Blanket ban on breeding? Discuss.

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Boxers

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As there appear to be far too many poorly bred horses who mostly go for slaughter, and also many other young horses (not always poorly bred) ending up at the sales, what is your opinion on a blanket ban on breeding for one year? Meaning that no-one could breed a foal at all, whatever the circumstances, for one year. I don't know how it could be policed and implemented but would it solve the problem of far too many horses for a while?
 
blucanoo1990 said:
I think it is a good idea, should be same for all animals.
Then when breeding is allowed it should be very tightly monitored.

Not sure how it would be policed though
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No, actually, you are right. So I'll be waiting in anticipation for the government department to come and prevent the rabbits on my field from breeding.

I am a little concerned about those people who drink milk and use dairy products though, no breeding of calves, no milk from cows.
 
Dry Rot said:
You're not in the civil service, facing redundancy or early retirement, are you??:D:D:D
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eh?


Just thought it would be an interesting point to discuss - I'm not a breeder, I don't deal in horses or anything. I did point out in my opening post that I could not see how it would be implemented - just a thought really.
 
jemima_too said:
I am a little concerned about those people who drink milk and use dairy products though, no breeding of calves, no milk from cows.
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but there is a use for cows/calves - meat/milk.

There appear to be alot of horses bred for the sake of it who have no use and end up being slaughtered.

Same for dogs and cats - rescue centres are flooded with unwanted dogs/cats but people continue to breed 'new' ones - when there are plenty of 'old' ones needing homes.
 
I think that it is unworkable, unfortunately. There is way too much indiscriminate breeding. I have a lovely ex-brood mare, well bred (best showing lines both sides,won many times at shows) but at present I can't guarantee any foal's future, so have decided to put breeding on the back burner.

So what to do? Much better education of people, too many see a mare, maybe unrideable for some reason and think "breed it" This leads to poor quality foals, with little to distinguish them from the thousand others being bred.

Personally I think breeding should be part of BHS/ PC qualifications.

Other than that not sure how we can stop people breeding for the sake of it. After all each person has free will, even if they use it in ways we don't like.
FDC
 
In an ideal world, all equine breeding stock would have to be inspected and approved prior to breeding. All stallions would be licensed and all foals registered with a breed society.

This would be workable for all the caring, responsible horse owners. But are those who allow stallions to run, feral or otherwise, with groups of mare - to be inspected for license - no costs money and wouldn't pass.

There are too many people willing to breed from substandard stock, that either don't care, out to make a quick buck, the horse is unrideable and they want to give it a chance (the excuses are infinite) - and this is what we are up against.

To go hand in hand with licensing, we need people to take a realistic look at adopting or "saving" sick/lame/aged/insane horses (unless of course they have the knowledge to successfully rehabilitate or can guarantee a home for life) - these animals would be better PTS, to allow the healthy, sound and genuinely useful youngstock a chance. This includes charities that take on chronically lame horses and send them out as companions to fosters homes, which could have cared for healthy but neglected youngsters the charities are not able to help because they are full up of wrecks.

Then the useful sorts are less likely to end up at sales, for a pittance. I have seen some really lovely young ponies go through York sale recently, for next to nothing. Some to homes that have little or no knowledge, others - well...

We have too many horses and not enough good homes, To try to ensure we can accommodate all most of the horses with a future, we need to make sensible decisions about those that haven't.

Given a choice - a cracking 3yo, a good sort, or an elderly broodmare, chronically lame gelding, etc and you only have one stable - who would you choose?

Bit of a rant.... I'm not against rehab, I have a rescue pony myself, just sick of seeing potentially nice horses and ponies being passed over at sales in favour of sick, skinny, lame animals because people feel sorry for them.
 
Let's start with humans first, shall we? The 'one-child' thing in China was sensible when you look at the state of the world and the rate of human reproduction. How long can the world go on in such circumstances?

Before long there will be a policy for compulsory breeding of horses just to feed people.
 
I think the considerate breeder would automatically do this (well reduce numbers) in their own awareness of the climate.

Top-end competition foals will always be in demand - as this highend market place doesn't struggle quite the same as the middle of the road.

The indiscrimate breeding of animals without a true purpose in mind is that area that needs stopping, but we are not talking about breeders who consider which mating to which and what the outcome/purpose for the product of that breeding will be.

It's an interesting topic, which places some peoples living on the line with such ideas, whilst instead what should happen is that as the indiscriminate start to struggle to sell their youngstock - the slow but hopeful effect will be they stop breeding because they can't sell them to make enough.

Sadly with these people it has to hit their pockets and thus them personally before any change would be considered.

From 'peeping' in the breeding forum here there are many responsible breeders who consider the mating and purpose, I would always happily purchase youngstock from such breeders, adn for a fair value too.

Otehr countries will not be stopping eating horse meat either so if this is the market (we do the same with cattle etc...) then price of meat will drop if there is a big supply, simple economics and so one would hope such indiscriminating breeding evetually shoots itself in the foot.

Bertthefrog - Totally agree we think alike!
 
I would say thats a hard thing to suggest...

I have a mare that may never be able to do what i want her to do....and shes my mare of a lifetime and i have to admit that i have thought about breeding her in the next few years. However, i would keep the foal for myself forever, and put her to a very very well bred stallion. I would never breed a horse just because it was lame.She doesnt have any genetic problem and is only out of work due to an injury, which hopefully will heal. I wouldnt breed until i knew for sure that it was never going to heal enough to be ridden. So far shes doing well though and its looking positive. Id never breed just for the sake of it and would never breed a foal to sell on ever. i would love to have a foal by her as it would be a part of her- theres always going to be fluffy bunnies like me here and a foal by my mare would mean more to me than any other horse on the planet.

I would do it properly though, and as im happy to admit i dont know much about it i would send her to a livery that could help me with her as id want to get it right.

However, next door to my yard is a small place with three new foals, one of the mares was only 2 years old when it was "accidently" covered by a stallion they put in for a day. All the horses are in-bred and underweight and i cringe looking at them every single day. I know they have had quite a few complaints and have been reported a few times as theyre so thin and under nourished. People like that should not be allowed to breed.
 
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To me all breeding should have a ban for a year or so
Whether it's a single person breeding for thereselfs
Or someone breeding poorly bred ones or even top professional studs
 
Though the OP's sentiment is a good one I believe a ban of that nature would be difficult to enforce.

I have a mare myself that I think is a fairly good example of her breed (TB) I haven't been able to place her with a lwvtb home so she's just chilling/being wasted (depending on your perspective) down at the farm.

It is tempting to think "oooh I'd love to put her to a good sport horse stallion, a foal might be the making of her" but is it really such a good idea? She wind sucks, she dislikes loading, she has a stubborn streak, I guess some of these traits might get passed along to a foal. Also, the potential medical risks are huge, we have no experience of equine pregnancy/foaling/training a foal and though we'd love to keep it I don't think anyone is ever in a position to guarantee a forever home for any horse, as much as we might want to, so I'm just trying to put it out of my mind.
 
I dont think that the issue is that nothing should be bred, just that no rubbish should be bred. Its largely a problem of finances; people with a lame mare and an ungelded colt put them together to give the mare something to do, dont pay for the vet care the responsible breeders give, so get a foal for next to free, and figure if they can get £200 for it they have made a profit.
The trick to resolving the issue, IMO, would be to make breeding rubbish expensive, by imposing a minimum cost to bring a horse into the world. The way I would work it is to allow registration (for passports) of foals by graded stallions for free, but impose a minimum fee of say £500 to obtain a passport for a foal if a graded covering certificate could not be produced. Suddenly breeding rubbish actually costs money, and irresponsible idiots might be forced to think a bit harder about what they are doing. It would be nice to go a bit further and require a reasonable quality in the mare as well, but I think that would be much harder to realistically enforce.
 
scarymare said:
A bit like the one child rule in China. We live in a democracy thank goodness.
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Well I will throw my hat into the ring & say the Chinese are right !! Out of control population growth is crippling the planet, re fuel, food & water. Yes, no breeding of horses for a year or a strict assesment of breeding stock before breeding would be a great idea though I am sure those with a vested interest would fight it tooth & nail..Just my opinion I don't expect anyone else on the planet to agree.
 
I'm not into breeding, but like Samantha008 I am in a similar position with my mare who I am considering putting in foal maybe next year to a dressage stallion. My mare has been confirmed by several vets as having fabulous conformation, has a superb temperament and I want to keep the foal for myself - for life.

But as someone once made a comment on this forum, you can breed quality with quality and still get a crap foal - I realise the chances are much reduced, but I don't think you can just stipulate that people should only use graded horses to breed from. I know a number of horses - well ponies more so, that have unknown breeding and are fabulous ponies - they do exactly what the owner wants them to do. I also know a number with wonderful breeding who should be superstars but aren't.
 
I think it's a good idea, just pretty much unworkable! Think there should be licensing laws and increased costs to prevent those doing so with no idea but wanting a nice cute foal to play with/sell/abandon/mistreat or even give to their child for their 1st birthday present! I'm talking about poorly bred horses here, bad conformation etc!
 
I am a breeder and have many breeder friends and from what I've seen is this: Many responsible breeders I know who have found economic stresses to be greater in the past year or so have made decisions to cut back on breeding mares. Many have altered their sales strategies whereby they have decided to hold onto youngstock until 3 or 4 rather than selling foals as weanlings as they previously did. Many have gone down the in-utero route where the foals are only conceived once a buyer has contracted the breeder to do so with payment (or deposit and contract) paid in advance. Many are continuing along the same lines they've been riding for years and are still selling their youngstock as successfully as they did in previous years.

To place a ban such as this is untenable and to be frank the only people who would comply with such a ban would be the responsible breeders. The irresponsible ones would pay no heed to it and you'd end up with dumped foals all over the place.
 
I would like to see a ban on breeding horses, dogs and cats for a while. There are far too many for the good homes that are available.
Im surrounded by tethered (or kept in so called fields full of ragwort with next to no fencing) cobs or minis that are used for nothing but breeding, these are the morons that need stopping, but all breeding is adding to the problem.
Alot of people have said we should breed from our mare but i would rather do what i did and buy a nice horse in poor condition who needed a helping hand. I now have a handsome well bred 3yr old welsh cob.
 
POLLDARK said:
Well I will throw my hat into the ring & say the Chinese are right !! Out of control population growth is crippling the planet, re fuel, food & water. Yes, no breeding of horses for a year or a strict assesment of breeding stock before breeding would be a great idea though I am sure those with a vested interest would fight it tooth & nail..Just my opinion I don't expect anyone else on the planet to agree.
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^^^^ THIS I agree with this.

One reason I don't want children, I don't like them the other look at the world now today, I wouldn't want to bring a living "anything" into the world as it is. Nothing is want it used to be and I'm only 25 years old so that I think says alot. Not just horses but most animals and most people.
 
Given the number of wild ponies on the moors and hills don't think it would work and as other people have pointed out, the people who would comply are already responsible breeders and the irresponsible breeders that are the issue.
People need to look at the mare and think what can be passed to the foal 'she's a good sort' isn't a good enough reason to put in foal. We have a lovely mare on our yard that will try hard at anything, but her movement and action hamper a lot of this, we wouldn't put her in foal for this reason her personality alone isn't enough to pass onto a foal.
Move to a similar system as Holland/Germany only licensed stallions can breed and the stallions license is dependant on what the youngstock can do, if the youngstock don't go on to perform well the license is removed, no license no passport, can't export them. Stallion owners would then take a long look at what the mares were like and had done.
My friend tried to put her GP dressage mare in foal to a stallion that was originally from Holland and had been moved to Canada, the form that you had to complete was huge and had to be approved before they would agree to ship the chilled semen, but all the mares accomplishments had to be put down, what they had done etc before they would enter into the contract. (As it turned out we got the contract accepted and then paperwork was missing when it got here, by the time the paperwork got here the chilled vial was no longer viable).
 
Went for a trek across dartmoor last Autumn with a very knowledgeable local lady who said that all of the local farmers to her had removed their stallions from the moor but one particular farmer did not.

That one stallion managed to cover nearly the whole moor - how could they tell - because he was a coloured boy and nearly all of the foals were coloured that spring!

Bloody disgraceful IMO - certainly that type of breeding should be banned for at least a couple of years but it would be impossible to stop all studs from breeding.

Stallions should all be registered and only allowed to cover a certain number of mares.
 
I really wish this could happen with horse and ponies, dogs and cats and then as others have said very strictly monitered afterward.
 
their are far to many stallions in the uk..and far to many foals being born...im sick of seeing horses neglected..sick of seeing horses going to the meat man.

They can not ban it..so tax the breeders instead...high taxes make is less affordable for people to breed.

What with the price of hay and haylage this year we will see more neglect...last thing we need is more foals
 
a nice idea,but impossible to do i think ...maybe only professional breeders who are guarenteed to sell or people keeping for themselves and no one else allowed...

very complicate though, wouldn't work
 
I think it would be good if people had to be licensed to breed horses, cats, dogs, whatever...difficult to implement but something will have to be done soon....

I also think there should be a license on breeding humans - some people SHOULD NOT be allowed to have children!!!
 
It would be unworkable.

I am fed up with people tarring all the different types of people that breed a horse with the same brush. People breeding out of well bred, useful, proven mares, with good, graded stallions are not the issue.

People breeding out of their less than perfect mares because they love them, or because they cant do anything else with them is a problem, but not the main one. I think more mare gradings should take place where your mare has to be a suitable candidate to get pregnant. Even if someone thinks they will keep their baby forever sometimes it just isnt possible. But at least if you go into it thinking your keeping the foal forever the likelyhood is that you will of brought up a nice, well mannered youngster which should have a useful life.

The biggest problem is people putting a manky stallion to skanky mares and breeding countless babies which are pointless. Even if there were more rules and regulations these people probably wouldnt give 2 hoots anyway and carry on.
 
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