To breed or not to breed that is the question.

[backwoodsnanny]

If what I am reading is correct no matter how

many foals one has that are non dwarf out of a certin mare or by a certain stallion there are no guarantees that the next one couldnt be a dwarf is this correct?. At what number do you consider your herd or stallion or mare non carrier. 5 foals 10, 50? 20 years?

3 years ago we had a mare who had a dwarf she came to us bred I was on the fence about breeding her back and my vet suggested to try my stallion with her so we did and she did not have a dwarf BUT she did have a foal born with no eyes which according to the vet was also genetic or a gestational development problem so we have not bred her since and I have taken her out of the brood mare band,

My question was this the right thing to do since she has had 2 problems back to back? Do you feel a mare should be taken out of the gene pool if she is a known carrier and if you dont think so could you give the reasons why not.

 

[Arion Mgmt]

If you breed your stud to 25 or more known carrier mares of one type (not guesses on looks), and no dwarfs of that type are born then your percentages of that stallion not being a carrier is in the mid to upper 90's percentage wise for him not to be carrying the dwarf type that you are looking for. Each dwarf type most likely is independent of the others, so you would need to do that for the others as well to be certain he is carrying none of the defective genes.

If you breed 100 mares that are carriers and no dwarfs you are in the 99.999...... % chance of not being a carrier, it is not linear, it is a curve to infinity basically.

Age is not a determinant, it is the number of unaffected offspring from specific mares.

As for the mare, the dwarfism yes that is a concern, the microopthalmia I am not as concerned, YET. There are some thoughts of it being genetic, the predisposition to have small eyes, there might be an environmental influence, do not know yet. Right now it is thought to be congenital with with unknown etiology. Havent looked into it that much, yet, not much time to do sie stuff.

I do have a microopthalmic miniature sample, from a foal, it died, and it is common to have other problems causing death.

So to use her or not that would be your decision.

John