Breeding Horse with a Particular Focus on Animal Welfare

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Animal heredity and variation are studied in animal genetics, a subspecialty of veterinary medicine. It is based on general genetic concepts and principles and primarily employs the twin, population, and hybrid, cytological, mathematical-statistical, and ontogenetic approaches of general genetics. Since animals have a large number of chromosomes, they primarily inherit their traits independently. Hybrid analysis, which identifies the nature of the inheritance of several morphological, physiological, and the primary method for analysing the inheritance of characters is to look at biochemical properties, many of which often depend solely on one of several pairs of genes. The relationship between these genes and the production, fertility, and viability of animals is still being studied. The focus of horse breeding operations is stallions. They are chosen based on a combination of factors, including pedigree, performance, and conformation. Because of their own or their progeny's performance, certain stallions may become exceptionally well-liked among breeders, which could have an above-average influence on how a certain breed develops. Due to this, some stallions' breeding fees and the number of mares bred each season may be unusually high. In conclusion, individual stallions will increase in value significantly. However, risk prevention is frequently detrimental to the animal's quality of life when considered from the perspective of welfare. Stallions typically live in social groups of bachelor stallions or as the dominant male, or so called harem stallion, in a group of females and their foals, in the wild. Therefore, stallions are rarely left alone during the day. In contrast, adult stallions are typically kept in separate box stalls in residential settings in order to prevent injury and for hygiene reasons when employed as semen donors. Males' physiological sexual behaviour, regardless of species, contains aggression to some extent and may even be linked to excessive sexual activity or drive. Therefore, handling stallions can be extremely dangerous and make caring for animals much more difficult. Stallion social connection with other horses is thus frequently severely limited. Normal contact with mares is minimal or limited to the time needed for semen collection or natural mating, respectively. Stallions' inability to interact with other people may have a negative impact on their libido and sexual performance. The welfare of herbivorous and highly sociable animals like horses is harmed by the prevention of both pasture access and contact with conspecifics. As a result, it is hypothesised that stallions exhibit aggressive behaviour and stereotypes more frequently. Numerous agricultural animals have been the subject of confinement stress studies, but the consequences on equids have received less focus to date. As a result, there is a widespread paucity of information on the wellbeing of breeding horses, and interest in this field of study has only lately grown. Reviewing how housing and management affect breeding stallions' behaviour, welfare, and fertility is the goal of this manuscript. It will also examine fresh ideas for better stallion housing.