Age to Breed a Colt

Our coming 2-year-old acts like he is ready to breed. How young is too young to breed a colt?
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Q. How young is too young to breed a colt? We have a coming 2-year-old who acts like he is ready to breed.  We don’t have any mares to breed to him, but the question came up for discussion last night among a group of guys.  This colt was out there showing his stuff along the fence near the fillies.  Among us we had strong opinions about how young horses could breed, how young they should breed, and how young they could be fertile.  Some of us thought that it was okay, and others thought it might mess them up for the future to start too early. If a colt appears to be breeding, does that mean he is mature enough to impregnate the mare?

—Dan


A. Most yearlings and two-year-olds can and will breed under good circumstances.  There’s probably not a horse practice without a firsthand story of the pregnant filly that was only with a colt until a year of age.  So for sure, many fairly young colts can be fertile.  Some young colts are quite mature behaviorally, looking like old pros before the age of two if given access to fillies or mares. Others might be awkward and slow but given ample opportunity, particularly with young mares of their size, will have no problem mounting, inserting, and ejaculating normally.

One common attribute of young colts is that their endurance and confidence might be much less than those of a three- or four-year-old. If you hand breed them, they might be shy, easily distracted, or overly put off by correction.  That is probably the basis of concern about “messing up” a stallion by breeding him too young. It is not wise to count on a two-year-old being able to handle a busy breeding or semen collection program

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Sue M. McDonnell, PhD, is a certified applied animal behaviorist and the founding head of the equine behavior program at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine. She is also the author of numerous books and articles about horse behavior and management.

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