Breeding Season Prep Basics: The Stallion

By: Megan Arszman

There is a chill in the air, which can only mean one thing in the horse industry—it’s breeding season. The mares are booked, the paperwork has been signed, but is your stallion prepared to tackle the next few months?

Starting on the Right Hoof

Working with your equine reproduction specialist from the very beginning is your best bet to ensure a successful breeding season and a long breeding career. Preparation in the months beforehand will lead to a productive year, and it doesn’t matter whether your stallion is a freshman in 2015 or a veteran of the breeding dummy.

Prior to the start of breeding season, stallions should have an evaluation and health check by a certified veterinarian. The health check should include tests for any venereal diseases such as equine viral arteritis (EVA). Equine viral arteritis is a contagious viral disease that can cause respiratory illness, swelling of the limbs, fever, possible abortion, and can even result in newborn foals that are weak or sick. The disease can be prevented with vaccination for stallions, mares (within the final two months of gestation), and foals less than six weeks of age.

Another venereal disease stallion owners should be prepared to battle is contagious equine metritis, which is a bacterial disease that primarily affects a mare’s fertility and comfort. Pre-season testing is the only way for a stallion owner to discover if a horse has this disease, because stallions don’t develop clinical signs, unlike mares. In addition, equine herpesvirus-3 targets external genitals like the penis, with painful papules that develop on the skin.

Once a stallion is cleared for any venereal diseases, a veterinarian should collect and evaluate semen prior to the start of the breeding season. There are two different approaches to collecting and evaluating semen—either collect the stallion every day for seven to ten days or rest the stallion (no collection) for a week and collect him twice on a certain day (comparing the quality of the second collection to the first).

Your veterinarian will look at sperm concentration and semen volume in the collection, the physical structure of the sperm, and sperm motility. If a stallion is collected on a daily basis, he might have five to six billion sperm per day, with ranges of four to 16 billion on average.

After collection, your veterinarian should check for cryptorchidism (a condition where only one testicle has dropped, not both), as well as the total width, height, and length of the scrotum. Knowing the total scrotal volume can help make handlers aware of any potential problems down the line.

Keeping the Stallion An Athlete   

What about the stallion that’s very physically active and still competes in the show pen? Experts agree that keeping a stallion in shape is important to keeping him healthy, as well as help elongate his breeding career. Conducting a light warm-up prior to breeding or collecting can help reduce the chance of injuries, particularly to the hind legs and the back, which can be stressed or strained during the vigorous movements of collection.

With proper training, the still-active show stallion can even go from show ring to breeding shed, and back, without missing a beat in either training or performance of either field.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Breeding Season Prep Basics: The Mare coming soon on EquineChronicle.com.