Animal Info Horses Family Life and Reproduction About the family
life and reproduction habits of horses including mating habits,
studs, birth, and foals. In the wild, horses run in herds,
headed by a stallion, which is followed by mares, foals, and
colts. The young males are driven off by the leader as they
reach maturity. The wild, free sexuality of the horse has been
exalted in mythology by such lustful figures as the centaur,
which is half-man and half-horse, but men have taken most of the
romance out of the domestic horse's mating. Although horses are
sexually mature at 18 months, they aren't mated until the age of
two or three, usually under most businesslike circumstances. But
then a stud's sex life is big business. Some stallions service
100 mares in a season. The great racing champion Secretariat was
purchased as a stud horse for $6 million. The mare's gestation
period is about 345 days, and 90% of births take place at night.
Mares give birth lying down, a process which takes 15 to 30
minutes on the a