Food For Winter Thought

[zacharyfarms]

I thought this was an interesting reference. It is refering to Dr. Oliver Gunther from the University of Wisconsin-Madison Dept. Of Endocrinology-Reproductive Physiology who has been cited as the modern-day discipline of equine reproduction. This gives us something else to watch for on our pregnant mares.

: Ginther suggests that there is a SLIGHT correlation between

those mares that show estrus (showing signs of being in heat) during pregnancy - especially early - and the sex of the foal being a filly. It would be fun to see how true this is come next year and foaling season. There is at one time or another on this forum someone asking about a pregnant mare showing heat to a stallion or gelding or even other mares.. :bgrin

 

[chandab]

It was a full-size mare, but...

The first time I bred my AQHA mare, she showed signs of heat throughout most of her pregnancy (no stallions around, but lots of geldings); and she had a filly.

The second time I bred her and the first time I bred her daughter; I didn't really pay attention, but...

She had a colt, don't recall seeing signs of heat while she was pregnant. The other mare had a filly, and she was a bit "flirtatious".

So, maybe there is something to it.

:

 

[FoRebel]

I saw this with the mare we purchased from QtrRae in June. She was in foal so heavily we thought that she might just foal out in the trailer on the way home!! She didn't.... she went about 3 weeks later, but when we got home she deffinately was showing signs of heat to our studs and we ended up with a filly out of her! My perlino watched her so closely that he was on his hind legs looking over the stall wall at her!

 

[RainSong]

Could be the hormones. There's "midwives tales" for behaviors in women (and physical signs/symptoms) relating to baby's gender... some of which could loosely be explained by the variance of hormones related to the baby when gender is "settled" (as we are all female when we are first conceived).

 

[kaykay]

i had two mares do this to me last year. one showed for the stallion the very day she foaled. Both had colts lol

 

[zacharyfarms]

As Ginther said "there is a SLIGHT :bgrin correlation"