I agree with Liz here. I do think anyone considering breeding should breed for quality, not just pet quality. The chances are good of getting pet quality with top quality horses so with two pet quality you're almost asking for more pet quality and you're also most likely breeding more than one fault into the foal. I think you do need to have a good idea of what you're doing and breeding for if you're going to breed.
I may not be an expert or even close but because of this site and even the people I sometimes disagree with, I am learning and I do go look for photos of what they're talking about just so I can get a good idea and know what to look for when I go looking for my next horse.
I also agree totally with Liz that maybe the best way for a lot of people to go is to rescue horses and work with them. I have seen lots of photo's of rescue horses that turned out absolutely beautiful. I have considered looking for a couple cast away geldings and training them as a hitch team; it won't be this year but I am seriously considering this for next year.
I may not be an expert or even close but because of this site and even the people I sometimes disagree with, I am learning and I do go look for photos of what they're talking about just so I can get a good idea and know what to look for when I go looking for my next horse.
I also agree totally with Liz that maybe the best way for a lot of people to go is to rescue horses and work with them. I have seen lots of photo's of rescue horses that turned out absolutely beautiful. I have considered looking for a couple cast away geldings and training them as a hitch team; it won't be this year but I am seriously considering this for next year.
Hhmmm....nope, I still don't see it being the right thing to breed for pet quality in this market.There is a place for pet quality breeding, as long as you are not breeding soundness problems.
There are so many horses to be had for far cheaper than you could breed them, if that is what you want them for.
Instead, go buy these ones going away at kill prices and save them, feed 'em, vet 'em and give them some training, and then sell them. You will be ahead of the game for what it costs to feed the mare through the Winter, worm and care for her as well as the stallion, and you don't have to lose sleep over the baby coming, nor worry that both mare and foal will die in the birth (a possibility for every foaling).
Enough of the people breeding the nicest to the nicest will have the "pet quality" outcome for whatever reason, and while still sound, they just aren't cut out for showing and/or they are not up to snuff for breeding.
Not to say EVERYONE breeding just for a pet here and there is off, or wrong, again, as long as they're considering heritable defects and the like, but that there are options and that's the point.
To breed these pet quality (well there has to be a better term, because all of my horses are pets and some are quite inarguably, still good show horses and/or breeders) for the sake of just making more of them (I can't see the profit, personally, so I can't put that in there), is really something all of us should reconsider.
The point of this thread is very near that concept.
The problem being, that there are some very large scale breeders out there who are really not doing any of us any favors with the tremendous amount of mediocre to very low quality horses heading out onto the market as well as ending up as breeding stock, when most of the have no business there just because they are no improvement on the last generation.
Liz M.