Blanket ban on breeding? Discuss.

Boxers said:
Discuss:

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?
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What do you propose that we feed pet cats and dogs?

This is a SERIOUS question, not a troll one. If you stop horse slaughter then they will have to be fed mutton or beef and the price of those will rise for human consumption.

By producing excess horses people provide a valuable food resource AND they raise the standard of horse that the rest of us can afford to buy, because they lower the prices of horses generally - see how many breeders actually make an profit out of breeding. If horse availability is restricted half the people on this forum won't be able to buy one. That might be no bad thing, but surely not what you were intending?
 
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kittykatcat said:
I also think there should be a license on breeding humans - some people SHOULD NOT be allowed to have children!!!
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Lol I think this too!

I think they should put contraception in the water as standard and then you have to take a little pill every day if you want to have a baby lol :p:):p
 
I'd love to see some sort of licensing to prevent careless breeding of both dogs and horses, and vet friends all agree.

There is far too much greedy breeding, and also stupid breeding....people putting their fairly useles mares with bad conformation or behavioural problems into foal because for whatever reason they are unable to ride them.

There was some excellent news in The Times yesterday, that, shock horror, the number of TB (racehorse) births had fallen from 18,000 last year to 11,000 this year. Would that the same would happen on the moors - and in the traveller encampments - and in private homes. When you hear of someone being offered a foal for £15 and another thrown in for free, you know we've got it badly wrong somewhere.
 
Please remember that there are responsible people breeding quality horses. By the end of the breeding season we'll have 30 foals (If the few remaining births go to plan), and are planning on putting 22 of our own mares back in foal as well as using outside mares to our own stallions. However, most of this years foals were sold in utero for upwards of $10000 (the best foals being an awful lot more than that!) and of the others we have two unsold, both of which we may keep. These foals are to champion stallions and out of well bred mares with competition records. The foals go on to competitive homes, in dressage, showing, even jumping and eventing. We do adjust our breeding to take into account the economic situation, this year has been a marked increase in the number of foals, simply because people were offering use money to put specific broodmares in foal, due to their reputation for having amazing offspring. If asked, I would say that the Andalusians I work with are the best in the country, with world champion stallions, mares and yearlings. To say that people like us, who care for our mares and foals, breeding for a specific market and purpose should stop breeding horses that sell for 5 figure sums, who regularly stay with the same owner/family/stud for their entire lives is ridiculous.


Education is what's needed, all horses are required to be passported (aren't they in the UK) and the registries should make mare/stallion owners grade breeding stock and aware of conformation, hereditary issues and what constitutes breeding quality. Stallions not meeting this criteria ought to be given the snip. Stallion owners with quality horses may therefore take pride in their boys and only allow the best mares to be covered. Of course this would never work (it'd bankrupt the agencies, be hard to police and not everyone passports do they :p) and people will go on breeding rubbish to rubbish, wondering why their progeny is talentless, with a rank personality and deformities that cause it to break down by the time its 8!

... And breathe :p:o
 
yes i agree, stop for one year, why not, everyone knows the carnage that goes on, back it up with a wacking great fine, for once make all breeders prof and amateur put their money where there mouth is, they all complain about the welfare consequences, so do something real that means something to the animals, for once put them first, so we don't have to read about all the foals being shot.
 
Swinghorse, you're quite right. I wasn't getting at people like you, only the breeders of rubbish from rubbish.

And sadly there are plenty of us, myself included, who are glad to get something not too expensive - but we may pay dearly for our lack of funds / meanness / lack of experience.

I have a friend (who mercifully is computerless so won't see this) who has 10-12 second-rate TB mares (not my opinion, but that of a trainer friend of HERS) which she goes on breeding from year after year, in the hope that one of the offspring may come good one day. Needless to say, so far none of them has. She is just pushing out low grade stock into an already flooded market.

So far I have resisted her blandishments to buy one!
 
It would hardly solve the problem of 'poor quality' stock being bred, would it? It would just harm the livelihoods of people who breed horses for a living. In a year's time, what would happen? Same problem of over breeding, so it wouldn't really help, would it? It might just patch up the problem for a little while at best.

But to have to have a license to keep a stallion, and for horses to have to be of a certain quality to be kept entire, might be a better idea I guess. I also think that the amount of time that stallions can roam areas like the dartmoor hills should be restricted, as, as far as I'm aware, it is not presently.

Something needs to be done, but to stop all breeding, of quality horses and rubbish, for a year seems like a pointless exercise, which really isn't enforceable IMO

J&C
 
Try convincing the horse racing world to observe a ban. The amount of money involved in that industry is astonishingly enormous. It's big business on a vast, international scale. Horses are commodities, which are produced and discarded in unspeakably staggering numbers. They, actually, have an awful lot for which to answer.
 
There needs to be a return to licencing stallions for a start - there was a time when you were not allowed to have a stallion without a licence. The horse was at least inspected and either given a licence or had to be gelded.

Stallion owners should also take some responsibility for the breeding of unwanted horses. If they only acepted top quality mares then the resulting progeny at least have a hope of being good types themselves.

I breed sport horses - I have a Clydesdale mare with lovely conformation and temperement. She goes to a TB stallion every few years - usually alternate years - I 'interview' the stallion seeing it move, assesing its conformation, temperement and also ask around to find out what other people have got from the stallion, what success it s progeny have had in competition.

A blanket ban would not really work but there could be on the horses passport a veterinary stamp saying wether or not the mare was suitable for breeding from. It could also be made compulsory that mares with unsuitable conformation and temperement have to be spayed!
 
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