Do horses go through the menopause?

[amycamycamyc]

as above really... to me it makes sense that they would at some point. Stop coming into season and become essentially infertile. My old share horse was in her 30s and I never knew her to come into season. Is this a ridiculous question!?

 

[DuckToller]

As far as my limited knowledge goes, only humans go through the menopause, all other mammals continue to ovulate into old age, although fertility does decline due to various reasons.

They don't really know why we have the menopause, but there is a theory that the menopause is beneficial because human babies require a huge amount of input to make it into adulthood, especially thousands of years ago, and those who had more adults in the family unit to look after them were more likely to survive.

So in a nutshell, if grannie stops ovulating and has no more babies after a certain age, she is more likely to look after her grandchildren and stop them being eaten by wolves. Which is irrelevant to your question about horses, but I thought I'd show off and throw it in anyway!