Parrot mouth

From: Joyce

I have an Arabian stallion that I will be standing this year.  A friend has a beautiful black arabian mare she wants to breed to him, but she has a  parrot mouth.  I don't know a lot about this, is it hereditary?  Should I take a chance on breeding this horse?   Please let me know what the chances are she will have a foal with that same flaw.

            Thanks.............Joyce

Parrot mouth does tend to be hereditary, and reputable breeders won't include parrot-mouthed horses in their breeding programs. Some DISreputable breeders have been known to have oral surgery performed on parrot-mouthed foals in an attempt to correct the condition, but if this is done, any prospective purchaser MUST be notified, so that s/he won't buy the horse with the idea of breeding it.

As for what you should do in this case -- you'll have to think hard and use your own good judgement. If the mare is a proven producer of many foals, and none of her foals have had parrot mouth, you might be willing to take a chance and allow her to be bred to your stallion. But otherwise, I'd be very careful if I were you. If you are standing a stallion, especially a young/unproven stallion, you need to be terribly careful to breed him only to outstanding mares for at least the first few years. Mare-owners will decide whether or not to breed to your stallion based on several factors, but one of the main ones will be the quality of his foals. Every foal he sires is a walking billboard for him -- what kind of foals do you want to see?

There's another consideration here too. Although there's no way to guarantee that the mare would reproduce the defect, there's no way to guarantee that she wouldn't. I've always believed that the only genuine reason to breed a mare is to reproduce her good qualities, and that no mare should be bred unless the owner would be happy if she produced a foal that was EXACTLY like her in all respects. It's a mistake to count on the stallion to change serious defects in the mare -- or vice versa. Breeding (for example) a long-necked, long-backed mare to a short-necked, short-backed stallion MIGHT produce a horse of perfect proportions, but it might also create a duplicate of either parent, or a short-necked, long-backed horse...  In this case, your friend might get a parrot-mouthed foal, and your stallion's name would always be the answer when someone asked "what's his breeding?" As long as the foal is on its mother, it's easy to point and say "See, it's the MARE's fault." But when that foal is three or four years old, perhaps with another owner, your stallion is likely to take the blame.

You should talk with your veterinarian, and your friend should talk with hers. Your friend needs to think about the fact that there are so many nice, correctly-conformed horses already on the planet -- why risk creating one with a serious defect?

I wouldn't hesitate to purchase an otherwise good riding horse with a mild case of parrot mouth, as long as I knew that I would be able to personally manage its feeding program for the rest of its life. But I would realize that I was buying it for RIDING, not for BREEDING.

Jessica

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