Do people breed to order?

[Gingerwitch]

Just enquiring - i may be looking to buy a 6 to 9 month old foal next year - to be my long term horse (i have 3 at the moment but two of them are in their 20's)

I ideally would like a TB x ID filly - preferably grey or chestnut and I would want it christened by me. Ideally i want her to grow to between 15.2hh and 16.2hh.

I really would rather not buy a broodmare and breed myself as i do not know enough about breeding and as i would have no intentions of doing this more than once - i would end up keeping the broodmare too! and no way would hubby let me keep 4 horses and a foal !

Is this an unrealistic plan?

 

[GinnieRedwings]

Is this an unrealistic plan?

I shouldn't have thought so. I am breeding a foal for a friend who likes my mare - she's picked the stallion, we've agreed a price, she wants to be involved with the whole process and be there at the birth or shortly after and pick the name, which is fine by me.

But at the same time, she can't pick either the sex or the colour! And if you are keen on say a grey filly, you don't necessarily have to "order" one, you can just look around next year for a grey filly whose breeding you like, and just buy her!

Good luck x

 

[Amelia27]

I would say that if you have very specific criteria of what you want then buy rather than breed.

I put my mare in foal 5 yrs ago to a coloured stallion (who only throws bays or bay and white foals). I desperately wanted a filly to carry on my mares lines - and I would have loved a coloured. What did I get? yep a bay colt! Typical!

I love him to pieces but as I didn't get my filly and didn't have the facilities to keep an entire so had to have my boy gelded, I now have no way of carrying on my mare's line. Having said that, I did end up with a foal of exceptional quality and conformation who should be capable of doing everything I want to do - so I can't complain too much!

 

[Holly831]

I have, just once!

I sold an 8 month old colt and he sadly got grass sickness in his new home and was PTS aged 9.5 months. I felt desperatly sad for the lady that had bought him so I put my mare back to the same stallion to try and breed a very similar boy for her ( this lovely lady had been through hell and foalie was her 'new start')

I sort of got what I wanted - a chesnut colt but he was sadly born at 297days on 8th March and didn't survive - even worse I lost my gorgeous mare Holly too the next day.

 

[Amelia27]

OH god that's so so sad

I've had a couple of people ask me to breed a foal from Sunny for them but I just can't put her at risk - plus if she produced a filly I'd want to keep it. One foal was enough for her, I was sick with worry the entire way through her pregnancy and foaling as I just couldn't bare losing her for something that I'd done to her.

 

[Tempi]

Im in the same situation as Amelia - i bred from my mare in the hope to get a bay filly, i even had the sex scan done which my vet then confirmed that it was a filly. Foal was born and it was a bay colt. I (like Amelia) had to have him gelded, he is stunning and i will keep him (hes 2 now) but I would have loved a filly to carry on her line. Now we are trying to get her in foal again (in the hope for that filly!!), so fingers crossed. We have to get her pregnant first though, shes being scanned friday but is at the moment showing signs of coming back in to season unfortunately

If i was you i would buy a foal at weaning, then you will get exactly what you want. Breeding your own is unpredictable.

 

[Hollycat]

I can understand where you are coming from. If you are not fussed about sex and not too bothered about colour, then perhaps you could get a nice broodmare on loan for a year. The ecconomy still isn't good and I am sure there are studs that would be very happy to loan you a mare instead of her standing barren in their field eating her head off. Of course breeding has its heartaches as we have heard here but when it works there is nothing like having your own foal born. A nice grey broodmare put to a nice grey stallion helps weigh the odds a bit if you want a grey and if you can find an experienced broodmare that is easy to conceive, foal etc that produces nice stock then with a bit of luck you could get the foal of your dreams.

 

[jaypeebee]

Or look at buying a foal in-utero. Doing it that way is slightly cheaper than buying a foal on the ground and still gives you all the suspense of what colour, what sex it might be.

Many breeders breed to order. Actually most do, they just dont know who their buyer is at that time. If we breed for ourselves then it is our own order, if we are breeding for the market then we are breeding to satisfy the market so apart from those who just breed because their mare has a uterus I would say almost all horses are bred to order to satisfy demand.

 

[Clepottage]

Yes! People do breed to order.

I have a good friend with a lovey RID mare, she bred a stunning filly from her a few years ago and now has so many people wanting a carbon copy she has put the mare back to the same stallion and already sold the foal.