STUD FARM DIARIES
As the year is winding down, so are things on the breeding farm. November has generally been a month of tying up loose ends and getting ready for the next year. Now that weaning is over, the next thing on the calendar is castrating the colts. Gelding is something that seems logical to me, but I have found in my travels that other breeders don’t necessarily agree.
I am always mystified when I hear a breeder lamenting the fact that they had a colt foal. In the halter world, especially, colts seem to be a liability at foaling time. Perhaps this is a basis for the discussion about whether one is producing foals simply to look good but have no true function outside of the halter arena. A colt should not be considered a liability, nor a breeding animal simply because it has testicles.
A stallion can have a thousand foals in its lifetime, or more, if extremely popular. Those numbers, in a breed that has seen reduced registrations every year for decades, can quickly permeate the entire gene pool. Even if the stallion has a great
