wouldn't she?? I can guarantee this neighbor would never imagine that a little Mini could breed a QH mare. :bgrin Where there's a will, there's a way!!


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