Breeding crosses?

[JaredWoodcock]

I really like some of the draft crosses that I see around and I was wondering about breeding. Is it similar to other livestock where you would have the brood mare be the larger draft or could you breed a lighter breed, say a morgan mare to a draft stud? It would be nice to be able to have a nice cart horse mare that you could AI and get some decent work animals out of her.

Jared

[carl ny]

You can do it either way.My DIL bred her quarter horse mare to a belgian stud.The outcome was a large horse that had quarter horse conformation. I have a cross the other way(belgian mare to a quarter horse stud). the out come looks like an almost perfect 15/3 hand belgian mare. I know that that isn’t always the case though.My mare has a full sister that looks like a large quarter horse. I think it’s a gamble..But to answer your question, you can breed either way..HTH

carl ny

[dominiquer60]

I read an interesting conversation on facebook about draft crosses and there were some good points. Such as if you want a Suffolk cross. There are not a lot so it is best to leave Suffolk mares to making purebreds and use your other breed of preference to cross with a Suffolk Stud. You should also take into consideration the cost of buying a sound breeding mare and the cost of the stud fees. It may be more cost effective to buy a mare of one breed vs another, it depends on where you live and what is available around you.

[JaredWoodcock]

That was my thinking. I have friends with morgan mares, and I also like the old style morgan horses as riding and cart horses. I know I can get a nice sound mare for a good price and I was thinking towards the future on if I could breed her to get a couple of draftier horses out of her.

Thanks

[Livewater Farm]

Jared it is a roll of the dice been cross breeding Percherons on and off for years

my last go around I bred two of my purebred Percheron mares to an old style morgan stud

hoping for a pair of chunks what i got this time was 1 tall lean sport type hores 16-2 and growing and a 14-3 thicker morgan style filly
needless to say they did not match as a team size or gaite

I have had better luck going the other way smaller mare to a Percheron stud
only problem now is you can not find a stud under 17+ hands to breed to

so you thro the dice and wait and see what the mare throughs
Bill

[JaredWoodcock]

Yeh that is kind of what I figured.
Do you think the size of the stud matters if you use AI? Do you run into tough births?

Thanks
Jared

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