Mares already in foal for 2014

Breeding
1

I have been looking through stables for broodmares to buy or lease and have seen where quite a few are already in foal for 2014. 

How can these mares already be in foal if breeding season isn’t open yet?  Just curious, as I was not expecting to see mares already in foal so soon.

Thanks

2

Well… you can breed a mare “ahead” of schedule for the sake of convenience, because it would be a royal PITA to have to do it in real time.  i.e. I have a mare that was booked for an April slot to my stallion.  She’s a maiden mare, so she can technically be bred whenever.  I went through the necessary rigamaroll to get her bred (i.e. I pushed the button that said, “breed this foal”), and she’s due in March, as if she were bred in April.  However, when April comes along I don’t have to remember that I have to breed her.  She’s already bred. 

The only trick is with non-maiden mares is that they have to drop their foal before you can send them off to the breeding shed to be re-bred. 

Does this make any sense? 

3

Ok.  It just threw me off when I saw it.  Never paid attention to breeding stuff before I got a couple of Broodmares and a stud.

Thanks for clearing this up.  I knew it had to be something simple.

4

Another question that I’m still a bit confused on.

If you push breed this mare and it’s for April and she is “bred” in Feb. and you ship her to the stud farm, does she have to stay at the stud farm till April when she is technically in foal or can you ship her back home at any point?

Thanks

5

No.

The required sequence is:

  • Mare foals (if she’s pregnant)
  • Breeding gets setup
  • Mare ships to stud farm (if necessary)
  • Mare gets bred (push button on/before the date of the breeding)
  • Mare ships home

It doesn’t matter when all of that happens, as long as the “Breed Foal” button gets pushed before the breeding date.  You could do all of that on Jan 1 for a Aug 10 breeding if you want.

Again, this is to allow people to “finish” the entire breeding process in 1 (or 2, with shipping) sittings.  You shouldn’t have to remember to ship fake mares at the exact right time so that they get to the fake farm to breed with the fake stallion. :wink: