When we choose to breed horses responsibly, there are many traditional practices that can be questioned.
- Keeping a stallion segregated from all horses can lead to major problems, especially when it comes to serving mares.
- Gelding a colt is often done between 1 and 2 years of age, but is this the best time?
- Handling stallions, serving mares, weaning and gelding can all be done with a more natural approach. Find out how below.
Raising an orphan or rejected foal? Get some help and tips here.
Follow the progress of a foal from birth to yearling here.
Learn more about breeding horses naturally from the posts below.
A reader’s experience of her mare’s rejection of her foal
by Lindi My mare Zena rejected her foal, Jazira, and was extremely violent towards her. She was a maiden mare and foaled very quickly...
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Orphan Foals
By Cynthia Cooper The dream of breeding and raising your own foal can very quickly become shattered when you are faced with an orphan foal....
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A Natural Breeding Experience
MY COLT’S FIRST MARE by Cynthia Cooper Although I’ve been breeding horses for over 33 years, witnessing my arab colt’s first sexual encounter with a...
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Stallions need clear boundaries
by Cynthia Cooper © Stallions need clear boundaries A highlight of my time in South Africa was being asked to play with a 5 year...
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Welcome to the World
A Non-Invasive and Loving Approach to Imprinting a foal by Liz Mitten Ryan De-sensitization and imprinting are found in every trainer’s tool box. Their importance...
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Foal Training – The Positive Way
Foal training is such an important beginning to your foal’s future and good training will establish a relationship while also teaching your foal the basics...
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Educating the Foal
by Cynthia Cooper Fortunately, many horse breeders now recognise the pay-off for spending time with the foal in the early days. And many like myself...
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Progressive Weaning of Foals
By Cynthia Cooper Weaning a foal in a progressive way more closely imitates nature and is proven to reduce stress and future separation anxiety. I...
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what is the ideal mating ratio or stallion to mare ratio under natural breeding method? Thanks.
I always look to nature for answers to ideals like this, and from what I see, stallions usually have from 1 to 6 mares and their offspring in their harem.
So I’d use this as a good guide – however, a stallion without competition from other stallions could probably cope with more mares in a domestic situation because he’s not expending energy protecting them.
I hope that helps. Cheers, Cynthia.
Hello, what books do you recommend for preparing for my mares birth? Thank you!
Hi Destenee,
I’ve found the Foaling Primer by Cynthia McFarland to be a good guide. https://g.co/kgs/7Pe4Md
This one also looks to be excellent and has good reviews:https://g.co/kgs/dekzbJ – The Complete Foaling Manual.
I hope that helps. Cheers, Cynthia.