..How was everyone's breeding season? Mine was tough! 

The youngest mare we had to breed was 18.  She's my Reckless Dash daughter and the dam of the horse I run now. She had a foal this year, I skipped foal heat, cultured/treated and then got her in foal to The Goodbye Lane on one shipment.  And that was the end of my good luck.  The JOH daughter we have we had no luck with, but she is 24 and we weren't surprised to not get her bred.  The Rare Bare mare we have is 20, and she was a huge challenge... ended up deciding to put her under lights in the fall and try again in the spring. It was like everything that could go wrong with her went wrong, and I will have my work cut out for me next year with her. 

So long story short we have one baby coming, which I am super excited about. Was hoping for 2/3 but it is what it is.  

I had a great season. All 3 mares got in foal on the first try :)  I bred my dinero daughter " LR Frenchmans Gift" to Lacio Ladiesman. He is a proven barrel sire & a 1/2 brother to Martha. Another dinero daughter " LR Frost N Go"  to Royal and Famous & my driftwood mare, LR Catch My Drift to Slick By Design. 

Nice!!

My young mare was bred on the first try.  The 12 year-old had not had a foal in several years and she was a challenge. Lots of fluid in the uterus and oxytocin shots at the breeding center added up to a big fat bill but she's in foal, so that's good. 

Ours went a lot smoother than expected with our personal horses- everyone took on the first try, including a mare that had already ovulated before the semen arrived, and the stallion’s motility was only 30% (ice packs had melted in the shipment). So we are 4/4. Client horses have been more of a challenge, but it’s been an odd spring for sure around here. It was an unusually high year for twins too. Still have a couple more to preg check and a few more to breed before the stallion owners stop shipping for the year. Fingers crossed!

I find out tonight if breeding #2 worked. First shipment was 100% dead and 2nd shipment was only 50% motility, but she ovulated within 8 hours of insemination so hoping for good news. 

50% after shipping overnight is not bad at all. 100% dead is well... no bueno

It was a same day ship . . 

We bred our stallion for the first time this year. He had really good numbers. We have for sure got three mares in foal pretty easily on just one try with him. We are supposed to find out n another one Monday I think. We are also doing an embryo transfer, probably breeding today, on an older mare with him so we will have to see how that one goes. If it doesn't work out, I am not going to blame it on him. He has like 90% motility and even his frozen is 50% with 9-11 billion cells most of the time. The one mare we bred outside was my Shawne Bug daughter (dam to my stud). She is getting older but she still took on the first try easily to Bullseye Bullion. He has pretty good swimmers too.

Still working on it.  

I bred 3 mares to a young stud.  One 21, one 4 and one 20. The 20 year old and the 4 year old settled on the first try.  The 21 year old settled on the second try.  

The older stud is still breeding mares with one mare (20) settled early (March) and others are too soon to check.  They are 21, 17, 17, 15 and 15.  

I bred an 8 year old to Dats A Frenchman and she's got a few more days before she can be checked.  

We are still struggling along---been a strange year here for sure.

I went crazy and bred my 2001 Royal Shake Em mare on her foal heat!  Very blessed she took on a same day shipment from Streakin Boon Dox!!

My Dinero mare had a rough birth and although her and baby are great, she did lose a lot of weight.  So opted to leave her open and breed her to Slye by Design next year.  She's 10 so I'm hoping skipping a year won't matter much.

We have our Tbred mare bred this year. First check showed twins. Couldn't pinch one since they were floating to close to each other. Checked twice after, same story. So waited another couple of days and only 1 heartbeat! Yay!  We checked again 2 wks after, and still only 1.

Very excited and nerve racking at the same time since we lost our baby during birth last year. It's a different mare this time, but still... So lets hope things are going as planned this time.

https://www.allbreedpedigree.com/fling+n+bling

https://www.allbreedpedigree.com/twinings+cat

My Royal Quick Dash stud is still in with my mares. Will remove him around the first of July. He's young (4) and I'm hoping he gets things figured out. I only got 1 colt this year. 

It's definitely been a weird year with client mares as well.  I have had way more this year than last year that would come up open at a 15 day preg check, but not come back into heat until 18-20 days from the ovulation date. It just doesn't make sense.  Then I've had a lot of the normal stuff... either mare has problems, older, chronic infected, pooling urine, etc.. the occasional stallion thats subfertile.. a couple where they just didn't ovulate on time even with ovulatory agents. Then a lot of normal successful pregnancies. But definitely a head scratcher year for sure. 

Update -- we are pregnant!!

Awesome!!

Not sure yet lol. I'll check Saturday to see if one Ivory James daughter is in foal to Guys Dash a Latte. The other IJ daughter, a Coronas Leaving You and a home raised daughter of our late Burrs First Down stallion are being bred to our son of Firewater Finale. My First Wrangler daughter tore at foaling so is out for the season. 

Bred 7 mares. 4 in foal so far. trying one more time on 2 mares. hoping they stick on this next one otherwise im done

Bred my mare on foal heat. Find out the 1st if she took ??

My first 2 I bred cought first try, March/April foals, I could not take the other 2 mares in until later due to some family stuff. One was breed today, the other keeps having large non productive follicles, so hopefuly she gets something going, if not always next year. Shes coming home June 1st regardless. 

I bred 3 to Guys Easy Jet one to Bugsy Beduino. All are in foal. With this crazy weather it wasn’t easy. I have bred to one horse where they repeatedly sent shipments with NO semen in them. When we complained we told that the shipment had not been handled properly. Everything was our fault. Expensive lesson to learn. Vet was an idiot sucking money out of everyone and the stallion owner was a hot head. Funniest thing—I bought a mare that had been bred to the same stallion and they had the EXACT same problem. Soooooo this year was a breeze. 

Left my mare open on purpose. Almost decided to breed back but I got a keeper filly and decided I didn't need another monster that I got. Going to save pennies and breed to a more expensive stud and maybe even ship from the states to Canada or bring my mare to Montana; haven't decided yet!

We were unable to get my mare in foal.

So here's a question for those that breed frequently, have you heard that some just don't "mix" (I can't figure out how to word this correct so bear with me) as in good straws, great follicle, ovulate how they should...literally everything looking perfect and going how it should, but it just doesn't work an d to try a diff stud next season? I know that the facility did everything they should, we cut no corners, mother nature just hates my plans I guess!

I'm back to the drawing board for next year so if love to hear you guys opinions

 You might have your mare cultured the beginning of next year. I would talk to your vet about it though. 

We did culture, completely clean...no contamination even from being AI'd. I did talk to my vet, the mare was there for an extended amount of time, changing studs was a suggestion from her. I was seeing if anyone had experience with something like this

How old is this mare and is this the first time ever being bred? I didnt read threw all the posts so forgive me if I missed this anywhere..

She's a 12 yr maiden. I know I waited a bit later then I should have 

I had a mare who was bred to BB four seasons. She was clean. After the first shipment in the fifth season didn't work I live covered her with my Special Leader son. Caught first try. She either had a bad reaction to the extender or antibiotic with no fluid showing, or she just wanted some foreplay. 

My mare was covered by the lone drifter son yesterday, so going to wait a few weeks and have her checked. Hopefully she's in foal. She foaled a buckskin colt this year

I was shocked and so happy that my mare took on the first shipment. She had been on Altrenogest for 4 years, had her last dose on 2/19 and then was bred on 5/5. I bred her to No Pressure On Me and I am so excited for this foal. 

He is such an awesome horse. I bred a mare to him also. He runs locally, and I am lucky to watch him run and win.  I believe in this horse, and I think we are smart people for getting in on the ground floor. I bet his babies will be winners!!

Which son of L.D. did you breed to ?  I have a daughter of L.D. She has turned into a wonderful barrel producer. Driftwood himself is still on her papers. 

Well another check this morning and the one we were waiting to find out on is pregnant. Our Embryo Transfer mare ovulated this weekend too and so did the recip, which is actually another mare of ours, about on time. So next weekend we do that transfer assuming there is anything to transfer. Ah definitely ready for the end of this breeding season.

Yes that does happen. There are theories as to why. I'll leave that up to the people who have more education than I do. I just have real world experience. I tried repeatedly to get mares bred before by shipped cooled semen and it wasn't going well.  We were going to try one more time and FedX lost the semen. So I bred her to my JOH son with collected extended semen and she took. We did nothing different except switched from one stallion to another.  

To answer what I think your question is, I do believe that for some reason some stallions and some mares my have trouble with the DNA of the other. Perhaps the mare's system is the wrong PH for the stallion’s semen.  Some mares don't handle the extender well and may have clearance issues.  This is when you need a good repro-vet to track what is happening as you go. That is also the secret to getting older mares to stick. They often have more problems with clearing the inflammation of a foreign protein in their body (semen). Which is why they have a reputation of being harder to settle.  

ETA: If your mare doesn't get in foal this season, I would wait until your absolutely sure she's not in foal, then biopsey her.  You can tell a lot more from a biopsey IMO than you can a culture.  

MP Sage Wood