Hi there! So I am planning to breed my mare next season. She will be a 6 year old maiden, but my main concern is that she is a true 14 hands (very short girl!) and the couple stallions that I would really like to cross with her are 15.3 and 16.1 hands. What do you guys think about a bigger stallion for a maiden mare? I've heard horror stories about the baby growing too big...and other stories about the baby doing most of the "catching up growing" after birth. What are your experiences? Thanks in advance!
Mares are built to only let the baby grow as large as her body can handle. That being said, there are exceptions when the foal grows too large for the mare but I think that's rather uncommon when you consider how many small mares have babies by larger studs every year.
Only thing that I would say is since she is a maiden, I would try to find a smaller stud for her first-time baby. Chances are, she would be fine but since I'm a worry-wart it's just what I would do.
Check to make sure the stallion does not throw really big foals. My Zan stallion makes BIG babies - all of them have been big big no matter what breeding or size of mare he's bred to. I won't use him for another maiden mare after having to cut a colt out of a pretty big mare.
When I was 3, my mom bought me a 41 inch Shetland pony mare. She had been in a pasture with a 17H thoroughbred stud for the past 5 years. Sold to us as NOT bred. Well, she had a filly! Lol!
We were completely dumbfounded as well as sellers. Baby was born knee high at withers. She ended up being around 54" when grown.
I have always been told that the mare is the one who determines the size and their uterus will only grow as big as it can and it wont matter the size of the stallion.
Thank you guys for all your input!! Nice to hear about some success stories about this :) thank you for giving me some insight, now I have more information for my decision :) you guys are the best! Thanks for the speedy replies
Breeding height difference?
