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RE: [RC] The Gelding Project - MN - heidi

You hit the nail squarely on the head!
 
Heidi
 
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [RC] The Gelding Project - MN
From: k s swigart <katswig@xxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, May 01, 2009 9:59 pm
To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx


>From the U of Minn

> ** The Gelding Project: Helping the Unwanted Horse One Stallion at a Time
...
> This program is designed as a key step to reduce the number of
> unwanted horses in Minnesota. The first aspect of the project,
> Education Earns Stallions to Geldings, will encourage horse owners to
> choose to make stallions into geldings through education and financial
> incentives.

Making stallions into geldings will have very little effect on the unwanted horse population.  Very few of the "unwanted" horses out there are stallions, most of them have already been gelded.  The stallions that are unwanted are usually unwanted for some reason other than the fact that he has balls.  Most people who think that gelding a stallion will turn him from an unwanted horse into a wanted horse WILL geld the horse in order to achieve that; it is, after all, a fairly simple operation with few complications.

And making stallions into geldings will have very little effect on the production of horses.  The number of accidental breedings of horses is really very small by comparison to the number of planned pregnancies, and the number of horses born at any time is a function of the number of MARES bred, not the number of stallions available for breeding. 

There is probably some value to be gained by an educational program, but if you want to reduce the number of horses being born it is the MARES that need to be sterilized, not the stallions.  And this is the education that needs to be provided.  The targeted population for education should be MARE owners.  If mare owners want to breed their useless mare in order to get an unwanted foal, they can order the semen to achieve this through the mail. And all the gelding incentives in the world is unlikely to make it so there are NO available stallions.

The overbreeding problem is caused by people breeding too many crappy mares, no matter what the quality of the stallion.  Few responsible people with breeding quality mares will choose a crappy stallion to put her to.

It is time to stop perpetuating the myth that there are too many unwanted horses because there are too many stallions.  The number of stallions available is a sufficiently minuscule part of the unwanted horse problem such that it is pretty much a negligible part of the the unwanted horse problem, and not a very prudent way to be expending substantial resources.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)


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