--- In EquineCushings@..., Susan Boyd <susanrboyd@...> wrote:

If you have a horse that is compensated IR and doing well so far...could breeding her cause her to move into the uncompensated IR category?

My experience in this area is personal, but very anecdotal--my mare was never diagnosed as IR, despite looking like a poster girl for the condition.

Please--don't anyone judge me. We have confirmed two of our five horses as IR and hubby will rise up in revolt if I even mention testing another one!

But the mare is hugely fat, a real air fern, and when we bred her in '05 and moved her to a pasture with lush grass, she spent the entire fall and winter very footsore. I was too clueless to realize what was going on; we thought she was just sluggish from being 'heavy with child.'

But trimming her was next to impossible; she would not lift her feet to be trimmed.

And her neck crest and other fat pads swelled up considerably.

She suffered severe dystocia while delivering a very large foal the following spring. The foal required three weeks of intensive care. The mare almost immediately regained normal soundness, and has maintained it since.

Her 'baby' now weighs nearly 1400 pounds--way too much for a pleasure-bred Quarter Horse--and gains weight just looking at grass.

Genetically, this IR mare is not related to my IR gelding, Pookey Bear, but Pookey and her offspring have the same sire.

All to say if there is a genetic component, baby likely got a double dose!

I have no plans to breed this mare again as I am too afraid she would have problems again during pregnancy. If I were maintaining her on an optimal diet, and micromanaging her care the way I do the two geldings, I might consider it, but I would be sweating bullets the entire pregnancy.

Lisa in TX
Pookey Bear
June 2010