STUD NOTES

TURNING THE GIRLS ON - TEASING AND THE TEASER

For all the horses on the breeding farm, it is the teaser that attracts the greatest respect (and the most sympathy ... particularly from the males!) These small stallions have the ominous task of seeking out who's hot and who's not. And if the female can't make up her mind, it's the teaser's job to establish a commitment ... one way or the other. Not the easiest (or safest) job in the world in the event of indecision. Of course, females being as they are, often say no when they mean yes, or mislead you to thinking they are suggesting yes when they mean no.

Larger farms generally run a group of teasers, particularly those with multiple stallions. Yallambee Stud has two teasers - Stealth is our older and more experienced teaser: thus named because he is black and gets under the mares' guard and, before you know it, has all the information he needs. He does not want to get involved with too much small talk so uses his charisma and vast experience to get the right answer ... sooner rather than later. Timmy - who just happens to have a really gay name - is smaller, younger and less experienced, and just keeps looking for action no matter how many knock backs from the mares. Quite often he is just not taken seriously, so he prances and screams even louder. Actually, as a foot note here, a lot of farms find that grey teasers - as Timmy is - are less effective in getting a response from mares. Considering Stealth is black, I'd go along with that!

MARE BEHAVIOUR

"By the book" behaviour of a mare in season (of a normal cyclic mare with good demonstration of estrus)

When a mare is not in season (diestrus), she will go nowhere near a teaser, and if their paths happen to meet through enforced close proximity, she will be aggressive towards him: biting, charging with ears back and kicking, demonstrating strongly that she is a "no go zone".

As she advances into the first couple of days of the heat and developing follicles (probably about 2.5 maybe 3 cms at this stage) she will start taking a bit more notice - you see her prick her ears and looking over at the teaser especially if he is actively working on another mare. The next day or so she will advance to a closer proximity, and just hang back a few metres for a bit. She may well go to the teaser, put her ears back, more in an annoyed manner rather than aggressive. She will wander back and forth repeating this behaviour. You would probably see some softening of the vulva. If you restrained this mare, there would be some evidence of her wanting to swing her body, side on to the teaser. She may give a little half-hearted hump and a little squeal.

As the mare enters deep estrus (close to service with good 4+ cms size follicles) she will go up to the teaser with confidence, ears pricked. Her vulva will be very soft and she may introduce herself head on initially. She will then start showing other strong signs of being in season. She will start lifting her tail, and commence winking - which is exposing her clitoris in a blinking manner. You see this after a mare has urinated, but, for an in season mare, the whole vulvae region is soft and enlarged, so this "winking" is much more apparent. Repetitive urinating will follow, and the mare will quite possibly either swing into the dividing railing presenting her flank to the teaser, then taking it one step further and allowing him access to her vulva. Mission accomplished - there is no doubt this mare will accept a stallion. Timmy is usually the teaser of choice here. He works hard, can cop a knockback but will find the obvious mares in season quite well.

Varying Behaviour at the same stage of deep estrus.
Above we have explained how one mare will behave during her estrus heat. Now let's explore the dynamics using the analogy of a room full of females vying for the attention of only a few males, say serving the drinks behind the bar: We will assume that all the females (mares looking for a serve with 48 hours) are supposed to be hormonally charged so should all say yes. However, they will all demonstrate "yes" differently.

We have the "first timers", inexperienced at interacting with males. Also in this group are the shy females. Timid, they hang well back in the crowd, trying to work out how they are to react or interact. With all the commotion up front, they become more curious and courageous and try and work their way through the crowd to where these males are. But there is another group in the way ... the cougars. This group know what they want, but they enjoy the game of "yes, no, maybe": they tease the teaser. However, there are truly wonton women with no morals within the group. So dominating is this "yes, now thanks" female displaying her desire, she does not allow others anywhere near the males. In the equine world we usually have to put them in a yard right away from the teasers, so others can get a look in.

As time progresses, the young and shy ones are finding courage and becoming excited. They come in beside the Cougars who are now in the "let's do this mode" with the males. Soon a portion of the shy and inexperienced get the hang of what all the fuss is about, especially as they are now able to get closer to the front: building up courage and starting to receive the attention of the males. It's not long before some of these are now actively competing for direct contact with the male with every other female within the group. If you look up the back of the room there's one last group of females. Why fight to get to the male when you have each other? They are quite happy with a bit on girl on girl snogging.

Shy and maiden mares
The above scenarios are great, but after all, mares are female and have a personality: and we are dealing with hormones, so not every mare will perform "by the book" when we tease. Naturally there are mares that will be shy by nature. With these mares Stealth is my choice of teaser - he is the right balance of being dominant, yet not intimidating. With careful observation the studmaster can get very good at reading the subtle signs of a mare coming into season and will hand select them from the group to provide more individual attention. This will involve 'one on one' teasing. For safety reasons we will generally twitch the mare. She will be held alongside the teasing rail so that if she kicks out violently she will not injure herself. The teaser handler will allow the teaser to advance at the mare's shoulder, giving the mare a look at him at the same time. A good teaser will advance quietly with little fuss. He will "test" the mare by touching or soft nuzzling, then backing off. As his confidence increases that the mare is going to be receptive, he will be less cautious, and commence moving along her body to the flank. His masculine demonstrations will increase, largely with licking, increased noise and more confident nudging of his muzzle. By this stage we hope to see the first good signs that will "tip the mare over", noticing her wanting to lean into the teaser and the vulva softening with signs of wanting to "wink".

The teaser is excited, making noise, bumping the mare more vigorously, randomly around the flank and vulva, and there will be a great deal of licking and advancing / retreating on the spot and attempt to mount the mare. By now the mare should be actively winking and breaking down. She is no longer the shy mare for the moment. This is the same process we will use for all maidens regardless, as we want her to get used to direct contact from the teaser. Conversely we do occasionally see experienced mares who do not show all that well to a teaser, but we know they are cherry ripe for a cover close to ovulation. These mares tend to be like this every year. Put simply they do not seem to take the teaser seriously, but give them a real man (the large stallion) and everything changes.

Teasing and Jumping the Maiden Mare
Although the maiden may demonstrate estrus at the rail, she is generally much more nervous once the teaser starts working around the flank and vulvae area. We would prefer to intervene by hand teasing the mare to avoid injury to our beloved Stealth and to the mare (in the manner described above with twitching and rail teasing with a handler on each the mare and teaser).

It may require a good deal of patience to get some positive feedback from the maiden. Some mares we know are supposed to be in season but are still very nervous around the teaser. In extreme circumstances we may solicit the aid of a simple anti anxiety drug. Once we get positive response from the maiden we will progress to "jumping" the maiden. This involves mimicking the act of covering the mare. These mares may well be leaning in, winking and urinating, but the act of a stallion mounting them and putting weight on her back can be a different thing entirely. To do this experienced personnel are used as it is a very unpredictable job and can be dangerous. Jumping maidens is predominantly Stealth's job as he has got a great approach and understands the repercussions if he is too eager. (Timmy is still practising on older, more tolerant mares, as he is far too cocky in his approach and is just asking for a good booting).

The mare will have serving boots placed on her hind feet; she is twitched and placed in the centre of a very large yard. Stealth will approach the mare in the same way a stallion would towards her shoulder region. With quiet confidence he will tease the mare until he is confident to mount without incident. We have teasers trained to mount and stay over the centre of the mare's back, rather than mount from the hip as a stallion would, sliding into position there. Apart from making it more difficult for the teaser to accidently probe in regions he has no business being, it is a safety precaution for all, especially the teaser. Abortive measures, should the mare go 'off', can be easily implemented without incident or injury to all involved. This can and does happen despite the best warm up. The first mount may require the teaser to hang on for a bit as the maiden may hump a few steps forward, and so on. Generally we will continue to jump the mare until complete acceptance has taken place. The teaser is very dependant on our expertise as handlers for his safety, and when you have a good one, he is an extremely valuable asset. Reality is though, the stallion is more valuable, and hence the teaser has to cop whatever may take place as the guardian of the stallion's breeding future.

Teasing the Transitional Mares
The transitional mares will tease in an unreliable manner. So, as the hormones wax and wane in the transitional mare, so does their behaviour: i.e. increase or decrease the intensity of demonstration over a long period. Mares under lights are more reliable than the mares left to their own devices in the field, through this transitional phase. Before lights were part of our annual management program, we would have transitional mares in season for several weeks, and on occasion, months before achieving their first ovulation. With the more controlled environment of light therapy, this group of mares will move through the transition phase to the first ovulation earlier, with more reliable advancing of follicle development, hence more reliable behaviour than the field mares.

Generally, I start teasing the 'lights' mares at the end of July, early August. Obviously we are a long way from serving, but we will see some mares starting to show estrus behaviour. Teasing at this stage of this game is very simplistic. Basically, I will tie the teaser to the rail, and let the girls go into a big yard. I am only interested in the mares that are showing quite well by going up to the teaser themselves, resulting in them breaking down albeit with a bit of squealing and humping at the same time. I will also note those that I feel are coming into season, but have not gone up to the teaser. If in a week or so this does not change, she may be a shy mare requiring individual teasing. I will probably only tease every 3-4 days at this stage, allowing an opportunity for time to make a difference in the general behaviour and advancement toward their first ovulation of the mare. Moving forward through the ensuing couple of weeks, the intensity of estrus will improve. I will be now looking for those that may have ovulated and giving a definite "no" tease. This date will be noted, and quite probably confirmed with the ultrasound.

By the second week of August, most mares giving us such a great tease level they may be close to ovulation will have had their first scan, and may have given good tease, then definitely not in season, hence will have ovulated.

With the use of drugs, and from what we see on the scan, we will start to try and time the mare to be ready for a cover for very early September. Once the first ovulation has been achieved, we are in the driver's seat.

Personally I do not advocate serving mares at the end of her transitional estrus. There is enough element of unreliability in this phase to risk wasting a cover to the stallion, time and money. Since the introduction of scanning mares' ovaries by ultrasound and the greater understanding and use of hormonal drugs to manipulate the estrus cycle, we have become much less reliant on the teaser over the years. These factors have allowed us to control the cycle, and to know when to expect the mares to come into season. As a result, we are generally just teasing to sort out the transitional mares, to see it is worth commencing scanning her ovaries to take control of here cycle: teasing mares to confirm the best time to book the service spot, or eliminate conflicting information at the crush. We will jump all mares prior to visitation to the stallion.

One of the most asked questions is "does the teaser ever get to cover a mare?" It's up to the individual stud master but generally the answer is NO ... ahhh, sweet retribution; sorry - all promise and no action.