At what age to do breed your mares??

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At 2 years old the mares are just too imature to be able to foal correctly. Especially if they are on the smaller side.

I am ashamed to say I too bred some 2 year olds,(I was told by some big time breeders that in Minis it was OK to do that.) plus I bought a 28" 2 year old who was bred (now I would never have bred her at 2 myself, being she was so small). The following winter I ended up with 5 miscarrigages and two distocias. All were two year olds and the two distocias were two smaller mares, one being the 28" mare and the other being a 31" mare.

After that horrible winter I did a lot of reasearch and found that no matter what type of horse, be it big or small, breeding a two years old is like having a 13 year old human child getting pregnant. Everything could be just fine, but they are at a higher risk for complications and/or misscarriage.

I have not bred a 2 year old since and the two that had distocias, one got a full year off before I bred her again, the smaller one got 2 years off before she was bred again. Both got pregnant again, one foaled a nice colt last year, the other is due to foal this year.

To me it is not worth loosing a good mare either by death or scar tissue from complications of distocia just so that I can get a foal by her a year early.
 
Actually there is a lot of reason to consider a 13 year old girl is more capable of carrying a child than a 28 year old girl.

Apparently we are most fertile and more able to reproduce around 15- 20 years old.

Still no reason to suggest that this should happen!!

Two year olds can and do have foals with no problems at all, and larger horses are far less at risk than our tiny little man made creatures.

Even so, leaving it past four causes as much of a risk as before three, even though I have known 20 year olds have first foals without problems, as with two year olds, it is not something I would recommend!!

I'm sorry you had such an awful experience, but this one, isolated set of experiences does not make a norm.

Two year olds have been bred form for hundreds of years and, presumably, if they were all dropping dead at an alarming rate, people would have stopped doing it many years ago.

In Arabs I never had a dystocia.

In Minis I have had ...well, quite a few.

So, I should not breed Minis??

Minis should not be bred??

No, of course not, common sense has to come into the story somewhere.

I think not breeding yearlings comes under a "Doh....you think??" heading, whereas breeding two year olds is more a matter of "proceed beyond this point with caution"
 
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Actually there is a lot of reason to consider a 13 year old girl is more capable of carrying a child than a 28 year old girl. Apparently we are most fertile and more able to reproduce around 15- 20 years old.
According to doctors who specialize in reproduction, young girls are at a greater risk for having misscariages and complications as their bodies are too imature, ie: hips have not spread and they are too narrow. Take a look at a young teenager and see how tiny most are, especially in the hips. They may be more fertile, but not mature enough to birth saftly and thus their pregnancys are considered high risk.

As for 2 year old horses, they may be fertile enough too, but are also imature. We have several well know reproductive specialits up here in horses, one being a really good friend of mine who travels around the country, plus has a very sucessful embryo transfer business in Wisconsin. He is the one who told me that two years olds may be ready to conceive a foal, but their bodies are not mature enough to safely foal. ie: Hips not spread enough, thus more distocias. (Kind of like 13 year old kids). So their pregnancies are also considered high risk.

Now that is not to say that many,many two year olds have no trouble foaling, but all it takes is one to have a problem and one looses that one, to make it not worth while breeding till they are at least 3. Since I have hand picked most of my mares, as well as bred to have fillies with certain conformation traits, each one is very important to me and I do not want to chance loosing them. I thus, will wait till each one is old enough and mature enough to hopefully foal safely.

This is just my opinion, but backed by some well known vets.
 
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I would also prefer to wait until they are at least 3 to breed them. But having said that I have two 2 year old mares who were bred before I bought them. I am worried about them to some extent. They are both due next spring and one will turn 3 years in February and one will turn 3 years in May.

I also recently found out that Bonny was 2-2&1/2 and now 9 months pregnant.She is due also to foal in January. I was concerned to start with as she was a maiden and now I am really concerned as she is just a 2 yr old.

She either got bred as a yearling or just after turning two.

I was sick when I found out as the previous owners had told me she was 4 yrs old. It wasnt until her growth in hight and her top teeth coming in that I realized just how old she was!

Thankfully right now she is at 39 inches tall,and the sire is about 33-35 inches.

Had I known she was so young I wouldnt have bred her.

Thankfully she is bred to a stally I know and not from her previous owners.
 
When I bred dogs I would not stand my stud dog to a female under 1 1/2. They had to bring their papers to proov that the female was of age and registered with no restrictions. I would not stand a mini horse stud until he is 2 years old and I would not berrd a mare Big or Small until they are 4-5. However, I did buy a mare that was bred as an early 2 yr old. I would never do it myself.
 
I'm confused why people are so concerned about mares yet have such high opinions of colt's maturity. Why the double standard? Fillies ARE more fertile as youngsters, colts ARE LESS fertile as youngsters... both aren't ready for the job. So why do people feel colts are so much more ready than fillies?
 
I'm confused why people are so concerned about mares yet have such high opinions of colt's maturity. Why the double standard? Fillies ARE more fertile as youngsters, colts ARE LESS fertile as youngsters... both aren't ready for the job. So why do people feel colts are so much more ready than fillies?
My guess is because a mare bares more physical consequences of an early breeding than does the stallion; it isn't the stallion that carries the foal to term, it isn't the stallion that suffers from a bad distocia, it isn't the stallion that is too small/immature to physically foal.
 
I'm not saying fillies are safer than colts, I'm saying colts are as dangerous as fillies. People just dismiss those risks!
 
I'm not saying fillies are safer than colts, I'm saying colts are as dangerous as fillies. People just dismiss those risks!
Well again i have a little something to add, thank goodness it did not happen at my barn, but a close friend of mine that no longer has miniature horses. A friend of mine had a mare that the baby did not DNA test back to the stallion, and she was SHOCKED when the results came back stating such. So she proceded to test the 5 colts that were anywhere from 8 months to 15 months old at the time of conception and ......... well guess what, the colt that was the father of this foal, got the mare preggo when he was 13 months old!!!
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: OMG everyone was shocked!! The colt is now a nice driving gelding, and apparently has no lasting mental instability from this early sexual encounter!
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I still have this image in my head of this cute little yearling colt running back and telling all his pasturemates about how he "nailed" the hot red head(chestnut) in the broodmare band!LOL! Oh well, that was his one and only foal, he now gives cart rides to kids at our church( and is very popular at many vacation bible schools around the county) and does some pony parties here and there. We try not to remind him of his "checkered" past
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I agree stallions need to reach a mental maturity before breeding. My gelding Krackerjack was a stallion once apon a time, and was sweet as could be. As a 2yr old he was allowed to breed 2 mares, and lost his flipping mind! He would attack the mares once they were out of heat, bite people constantly. And it wasn't like he was bred, then sitting doing nothing. He was showing/training at the time.

So he was gelded that winter. I think he was just not mentally ready to be breeding mares at his age, and lost his marbles. Now he is gelded and no one who has met/seen him would believe the horror stories he use to be.

Some horses are just not meant to be bred early on. Some can handle it, some can't. Better to wait then find out the hard way
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I still have this image in my head of this cute little yearling colt running back and telling all his pasturemates about how he "nailed" the hot red head(chestnut) in the broodmare band!LOL! Oh well, that was his one and only foal, he now gives cart rides to kids at our church( and is very popular at many vacation bible schools around the county) and does some pony parties here and there. We try not to remind him of his "checkered" past
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Hilarious! Thank you for the laugh...and the colorful horse to horse commentary!
 
I also recently found out that Bonny was 2-2&1/2 and now 9 months pregnant.She is due also to foal in January. I was concerned to start with as she was a maiden and now I am really concerned as she is just a 2 yr old.She either got bred as a yearling or just after turning two.

I was sick when I found out as the previous owners had told me she was 4 yrs old. It wasn't until her growth in height and her top teeth coming in that I realized just how old she was!

Thankfully right now she is at 39 inches tall,and the sire is about 33-35 inches.

Had I known she was so young I wouldn't have bred her.

Thankfully she is bred to a stallion I know and not from her previous owners.
I think your mare is older than you think!!!

I believe from her teeth that she is rising three now, so she will be fine, or should be...hasn't she had the foal???

I have no problem with breeding two year old colts, I have never had one be infertile, I have never had one turn nasty and I have never had one affected by the experience.

I do breed them in hand only, but that is just my way.

My present junior stallion is rising five and started as a very (VERY) immature two year old, and is now pasture breeding, although controlled pasture breeding.

Rabbit started at two and is about to enter his 30th year, he is still fertile (and has a daughter this year to prove it!!)
 
My mares are not bred before 3, but often they are 4, 5, even 6 or older. They have plenty of time to be Mamas after they are mature.
 

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