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Topic: A question of ethics ... (Read 6158 times)
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EclypseSporthorses
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Posts: 994
Go The Distance
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Ingrid,
I would never breed to anything that knowingly had such severe faults. I gave the example of the EA breeder as to let you know what I consider an unethical breeder.
TrueColours is right...so many times people buy and breed & they don't have a clue even what a club foot is, & I can tell you the unsupspecting couple that bought the mare had not a clue.
Ingrid, I hope you know that I do take a strong stand against breeding flaws. Here is an example, a true one. I actually *lost* one of my best training & lesson clients. The mare was a National Show Horse with a very noticable club right front. They had gone to a Futurity show that had a stallion breeding auction there. It was a live event, where the stallions are paraded out, music lights, individual stallion brags/presentations, their get paraded in, it is quite a festive event, & they usually do very well at selling the breedings very high. The mom & daughter got all caught up in the atmosphere and purchased a breeding from a popular Arabian stallion. I would not agree with breeding their mare, and especially to the stallion was known to produce clubs.
I lost the client because I would not agree with them breeding their mare to the stallion they had purchased at the auction, or to any stallion. Actually, I told them they should not even consider the mare a broodmare prospect. Telling them that she carries a highly inheritable flaw, that shouldn't be reproduced. That it was not fair to the future foal, or to anyone who would own the foal. The family was upset that I was not happy with them that they 'won' the breeding, and it was important to them that I agreed....though I could not.
The family had the mother, daughter and two horses in training. That was quite the hit to my pocket book, though I am simply not a 'yes' woman, and couldn't play politics and bless her choice. If I had, I would have kept a lucrative client, who actually brought me new clients on a regular basis.
To add salt to the wound, one week of pulling the mare out of my training, she quailified for regionals, under someone else's barn name/trainer name. So, not only do I not agree with it, I have certainly taken a stand for it that cost me immediate financial & professional pressure. It is very difficult to see someone else take credit for your training.
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« Last Edit: June 22, 2006, 07:11:05 PM by EclypseSporthorses »
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"Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4
~*Ride-Far-Ride-Well*~
*^The Sky's the Limit^*~
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EclypseSporthorses
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Go The Distance
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Ingrid,
I guess the contradictory opinions must be because I am a stallion owner and a mare owner, so I am speaking from two different positions. As a stallion owner, I have the right to refuse to cover a mare with obvious defects. As a mare owner, I am simply stating that we, the mare owner, is the party that takes the majority of the risks. This is in response to the discussion of stallion owners taking the risks of a poor reputation....I am simply chimming in that it really is the mare owner who makes the financial and physical risks...and ultimately, it is the mare owner who it is up to- as they are the ones shopping for stallions, and making the phone calls, it is not the stallion owner staking out the mare owners...so utimately...it is Suzy Mare Owner who makes the majority of the decision.~
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"Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart."
Psalm 37:4
~*Ride-Far-Ride-Well*~
*^The Sky's the Limit^*~
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sherry
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FEI
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Posts: 223
I love Trakehners!
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Wow-I guess I opened up a huge can of worms. Perhaps we should talk about personal responsibility. Personally, I look very hard at mares that are not purebred Trakehners, and other than that, I worry about line breeding and mares that are what I call "wicked smart". Wicked smart mares are not a good cross in my view to a wicked smart stallion--regardless of the conformation issues. The truth is that Trakehners have been given the rap as "hot" when all they are is wicked smart. Let's be honest--breeding is a crapshoot--all we can hope for is to look for the stallion that exhibits the traits we look for and hope for the best, and at least our inspection protocol tries to make sure that huge faults aren't continued.[color=Green][/color
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Joy
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I love Trakehners!
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"Wicked smart"? Are you from Maine? Around here, everything is "wicked good", "wicked anxious", "wicked this" and "wicked that". And yep, "wicked smart", too. 
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TrueColours
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Breeders of unique coloured TB's and Sport Horses!
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...sigh ...  ...
This example is EXACTLY what I am talking about ...
Saw a VERY lovely looking stallion this weekend - actually he is a 3 year old colt that is due to get gelded soon.
But - before he does, they want to collect and freeze enough straws from him to last the next XXX years so once he embarks on his show career if he is as successful as they believe he will be, they want to have frozen available to offer on him and make some money
So - whats wrong you ask???
Well - for starters, he is HYPP positive. Secondly he had check ligament surgery done on BOTH front legs to correct club feet and to top it all off, he is a rig
The HYPP positive has to be declared and then you can say the Mare Owners are going in with eyes wide open on that can of worms, but the other two issues??? Nope - they wont know until club footed ridgeling colts are being produced
...as I said ... sigh ...
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Joy
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I love Trakehners!
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Triple whammy!  And the HYPP aspect and club footed aspect I mentioned in my post of June 21st! You're right, TC, this is absolutely unethical.
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fuzzy
Guest
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Sounds to me like BOTH the horse and the owner in this case are Alpo material . . . . . I have no idea how some people sleep at night . . . . What a MESS!!
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Elizabeth
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So, as a mare owner, is there any way to find out if a stallion was club footed or has some other hereditary problem that I should know about? I mean, how specific do I need to be when I start talking to stallion owners or marketers? Are any Trakehner stallions known to pass these faults? I would not really care about the one testicle problem, as I assume I would geld a colt, but the club foot issue is worrisome. I knew a lady who bred Anglo-Arabs who had a nasty (literally would hurt you if given the chance, had been extremely mistreated by a previous owner) TB mare who also had a club foot. You could not handle her foals until they were weaned and away from the mare. The two that I saw, a yearling and a weanling, were lovely in every way and did not have club feet. This lady refused to breed the TB mare to another TB, for fear that more club feet would ensue. BUT, if you did not know the mare, you would not have even guessed that the foals (both fillies) had a dam with a club foot. In a stallion's case, if they had surgery as a foal, how could I find that out?
My Holly has always been the picture of health and soundness. One of the reasons I love Trakehners is their hardy reputation, which both my girls have. How can I ensure to have this in the next generation, without a stallion weakening it? What provisons are in place to protect mare owners from stallion owners who may hide their horse's genetic faults? Wouldn't it be great if there was a "lemon law" for horses?
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Elizabeth
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Amanya
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Life is Choices
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Like it or not, it's "let the buyer beware" with the great stallion search. Mare owners have to do their homework. Most stallion owners are great; there are some however who are probably only interested in the money and either out of stupidity or total lack of concern for the horses involved, just don't care. And there are trainers out there, too, who lack in ethics. There is always that small percentage who make it more difficult, unfortunately. 
As a mare owner, it takes at least a year for me to select a stallion for my "girls." Often longer. I have a "short list" I am currently looking at for "later", too. But I try to do my "due diligence" for each breeding. If possible, I visit the stallion. I talk a lot to the stallion owner. I visit relatives as well as check out any offspring. Any information on ancestors is helpful. There is a lot to find on the internet and we have great resources here on this forum.
I've walked away from stallions who have produced foals with cow-hocks. I pass on stallions who have less than wonderful dispositions. If I'm not quite sure, I go onto the next stallion. This forum is a super place to ask questions and get more information. Then when I like the stallion for one of my girls, I'll do whatever it takes to make the breeding work.
The stallion owners I've worked with and talked to, are absolutely wonderful. Most are very knowledgeable and have taught me a lot.  Honestly, I can't say I've come across any who are unethical, but then I'm not a large breeder. I just hope our foals will be great additions to a great breed.
When I bought my first Trakehner mare, both her sire's owner and her materal grandsire's owner phoned me. They were tracking what their stallions offspring were doing and who had them, etc. I was so impressed by their great concern. They even came to shows to watch us. I hope we've made them proud.
I'm personally not a great fan of the "collect 'em a lot and early, then geld them" method. A stallion that can continue on in mind and body for years, proves his abilities. I talked to a breeder a couple years ago who said she only bred FEI level horses to FEI level horses. She's a real believer in the adage "the proof is in the pudding." So I don't think I'd opt for the frozen straws of a gelding....still too much unknown for me. DNA is hard enuf to sort through ! (MHO) 
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TrueColours
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Breeders of unique coloured TB's and Sport Horses!
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I guess in answer to Elizabeth's question - *maybe* - if the current stallion owner was also the breeder and decided to 'fess up ...
But if the breeder had the surgery done, and along new Mrs Stallion Owner comes and buys this gorgeous yearling colt that is everything she wants in a stallion prospect, puts him through his approvals which he passes with flying colours and then she stands him at stud as a 3 or 4 year old, how would she ever know she was doing something unethical and wrong until these club footed foals started popping out over several years, and word started to spread, but by that time how many foals would have been affected over how many years???
Plus - in the beginning - in all fairness - how could you point fingers anywhere until you had enough foal crops on the ground to know definitively that it "WAS" the stallion and not the mare base that was causing the club feet to crop up???
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Joy
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I love Trakehners!
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Yes, there are a couple of TK stallions (that I know of, anyway) that have produced club-footed foals, and one who seems to have a bit of a club foot himself but is incredibly talented and performing at Grand Prix level. So is the club foot issue really a problem? I don't know.
My sister is a farrier, and lives next door to a small-scale Arabian breeder. She's of the opinion that clubfootedness has a lot to do with diet. She says the breeder next door gets lots of club feet, but she's bred to the same stallion and never had a problem. The way they feed is very different. I suspect that there may be a genetic predisposition and nutrition can modify it.
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Maren
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Right on, Joy!!!
Club feet are a lot more than genetics. And yes, as a mare owner, you're the one who has to do the research and read between the lines, or be happy and run into somebody plain honest..... 
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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There is newer research (and older research) indicating that club feet have nutritional and or environmental causes. I believe there are multiple causes for this, actually.
I was always under the impression that bilateral club feet, ie. contracted tendons, are more likely caused by nutritional levels in utero and post foaling than by genetics. I don't know if there are controlled studies on whether sires and dams that were bilaterally contracted are more likely to produce foals with contracted tendons. It would really have to be a controlled study, also, because if nutritional factors are at work, if multiple offspring receive the same improper nutrition and management in utero and as foals, anecdotal results would be skewed.
Unilateral club feet, as I understand it, are more likely to be caused by a horse's one-sidedness and habits, the classic "grass foot" syndrome, in which the horse routinely puts one leg back and one leg forward while grazing. The fact that, like people, more horses favor one side over the other lends credibility to this as the majority of unilateral club feet are on the right fore, with few on the left.
That said, many horsepeople and vets believe that club feet are hereditary. As one old vet advised me in making breeding selections, if you don't have to breed to a club-footed horse--if there are other good options--then don't.
I don't think it is necessarily fair to point to a sire of a clubby foal and say he was the cause. Even if the sire HAS a club foot himself, there are other issues that might come into play.
However, I don't know of any causes other than genetics (beyond a simple fluke) that contribute to monorchidism or cryptorchidism. I definitely would avoid breeding to a stallion (or a gelded "stallion") that had that trait. Even if your intent is to geld the foal, why have the added expense of that procedure? And does anyone know if that defect is absolutely not hereditable through the genetics of the dam? IOW, are mares by a rig no more likely to produce rigs than mares by "normal" stallions?
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Jennifer
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It seems to me that I've heard more about a nutritional connection to club footedness. Maybe there's some research Progressive Nutrition has done about this. I went to one of their seminars a couple of years ago where they pointed out that their (and others') research has indicated a connection to some leg conformation issues and nutrition. Maybe there's some info on their website (I don't have its address handy at this time). If I can find the notebook I got at the seminar, which was full of info, in my home office, there may be some references there, too.
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