The breeding world has gone mad

[griff]

Reenci & louis finochio

A sperm is one-half of a cell. Do you contend that the cells that devide into sperm sells are inferio after the stallion has bred 50 to 100 mares? How do they know when it's time to reset and start using good cells to make sperm; i.e, do only the first 50 mares bred to a first year stallion get good sperm?

I agree that breeding a stallion too often will reduce his fertilty; however, I can not see how a reduced sperm count would mean the sperm came from inferior cells. Does not the contention that a stallion becomes less fertile with too many breedings support the contention that he's producing sperm at a constant rate and the infertility comes from using the constantly produced [good] sperm before an adequate reserve has been established to insure fertitlty?

Mary Syers: I admit some of the QH halter horses are sad; however, I suspect that is caused more by the way they are force fed as foals and weanings than sorry breeding. You have to admit the cutting horses are getting better and better and what do you see wrong with the racing QHs, except maybe that they are 99.9% TB?

I stand by my contention that allowing superior stallions to produce a higher percentage of foals is good for the breed. Now all we have to figuree out is what makes a stallion superior. Read the below quote from Pogo. .

griff

[EO]

This is precisely why we got 100% conception with Basket Weave last year. He bred 12 mares and got all but one on the first cycle. We got 3 maidens on ONE cover as they were so snotty. He bred once a day except 4 mares that belonged to us that we bred one a.m. and one p.m. but only two days. Then he got to skip a few days as we caught them right at the right time. He got a few days off here and there and that seemed to do the trick. He was too darn old to be breeding commercially twice a day. One year, they bred him 3 times a day, that was when things started going downhill. EO

[mary syers]

What I have against racing QH's is their number of starts--gone way south from even as little as ten years ago. Do we really want a horse that can only start 5 times? Mary

[griff]

mary Syers

Are you sure the horses that only start five times are incapable of starting again ? have they gone lame or just retired ? The last QH I raced only started once. not because she was unable to start again but because she came in dead last.

On the one hand I read critism about people that use [breed or race] a horse too often and on the other hand I hear critism about horses that do not start enough.

Consider Seattle Slew. How many races to start? was he lightly raced because he was an inferior horse or because his owners knew what they were doing?

griff

[reenci]

Reenci & louis finochio

A sperm is one-half of a cell. Do you contend that the cells that devide into sperm sells are inferio after the stallion has bred 50 to 100 mares? How do they know when it's time to reset and start using good cells to make sperm; i.e, do only the first 50 mares bred to a first year stallion get good sperm?

I agree that breeding a stallion too often will reduce his fertilty; however, I can not see how a reduced sperm count would mean the sperm came from inferior cells. Does not the contention that a stallion becomes less fertile with too many breedings support the contention that he's producing sperm at a constant rate and the infertility comes from using the constantly produced [good] sperm before an adequate reserve has been established to insure fertitlty?

Mary Syers: I admit some of the QH halter horses are sad; however, I suspect that is caused more by the way they are force fed as foals and weanings than sorry breeding. You have to admit the cutting horses are getting better and better and what do you see wrong with the racing QHs, except maybe that they are 99.9% TB?

I stand by my contention that allowing superior stallions to produce a higher percentage of foals is good for the breed. Now all we have to figuree out is what makes a stallion superior. Read the below quote from Pogo. .

griff

the sperm level or amount is "reduced" in over breeding like we are all talking about. nervous energy is reduced after many many many breeding's.{100-300 ?} dont ya think ? all i know is when im with my honey the first time is the best 100% 2nd time 80% ect ect...the sperm levels in the cover with a stallion react the same way.....leading to more mare's that recieve weaker sperm. look im no expert but it does not take a harvard grad. to understand this. but on the other hand maybe your right.but i have to disagree. what happen's when down the line we find that one of these johnny holme's stallion's has a genetic flaw to some health issue?wow we have bred 100's & 100's of mare's to them. it just look's to much of a good thing.history always repeats itself, and what it shows us is that all good things come to a end.

[reenci]

mary Syers

Are you sure the horses that only start five times are incapable of starting again ? have they gone lame or just retired ? The last QH I raced only started once. not because she was unable to start again but because she came in dead last.

On the one hand I read critism about people that use [breed or race] a horse too often and on the other hand I hear critism about horses that do not start enough.

Consider Seattle Slew. How many races to start? was he lightly raced because he was an inferior horse or because his owners knew what they were doing? griff bad example .....slew's owner's...if it wasnt for billy turner slew would have gone to hell in a hand basket quicker than you can say doug peterson. i dare say that if BT had the slew till the end of his racing day's #1 he would have not gone to CA but would have stayed back east & remained racing a while longer...dont forget the owners wanted to see those hollywood nights, not bill turner.

griff

[reenci]

ya know griff i will be honest here ....if i should be so lucky to have a stallion that could get say 50k-100k per season yes greed would take over, but sooner or later you cook the golden goose....300 covers a year is just plain greedy & sick.

[llbean]

Is there a connection between sperm motility and the genes enclosed in the sperm?

-llbean

[griff]

Does the sperm go faster or slower if it's missing a gene? Who held the stop watch and if one of the sperm with the missing genes gets a foal, is it a horse or a mule?

Second, the interval between breedings will effect the number of sperm available as the stallion makes sperm at a fairly constant rate. However, how does less sperm build up equate to lower quality sperm? Are you saying that the sperm produced just after a breeding are inferior to those produce 12 to 24 hours after a breeding?

Would there be an advantage to paying a double fee with the stipulation that the stallion not breed any other mares at least 24 or 48 hours before he breds my mare? How long can we improve the quality of the sperm by not breeding the stallion ?

a reduced quantity of sperm will effect fertility; however, I don't believe less build up equates to lower quality. AI uses much less sperm per breeding than a natural breeding and I've never heard or read anything about AI foals and calves being inferior to naturally bred calves and foals. In fact, production records seem to indicate the opposite.

Remember a sperm is made when a "normal" cell divides with only 50% of it genetic material in each half. If the genetic material in the sperm is inferior it's because the cell was inferior or damanged before the sperm was made or something happened during the cell division. Lastly, I don't see how the genetic materrial carried by the sperm has anything to do with how fast the sperm spins it's tail; i.e., the genetic material in the sperm only activates when it is combined with the egg, it is not used to build the sperm.

griff

[Sysonby]

Actually what is happening to the Quarter Horse is that it is turning from a single breed with a recognizable phenotype into 5 or 6 different specialist subtypes with distinct bloodlines for every type. It's a little like the sprinter, miler, stayer differences in TBs but far more pronounced. The small feet large body referred to by Mary are the halter horses (dominant sireline Impressive) and, to a lesser extent, the Western Pleasure and hunter under saddle types (dominant sire lines include Zips Chocolate Chip and Barpasser). There are also the running QHs which are heavily TB and resemble sprinting TBs (dominant sirelines include Dash for Cash and Beduino). But almost no one goes out and creates a cutting horse or a reiner using these lines. The cutters use Smart Little Lena bloodlines and the reiners like Topsail Cody. Then there is the old timer Skipper W types using the Weiscamp lines.

None of this happened because of overproduction BTW. These types were created due to market forces and has a lot to do with what sells, pins and wins in different segments of the show and race world. Purists may not like it but the Impressives won and won big in the halter classes. The unintended fallout of a big body on small hooves is a tendency to navicular, a certain erosion of the athleticism that was the hallmark of the breed and a nasty genetic disease. But none of that was the result of too many foals per se and Impressive had virtually no effect on the reiner, running and cutting horse markets to name three.

[kimberley mine]

Personally, it seems humane to allow them to continue to breed and not arbitrarilly force them go cold turkey.

griff

Recall that in a real live herd situation, all of a stallion's mares would drop their foals in April-May or such, get pregnant within a month or two (on repeated live covers), and then the stallion wouldn't get any for 10 months. It's not all that different from the stud farms.

[griff]

The "nustang" bands I saw in the Nevada desert were not uniform. It looked like there were scrawny, under nurished and probably wormey foals of ever age running with mares at all stages of pregnancy. I will say this for these "mustangs", It looked like every band had a 100% live foal rate.

griff

[ageecee]

Ok call me dumb or call me stupid whatever works best for you but what the fawk is A.I.?

[austique]

Number of covers does not have any negative effect with regards to genetic potential and the effect on fertility is usually caused by problems with soundness due to repetitive stress injuries. It is interesting to note that stallions who have been dormant for a while do require a few ejaculations before they produce viable sperm. That being said I am all in favor of limiting book sizes less because it improves the quality of the breeding program, but more for a supply and demand reason. Also, one wonders how long today's current young stud stars will hold out physically under all the pressure. Will we see a spate of stallions going sterile from testicular degeneration at a young age? OSU is actually doing a study on testicular degeneration at this time which was inspired by Mercedes Won who went sterile from the condition.

[madelyn]

A. I. is Artificial Insemination. They get the horse to mount a fake mare after teasing the heck out of him, there is something for him to ejaculate into. They collect that in a jar, maybe carve it up into smaller portions, and inseminate mares.

Regardless of Any of this I think it speaks of how LITTLE confidence they have that these stallions will produce ANYTHING at all, because they are cashing in for the bucks now without regard to what those foals will be worth when there ARE literally hundreds of them running around.