No, the whole issue isn't people that choose to have some idealistic "stallion/stud" horse running around their place, or even twenty of them, if they are a horseman or horsewoman enough to handle them safely and keep them emotionally and physically happy, it is those that are just breeding for the heck of it, basically, and when it boils down to it, those people that are breeding for the "few hundred" a piece market, are pretty much not making money at it, so I don't fully understand.
It will and always be, as has been stated, those that seem stuck in the past, and refuse to fully comprehend that we're trying to move forward to the "standard" which is a HORSE in miniature, not a dwarfed pony.
Yes, we're technically breeding ponies, but look at the Shetlands in the ring today, they don't look anything like the dwarfy tiny things, they have way better proportions, and I have seen Miniatures under 34" even under 30" that have better proportions, so I know it IS possible.
It's just less likely when more people breed any and everything.
It starts with gelding the inferior, and I hate to even say it, but the majority of people breeding as a sideline or hobby are doing NO justice to the breed.
The ONLY lucky thing for me with the first few foals I produced was that they were colts that could be GELDED so my mistakes ended there. I have the first filly I produced as a mare, she is the dam of the gelding in my avatar, as well as Pyro. She is not what I would choose today as a broodmare, but luckily she's outproduced herself when I've chosen her mates very carefully.
I will gladly retire her when I get a filly as nice as or nicer than her, and MOVE ON.
The same would go for a stallion.
I choose not to own a stallion because I could likely not afford to purchase a stallion of the caliber that I want to breed to. Does that mean I have to save my $$ to maybe breed every other year because of that? Fine. Sounds like a good start at population control and gives me a lot more time to market my foals/grow them up, show them and train them.
Perhaps we should not be so focused on selling our foal crops as weanlings and look at a more realistic timeline of devoting a year, two or three to getting them grown and trained and offer more finished "products" to our market? It would require less breeding to save room for these, but what's wrong with that?
SOME will sell young, but others won't...it's a fact, and yet everyone seems to toss the mare right back in with the stallion year after year.
If you have a limited budget, do your homework, save up, and buy ONE nice horse from which to begin your "empire", not a half-dozen you found at the auction in hopes that they will clean up nice (that is if your'e breeding, more power to you if you rescue) and produce more babies that are at risk of hitting the auction themselves.
How many posts (and there was just one recently) do we see where someone goes to a farm and picks out one boy and one girl horse, and all the starry-eyed plans to breed them to each other down the road? Why does this raise our hackles?
Any of us that's been doing this any time at all know that it may well be unlikely to find both your "future herd prospects" at the same farm, the same age, and for sale as weanlings that we could tell were of the quality we should be breeding. Oftentimes these same posters will be brand new to horses/minis and asking questions that make us cringe when they've already gotten to the point (in their minds) of welcoming that new foal into the world. Not that they are wrong to come and ask, to come and learn, because any one of us is MORE than happy to offer that, but that they would leap before they looked, and get to that point without enough thought and knowledge put into such a serious consideration.
Over the years, I've helped a few people realize that there were better choices, and made many myself. We all have to start somewhere. If just one person rethinks their breeding program for the better, then every single letter of all these posts was well worth it.
I guess I've talked or typed myself blue in the face over this one, but we're all responsible for making better decisions, and we're all learning. No one of us has the right to say they have it 100% right. I think the ones getting defensive are reading something into this message that's not there. The ones not saying a thing are hopefully looking and thinking, and/or finding a good mentor to help them.
There are some great resources out there, and guess what, none of them are going to force you to buy their stock or make it a requirement before they help out. I know this from experience.
Liz M.
