Will me testing my mares help others?

[Anna]

Only for the sake of any foals they may have had already I would have thought?

You can't go backwards from the carrier tests, a foal testing as a carrier or clear has no factual implication on the status of their parents and nothing should be inferred from a foal testing carrier or clear. A clear foal from come from (carrier x carrier), (clear x carrier) and (clear x clear) matings and a carrier foal comes from (clear x carrier and carrier x carrier) so you don't get any clearer picture from that point of view.

The question was raised at the meeting about testing geldings for the same reason and whilst the scientists thought it would be interesting from their point of view, it has little value from a breeders point of view or from avoiding further syndrome foals and planning where the breed should go.

I think!

[DalesLady]

that was my interpretation too Anna.

[harveydales]

Thanks Anna, good to know that. Makes sense - I had been wondering whether it would be of any use to any one if I had Harvey tested. Mind you - I wish I could breed with him and so does he sometimes. lol

[lucydales]

My best advice would be let those who are planning to breed this year get theirs done first, and then get the "for interest" ones done once the rush has died down. I will get my mares done too out of interest for next year.

The really big thing is not to discount a carrier stallion if he has all the qualities you are looking for, over and above a clear stallion who doesn't, as knowing the mare status allows you to make ethical choices.

The real big thing for me from the presentations was that reducing our limited gene pool still further means the likelihood of creating mutant genes is greater, so keeping ALL bloodlines going is essential to our breeds success and longevity.

[Anna]

I keep trying to reply to this but I think the DPS does officially have more than 300 registered breeding females (although I have no idea how it is worked out) as we were moved from Critical (number 1) on the RBST Watchlist which is for under 300 breeding mares and moved to Endangered (number 2) on the RBST watchlist which is for between 300-500 mares.

I keep trying to link too the RBST Watchlist page but it crashes my computer for some reason but it explains more about it on there and I think i've understood it right.

Not that I would ever want the Dales to go back down!

[Debbie]

I've thought about testing Blossom 'eventually', but as already been mentioned, I thought it far better to let those with the real breeding animals get theirs done first

I'm still so tickled they've found the carrier test