OCR Text |
Show McKenzie Urges Farmers to Plan Colt Increase For every 45 colts dropped, 100 mares have been bred. Does Utah need more or less horse stock than they have? Do the types of horses that we have now serve the purposes pur-poses for which they are intended most efficiently? Relatively few horses are pe-manently pe-manently sterile. However, chief causes of barrenness are: (1) in- appropriate time of mating, (2) irregular ir-regular heat and heat cycles in the mare, (3) abnormal organs 01 reproduction, (4) and low fertility on the part of the stallion. Heat usually lasts from three to eight days. Breeding about the second or third day of heat and on alternate days thereafter seems to be the most practical way to get mares settled. Recent investigations investi-gations have shown that the mare sheds her egg and then goes out of heat some 20 to 40 hours later. There are some cases when the mares experience a split heat. They go out of heat for only a day or two and then come back in again. In these cases, breeding after the split is the only satisfactory satis-factory time. Only about one mare in seven fails to show any signs of heat even during the breeding season. At the same time, this mare might be going through a regular egg-producing cycle. About the only way to get such a mare settled is to make repeated internal inter-nal examinations and breed her on the basis of those observations. observa-tions. , . After a long winter period, es-pecialy es-pecialy if mares have been on dry feed of 'none to good quality, 'heat : .periods are apt to be very long 10 to 15. days This indicates a low level of ' fertility. Mares hculdAotr be? bred after the heat has gone over nine or ten days. ''Wait till' they have gone out and "come into the .riext heat period. , .' A' few mares will have abnormal organs and should be examined by a veterinarian skilled in breeding breed-ing . problems. Ovarian disturbances disturban-ces and "rattlers" or "windsuck-ers" "windsuck-ers" are the commonest irregularities. irregular-ities. The fertility of the stallion may vary all the way from very high to very low. Feed and management man-agement can do a lot to maintain a stallion in his optimum condition con-dition of fertility. One should decline de-cline to breed to sires that give evidence of being persistently low in fertility, since this can be, and often is, inherited and will affecS the level of fertility of offspring, both male and female. Stallions and mares that get green feed early in -the spring are those that give the best breeding breed-ing performance. Stallions must be conditioned properly, not carry too high flesh, get a moderate amount of exercise and be given rations containing a variety of feeds. Mares that give the brst account of themselves also receive re-ceive a moderate amount of exercise, ex-ercise, get good ' feed and all breeding stock should get a quart or two of wheat a week. This is good insurance for raising the fertility level of these animals (stallions and mares) for breeding breed-ing purposes and wheat should be started well before the -breeding season and continued to three or four months after breeding in the case of the mares. . The 1P40 census shows a total of 77,664 horses and colts in Utah on 18,890 ' farms. There are 7,705 colts 3-27 months of age. To take care of replacements needed to man tain our present horse population, popu-lation, Utah should have at least 10,354 colts. With the emergency situatoin facing us and the shortage short-age of rubber, it behooves those depending upon horses for work of any kind to lay careful plans in their breeding operations in the spring of 1942. Mares that have proven themselves to be of the proper type should be bred to well selected sires to provide needed, animal power. Eight out of nine farms in the state depend upon animal power, since only 11.4 nf'-'cent of the-farms report having hav-ing tractors. ;The time for mare lorUjis.jyei-s ..breeding feilOW. |