Normandy stud season well underway

The National Stud www.haras-nationaux.fr have an extensive catalogue of stallions available on line, and will send out printed catalogues at your request. Each year, L’Eperon print the sport horse and pony breeder’s bible – the Hors-série de l’élevage – which lists all the stallions standing, stud fees, promotional material, statistics in relation to rankings, cost of production etc and makes for fascinating reading. Monneron is another good source of information published by River Editions each year. You will find that once you have bred once, each year you have a wide range of catalogues popping through the letterbox each spring. Most of the larger studs have catalogues available online and will often send out DVDs on request. The website www.allbreedpedigree.com is a very helpful source of information when researching pedigrees of horses and ponies internationally.

Semen is available in a variety of forms:

En liberté – pasture breeding
Monte en main – in hand service/natural service
IA – artificial insemination
IAF – Insémination Artificielle en semence Fraîche – artificial insemination with fresh semen
IAR – Insémination Artificielle en semence réfrigérée – refrigerated artificial insemination
IA réfrigérée transportée – transported refrigerated artificial insemination
IAI – Insémination Artificielle Immédiate – immediate artificial insemination

IA congelé (IAC) – frozen artificial insemination
Transfert d’embryon – embryo transfer

Other useful vocabulary :

Elevage – breeding
Eleveur – breeder
Etalon – stallion
En chaleur – in season
Haras – stud
Jument – mare
Jumeaux – twins
Origines – pedigree/breeding
Naissance – birth
Poulain – foal/colt foal
Pouliche – filly foal
Poulinage – foaling
Poulinière – broodmare
Saillie – covering
Sevrage – weaning
Souffler – teaser
Suitée – at foot (as in foal at foot)
Têter – to suckle
Vide – barren
Yearling –yearling

Peta Morton
www.franceequestre.com