Breeding responsibly – Your Bad Luck Is Not Someone Else’s Problem!
Mar 14 2008
Free on DreamHorse:
“Cashmere was born “handicapped”. He has been examined and treated by a veterinarian without a diagnosis or prognosis. They don’t know what’s wrong with him. He probably just needs a good chiropractor. He drags his left hind leg a bit in a canter. He lies down and has trouble getting up. But he is a happy guy and he loves people and loves having his butt scratched. He’s growing normally. Is tall for his age and he is extremely muscular. He is very handsome. His sire is a 16’2 halter champ.”
*sigh*
I swear, nobody ever thinks about the possibility that they will get the foal that has a problem. Everybody gets all gung-ho about breeding, particularly when you have good bloodlines as you do here (but with way too much HYPP to suit me – and no, I’m not sure if the sire is positive or not, the grandsire definitely was). You know, when you’re having a HUMAN baby, most people at least THINK about the possibility that they may have a child that has a mental or physical problem. They think about how they would handle that if it happened. With animals? Oh heck no. It never occurs to anybody for a moment. If you asked the average newbie breeder what they’d do if the foal turned out to be permanently lame, you’d get a dumb look 99 times out of 100.
I could make the obvious comments here – like, if you think a chiro will fix him, CALL THE DAMN CHIRO, cheapskate! But this is a good opportunity to bring up the problem in general: When you breed, you may get a dummy foal that survives but is never quite right. You may get a foal that is crippled from something that happened in the womb. You may get the foal with the wry nose or some other defect (what vaccine was that, WNV, that was causing all of those equine versions of the Thalidomide babies? Yeeesh…) You may have a foal that sustains an injury when very young, no matter how careful you are, that prevents him from ever being ridden or driven. If you are a breeder, what do you do? (I won’t bite your head off if you tell me euthanasia. I understand that choice and don’t have a problem with it).
It’s a good topic to discuss. What happens when you’ve made good breeding decisions, given the mare excellent care, and something still goes wrong? What is the responsible action to take? I think most of us agree that giving your boo-boo away for free and hoping someone ELSE will give it “a good home” is NOT the responsible action here. What is? What would you do?
And related question…we’ve all heard whispers about Big Name Sires that pass along some serious defect but all fo the defective babies are quietly euthed or slaughtered and no one is the wiser. How many f’ed up foals do you have to get by a sire (or out of a broodmare) before you need to make a responsible choice and stop breeding them?
2 comments to “Breeding responsibly – Your Bad Luck Is Not Someone Else’s Problem!”
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I think the horse population is overcrowded as is.. Why keep breeding anyway..
I know this family that has 12 mares, various breeds… Guess what? Every single mare is bred to some amish horse down the road, I asked them why they breed, because they love foals, they are so cute…
I think we need to start spaying and gelding alot nowadays, like they do for dogs…
Im a new reader and just happened to stumble across this post. My best friend had a foal this year out of her strawberry roan mare and her sorrel/white paint stud. AWSOME little roan paint colt, very well built and is gonna be an awsome horse when he grows up. On the morning of September 11, 2010, she went out, fed the and loved on baby and momma and went to do a couple other things. I went over with a friend, who happens to know the breeder of the stud and I noticed that the colt had what I thought was just a cut on his leg. I went and informed my best friend that her baby was bleeding, pulled him out to see what was bleeding and discovered he had somehow cut half his hoof almost all the way off. She has a very horse safe property, and has never ever had anything like this happen before. He was completely fine less than an hour before. We called the vet, who showed up in very short order. What we discovered once she tranked him and we were able to get a good look at it, he had a major cut that went from about 2 inches above the hairline all the way thru to almost his toe on his hoof. The vet even looked at his area and has no clue to his day how in the world he did it. There was no blood, no hair no nothing, other than a small spot of blood where he was standing when I found him bleeding. The cut was thru his coronary band and the vet wasnt sure at that point if the tissue would live enough for him to regrow hoof. Stiches, alot of rap changes, soaking everyday, only time would tell if it will heal. It was determained that if he could live a happy life as a pasture ornament, we would do anything and everything in our power to get him better. Fast forward 2 months, the outside portion of his hoof did fall off, despite the best efforts,we were almost expecting that to happen, seeing as he had cut almost to his toe, but he is regrowing new hoof! The tissue lived and the skin cut itself is all but healed. So now, our farrier is going to rebuild the missing portion of his hoof until his hoof grows out, which we are thinking a year to a year and a half. Alot of people think we are nuts for spend the kind of money we have on this little guy, but he is soooo worth the effort. BUT we never ever thought of getting durning and after picks, partly cause it was sooo gross. Will he ever be rode, only time will tell. But he will be gelded next spring and will never leave her property. Hes our special little guy and we love him till death do we part.