HexenHammer (ASHDA) and Colida Skip A Spot (ApHC)
If you've decided to join the world of horse breeding, make sure you do it the right way. Horse breeding is difficult, costly, and competitive. To put your best foot forward takes time, education, and ethics. Doing things wrong can not only mean a huge loss of money, but unnecessary suffering for your animals. Don't be a cheapskate who puts low quality foals out into the world. Here's how to do it right!
Research, research, research! Years of it! Take equine reproduction courses, learn as much about horse husbandry as possible. Read up on your breed(s) of choice, and deep dive into the health issues, the myths, and every other negative things surrounding them. Don't buy into dismissing health problems or perpetuating falsehoods. Learn first hand from breed historians, researchers, and more. Study conformation, riding disciplines, genetics, bloodlines and more to have an edge when you get started.
Start with high quality, papered stock. Even if you're breeding for a niche crossbred market or just for yourself. You never know when catastrophe could strike and you need your horses to have a soft landing. There's nothing wrong with sourcing from horse sales, craigslist, and other similar marketplaces, but don't let a cheap price tag be your reason to purchase. Sometimes you can find an incredible deal from someone who doesn't realize what they have or just wants to get out of horses fast, but always look at each horse critically. If you wouldn't buy the same horse with a zero tacked on the end of their price, keep walking. Start out with the best you can get, and you won't have to spend the next few generations trying to improve your stock! If you plan to show (and can prove it), approach breeders you admire with your plans. You might just get yourself a deal, but be sure to hold up your end of it so you don't get a bad reputation. The horse industry is a constant game of who-knows-who and word travels fast, even when it isn't shouted to the sky.
Don't breed junk. Horses with defects, low quality animals, whatever. Don't breed them. Don't buy them for yourself and don't stand your stallion to them. Even if you ARE producing high quality foals at the same time, those low value foals will hurt you. We certainly don't want to spend the money promoting a program putting PSSM1 or bad quality foals on the ground, even if they produce something else that would suit our program and a lot of people hold the same opinion, especially in breeds where testing is the norm, you can alienate a wide swath of buyers with one bad foal.
Don't breed just for the trail horse market and don't use 'not breeding for the show ring' as an excuse. A top quality horse can still be a family or hobby horse, but a low quality horse rarely makes the jump to the show ring. You will need the show crowd to survive, and even avoiding problematic disciplines that promote poor conformation and training practices, there is still a wide variety of disciplines your foals can excel in if bred right. Eventually you will run out of hobby owners to sell to and if all of your foals are going to non-show homes, you won't see any return promotion.
Don't spend all your money on a stallion and then skimp on your mares. Even if your stallion consistently improves mares he is bred to, breeding is still a crapshoot and you greatly decrease your odds of producing a good foal when one of the parents is low quality. By doing this, you're also hinging your program's success solely on your stallion. What if he dies? What if he develops fertility problems? Then you're stuck with a pasture full of junk mares and have to write a big check to replace him. If you have high quality mares, your program can take such an unfortunate hit, and you may be lucky enough to have a son of equal quality to fill his shoes.
Make connections in your breed and take a stand for ethics. A lot of doors will open behind the scenes when people like what you produce and what you stand for. This can result in special purchase prices, reduced stud fees, and even being able to purchase or lease horses not offered to the open market. We have several programs we are very close with, and as such we help each other in ways that can greatly improve both farms. Don't be a lone wolf, the horse community has some great people and there are a lot of ways to make exchanges that are mutually beneficial. If you feel you aren't ready to show and promote your stock, partnering with a program that is willing to help with that in exchange for stud fees or young stock is a great way to get your foot in the door.
And, of course, take care of your stock. Paper your foals, handle them and give them a solid foundation. Your horses are producing a commodity for you to profit from. Make sure they have quality feed, hoof care, a nice place to live. They don't need to live in a palatial barn and eat fifty dollar bags of grain, but they do deserve care. When we see skinny, long toed broodmares in mud-and-barbwire pens, we walk away. Not everyone can afford a Kentucky Horse Park set up, but there's a wide range of acceptable set ups and care and then there's outright neglect.
Copyrighted
Bron Stark
2019
Trinity Appaloosa Farm
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