I know the rest of you horse breeders are familiar with the use of surrogate brood mares. The practice of using one or several surrogate mares to carry the fertilized eggs from their prize mares and studs. The American Quarter Horse Association will only allow one foal per mare, per year to be registered. This means only the foal that is actually carried by the prize mare can be registered. Several breeders want to be able to register all of the foals born, even if the foal had a surrogate mom.

I guess my question is, would you pay top dollar for a foal that came from a surrogate mare? Do you think the surrogate foals should be registered too? Thanks for your opinions!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 03, 2002

Answers

Hi,

As a former horse breeder now retired from it, I guess I would not have a problem as long as it was determined that the prize mare whose eggs were carried by the surrogate, could actually carry a foal to term and was endowed with motherly qualities. That would mean the prize mare would actually have to carry at least one foal to term, and raise it herself. I personally would cull any mare that could not carry a foal to term and then provide adequate mothering ability to the weaning age. I know that some breeders may have those prize mares - but if they can't reproduce, provide milk, or mothering ability - why breed them or allow surrogates to carry their eggs? Seems to me that people would not want to continue a gene pool such as that. Not all stallions should be bred and neither should all mares regardless of their show records. Temperment, mothering ability, show qualities, etc. should be evaluated equally.

But if there's a way to make a buck..someone will.

-- Cindy (colawson@mindspring.com), April 03, 2002.

Howdy I beg to differ with you about one thing. If you use say ,5 surrogate mares you can register any one of the foals you want too. The mare the embryo`s are taken from doesn`t have to have a colt that year. In fact thats why alot of breeders do it. So when the embryo transfer is done they can show the mare the rest of the year. You can also embryo transfer the mare to an AQHA stud , a Paint stud and a Appy stud and register all 3 foals. They have started a registration for embryo colts that are not registered to keep track of there breeding. Those colts are used in NCHA and NRHA events. Some of those colts have sold for good money. Rog

-- Rog (zipsmykat@aol.com), April 03, 2002.

You are right Rog, I worded that wrong. With the AQHA, you can only register one of the colts per year, not necessarily the one carried by the original egg donor. Who is registering the embryo colts? Which other breeds allows multiple registrations? Thanks for the info!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 03, 2002.

Not sure what the group is that are doing the DNA on the unregistered colts. Look on the NRHA or NCHA web sites. I think thats where I saw it. The only breed that lets you register more than one colt that I know of right now is the fox trotters. A group of cutting horse people have a law suit with AQHA trying to get it changed. Haven`t heard how thats going. There were some unregistered horses sell in the NRHA sale though. Rog

-- Rog (Zipsmykat @aol.com), April 03, 2002.

I believe several of the warmblood registries allow multiple foals per year registered although I don't know that it is common. Most of the warmblood breeders that do embryo transplants do it because the mare is a top performance horse and being campaigned. No matter how you manage it, the mare and the donor mare/mares have to be at a repro clinic for the process and this takes them off the show circuit and out of training.

They rarely do more than two flushes per season ... and the last I heard the actual "live foal on the ground" rate is something less than 50%. I'm sure the conception rates will get better ... and the costs will probably go down ... but it is an expensive process and something less than profitable in many cases.

-- SFM in KY (sportpony@yahoo.com), April 03, 2002.

I think the lawsuit is going to court in June. They've set what a possible judgement can be if decided in plaintiffs' favor. If this goes against AQHA, think about buying your lifetime memberships now. The annual fee could go up if they lose.

There is a DNA registry and those get(foals) can bring hefty prices depending on the breeding. Usually there's quite a bit of expense involved in breeding a surrogate. To justify that expense usually just higher end horses are going to be flushed. For instance, Merada's Little Sue just broke a sale price record for a cutting mare and sold for $875k+. She also earned almost as much as Smart Little Lena in cutting pen. Smart Little Lena was the top NCHA earner and his get have made him number one or two NCHA sire for some time. For someone to pay almost a mil for a mare they're going to need to flush her for ET's. But the expense and 50% success rate is worth it for a mare like that. Most horses that cost a few thousand dollars this expense makes no sense at all ESPECIALLY in this soft market when you can buy a very nicely bred yearling or 2 yr old for less than alot of the stud fees, not have to wait, and know what you're getting.

A side note: when the money gets to these levels imho not many people seem to be concerned whether the mare is a good mother, milks well, etc. Merada's Little Sue reportedly has a little attitude herself but she could win money in the cutting pen and that's all these people are looking at...that and how much their get will produce in the cutting pen or reining. It's like some of the complicated things they'll do to keep some horses breeding or going. If it's that complicated maybe they shouldn't be breeding...just imho. But I believe horses, at least to some degree, deserve to still be horses. For our horses it's a large degree...

-- zeb (wrangler@jridgeranch.com), April 03, 2002.

Zeb Boy isn`t this deal a catch 22. I agree , let a horse be a horse. But there are limits. A preson has to act like the dominate person in that horses life if they can`t interact with other horses. It all depends on the horse. My colts grow up with tough mares and nice mares. Can figure out real quick which colts I`ll have to baby and which colts may have to be corrected. Oh and our Stud is a 2 time AQHA honor roll sire. Sorry got off point. Embryo transplant yes. More than 1 colt registered , no. Frozen semen No. Thats passed. Like you said , money talks. But thats just me. Rog

-- Rog (zipsmykat@aol.com), April 04, 2002.

Rog,

I'm prolly agree with you on most things. Definitely didn't mean for horses to rule or get in your space - that's dangerous. Horses need boundaries and to respect people. By "let horses be horses" I meant let them be outside, give them some pasture. Don't lock them up in a stall and exercise for a very, few minutes each day. I've seen some horses that are worth quite a bit that have made their owners quite wealthy and just wondered how they can justify locking them up in windowless stalls for the duration of their lives....

BTW, congrats on your horse's successes!

-- zeb (wrangler@jridgeranch.com), April 04, 2002.

Zeb We are saying the same thing with different words. Love it. Can talk to a horse person and we don`t talk the same way , but mean the same thing. Few and far in between Bud. Talk later. Rog

-- Rog (zipsmtkat@aol.com), April 04, 2002.

Thank you Cindy, Rog, SFM, and Zeb for all the info! I appreciate it!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 05, 2002.