Out From Under My Deadline Rock
To all who stopped by checking for new posts the last week, my thanks, and apologies for the longish stretch of nothing new. Every now and then, a story assignment comes along that guzzles brain cells and writing juice like a big old V8 boatmobile guzzles gas.
"Breeding Today" definitely qualified. Trying to cover the topic adequately in a single article was like trying to cover an airfield with a tarp. Basically impossible, but you gut it out and keep whittling until there's a written result.
A few nuggets I will pass along, now that I've resurfaced among the living:
* When it comes to production of horses for the registered-horse market, breeding is definitely in recession. The pullback has been underway longer than most people realize--for about eight years.
* Since 2000, when the annual U.S. registration total reached a 25-year peak, at least 100,000 broodmares have been taken out of production.
* Examples: In 2000, the American Paint Horse Association recorded 106,000 bred mares on its stallion reports. In 2007, the mares-bred total was 52K. The Appaloosa Horse Club estimates it will have about 3,900 bred mares on stallion reports for '08. Five years ago, it had about 14,000.
* It's not just mares being taken out of registered-horse production. The number of stallions in use is dwindling as well, as shown by the reduced number of stallion reports being filed. (Registries require stallion owners to file an annual report of all mares bred; no report filed, no papers granted to the resulting foals.)
* The obvious (and most simplistic) effect is fewer foals added to the overall horse population--at least by breeders whose efforts are tracked and recorded.
* The domino effects are quite a lot more complicated...not the least of which is the "opportunity" for all those out-of-work mares to end up in backyard whinnymills, pumping out foals that'll never get papers and never get counted. When broodmares are free for the taking on sites like craigslist, it doesn't take a lot of imagination to figure out where they'll end up.
posted by Juli Thorson @ 11:44 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Thanks for tackling such a hard topic.I noticed in the AQHA Journal one top stallions breeding fee is 0. And the chute fee is $500.00. If I had a nice mare- that might be a big incentive to me to bred to that top name stud. Lucky for me I have a gelding!
I mentioned the stallion with zero breeding fee in my article. It's a quality stallion at a good breeding facility with good service (I bred my mare there twice).
Pretty interesting development that no one would have imagined a year ago.
Welcome back Julie. I was getting pretty bored...
Yes, and I am also an example of this trend. I own "8" Mares all proven in the Show Ring, with the best top blood lines in the Nation.
Yet, not a single Mare is bred for a Foal in 2009, and I have no plans to breed for 2010.
In years past they would all but one held back for riding, have been bred.
We must as Breeders take responsibility for our foals that we produce, and plan from the beginning to keep them all. And not many can afford that in these economic times.
I wish that there was a way to track all of the backyard breeding and "accidents" because, like you said, there are free broodmares coming out of the woodwork- another sad part of that story is that most of those freebies aren't actually broodmare quality, but instead are too crazy to ride, too injured to ride, etc.
From the time we first starting buying horses, I saw no reason to buy a registered horse for twice as much money. The first horse we bought for our daughter happened to be registered. He was perfect for her. At the time, I put it down to just being lucky. This horse saw her from a youngest through high school. We still have him in the pasture, where he will stay until he dies. As the years passed and I bought horses for trailing riding, I still could not justify the cost for a horse I was riding. Then one day, it dawned on me to question why none of these horses were working out very well. Based on the experience with my daughter’s horse, I went looking for a horse that has been bred with a reason in mind rather than 2 horses in the pasture that happened to produce a foal. I now own a registered quarter horse that I trail ride. Every day that I ride, I tell my husband what a perfect horse I now own. He is safe sound and has a great mind.
Thank you for all you hard work on this article and sharing with us. I know I am going to share your insights with others who still seem to be in denial that there is a problem in the horse industry. I sure hope they will listen and at least begin to understand.
Hi Juli,
I'm looking forward to your article! Do you have any stats on the number of embryo transfers for each breed and how that affects the number of mares bred vs the number of foals produced?
Does anyone count surrogate mares? and where do surrogate mares come from? (Craig's list freebies perhaps?) And where do they go?
Are they on anyone's radar screen?
I'm always curious about this!
Fran,
I don't have stats on # of embryo transfer mares but I know the number has steadily been increasing from year to year. The biological dams would get credit for the foals upon registration time, and also would be the ones reported on the stallion report(s) for the horses whose semen was used. The surrogates aren't counted, at least not in the breeds I'm familiar with.
Someone with more experience than I will have to let us know where the surrogate mares go when they're done. But I don't think it takes to much imagination to figure out where most end up.
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