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Though many horse owners may simply breed a family mare to a local stallion in order to produce a companion animal, most professional breeders use selective breeding to produce individuals of a given phenotype, or breed. Alternatively, a breeder could, using individuals of differing phenotypes, create a new breed with specific characteristics.
A mare may be in heat for 4 to 10 days, followed by approximately 14 days in diestrus. Thus, a cycle may be short, totaling approximately 3 weeks. [21] Horses mate in spring and summer; autumn is a transition time, and anestrus occurs during winter.
Therefore, many breeding farms begin to put mares "under lights" in late winter in order to bring them out of anestrus early and allow conception to occur in February or March. One exception to this general rule is the field of endurance riding , which requires horses to be 60 true calendar months old (5 years) before competing at longer distances.
The breeding season is when seasonal breeders reproduce. Various variables can affect when it occurs. [3] A primary influence on the timing of reproduction is food availability. Organisms generally time especially stressing events of reproduction to occur in sync with increases in food availability.
Free-roaming mustangs (Utah, 2005). Horse behavior is best understood from the view that horses are prey animals with a well-developed fight-or-flight response.Their first reaction to a threat is often to flee, although sometimes they stand their ground and defend themselves or their offspring in cases where flight is untenable, such as when a foal would be threatened.
Live foal guarantee is a common provision in horse breeding contracts. It is a form of a warranty offered to the mare owner by the stallion owner. Basically, it says that if the mare fails to produce a live foal from the breeding, the stallion owner will breed the same mare again without charging another stud fee. Therefore, the stud fee is ...
Quantitative breeding theories usually focus on statistical analysis of the sire and broodmare sires in particular. The best-known classification system for mares was developed in the late 1800s by an Australian named Bruce Lowe, who analyzed the statistics of major race winners and ranked the distaff or mare lines by their degree of success ...
The vagina of the mare is 15 to 20 cm (5.9 to 7.9 in) long, and is quite elastic, allowing it to expand. [citation needed] The vulva is the external opening of the vagina, and consists of the clitoris and two labia. [18] It lies ventral to the rectum. [19] [20] The mare has two mammary glands, which are smaller in maiden mares. They have two ...