Do you like it with the lights on or lights off?

Just read the ready to run cataloue from NZ not many early foal's in it wait till the grass seeds and you'll have no trouble

i obviously see what the increased fertility argument is, but if you give people the option, they can either leave them till the grass seeds (as greg does) or rug them out them under lights and trick them into thinking its late september when its still august

Lights work good... I've never used them for broodmares, but artificial lighting has kept my former show horse's coats short through the winter (in the addition to plenty of rugs).

I would like to see the date either 1 August (or 1 January lol!). Whatever the date is, I think we should at least be the same date as NZ.

Lights work good... I totally agree Flashing Red.

Regardless of the arguement for what the foaling date should be I cant believe that people advocate lieing about the foaling date. It's not bad enough that the racing side in NSW is corupt, lets just have the breeders join in to. It doesn't matter if its the 1st of Sep or Aug their will still be people trying to go earlier to get a jump on their competitors.

So why not legislate the first day of the season a mare can be served on and stick to that like the gallopers. It doesn't matter if they are foaled before the 1st of Aug so long as the mare was not served early. In our industry will largely transported semen it would be even easier to police.

that makes too much sense dizzy... and as such i can never see it being implemented over our current inferior system

Good one Dizzy, I would imagine most people had thought that under the rules you could not breed before the 1st of October.
If the service certificate is correct and you happen to have a foal born early(August) what happens?

G'day Dizzy,
There's a very distinct difference between acknowledging the virtual imposibility of policing the results of early breedings and people actively advocating lying about the foaling dates.
On a somewhat related 'honesty' topic, there are, I suspect, a number of ET's that are carried out each year that for want of a better term...'don't make the papers'. By the time the freeze branders come around to do their work, if the resultant ET foal is already weaned how could anyone determine otherwise? Like the TB's and their ludicrous claims that they do not use AI...it doesn't make it right but I'm sure that it happens. From time to time you'll come across some mares with rather suspicious breeding records and by that I mean mares that have been bred ET a number of times previously who all of a sudden miraculously regain their ability to carry foals to full term. I'm not aware that anyone is shipping in bottles full of water in from Lourdes in order to flush such mares. Things that make you go Hmmmmmm.

The big players in the thoroughbred industry would not risk using AI. The sales rep's that go around telling everyone that the second biggest purchaser of AI products are the thoroughbred studs,
well they may need to spend a day on the job with a repro vet to see what their breeding pipets,lube,glove etc are used for.

Justdoit

The service date is the critical date not the foaling date, i.e if the mare is served on or after the set first day for service then the foal is ok regardless of when its actualy born. If the mare was served prior to the first day for service and she foaled before the 1st of Sep then its a last season foal (that of course is if the authorities become aware of it's birth)

VVV unless your mare foaled unattended then someone who I presume is capable of reading a calender KNOWS what day it was foaled on. Anyone notifying anything other then that date to the authorities is lying. Something that some posters here IMHO are advocating and yes staff at the authority are doing likewise.

Don't foals still have to be on their dams to be freezebranded? Don't know if their are ET"S done that aren't listed as ET's but I'm sure that more then one ET is done in some instances from the same mare to increase the chance of a live foal.

After Sushi Sushi I'm sure many people will lose their apprehension about ET foals now anyway.