To Foal or Not to Foal?

There are several considerations to be made when deciding whether or not to have your mare put in foal - among them:

• Are you prepared for the cost of breeding the mare and and willing to wait 11 months for the foal?
• Is your mare healthy enough and unencumbered with hereditary conformation faults or certain diseases that may be passed on to her foal?
• Do you have a place, somewhere safe where you can keep a mare and her newborn foal?

Selecting a Stallion

Once you've decided that you want to breed your mare, the next step is to choose the perfect stallion. The stallion should be selected to match the mare's conformation and personality, not to exaggerate any faults she might have. You may wish to reproduce to a specific breed, or you could set a main priority which could be performance, height, or even color. If you are breeding for the color, there is a book called Equine Color Genetics by D. Phillip Sponenberg, which includes various photographs of coat colors of horses and the probable genotype for every case.

Once, mare owners were limited to breed with stallions that were kept close by, or even faced with the cost of sending their mares to breeding farms located faraway. Nowadays, with the development of artificial insemination of frozen semen, geographical barriers are of the least concern and mare owners can choose the ideal stallion, wherever he may be situated. You can search the perfect stallion for your mare by browsing internet listings.

Prepare everything to have a safe environment for the foal.
Image by: John Burke

Caring for the Pregnant Mare

Let’s assume that you don't have problems with mare conception, once your mare is in foal with your chosen stallion, either live or through artificial insemination, it is very important to ensure that you meet her nutritional requirements so as to to keep her healthy and to let her sustain the pregnancy for a healthy foal. Apart from right feeding, there are other aspects to consider when managing a pregnant mare and these include exercise, equine worming and preparing a safe environment for foaling that should be attended to.

All througout the eleven months of mare pregnancy, the vet will need to make regular checkups to ensure that everything is going fine. You may need to prepare ahead for the foal's arrival.

Mares are notoriously unpredictable when it comes to delivering a foal. Many mare owners have watched and observed diligently their pregnant mare, staying up all night to do so, that once an owner goes out on a coffee break, the mare has given birth while the owner was gone. Many owners tend to acquire a monitoring system to allow them to observe their mare from the comfort of another room office, while providing the privacy the mare needs. The mare exhibit signs that the foal is coming. As the owner, it is important for you to be familiar with the normal parameters, as well as become prepared just in case for any foaling emergencies. You can do your research on the different signs that will tell you that a foal is on its way.