Iconic Sires and Breeding Services offers South African stallion and mare owners a wealth of international experience in the equine breeding.

Services

Fresh and Chilled Semen

We can take the hassle out of the breeding season for you. You keep 100% of your stud fees and we do all the breeding work.

If you stand your stallion at our stallion station and encourage your mare owners to bring their mares to Rivendell Stud you automatically improve your stallion’s chances of having a higher conception rate because the mare can then have fresh semen, i.e. be inseminated within minutes.

Ustinov

Ustinov

Or if the mare is anywhere else in the country or Namibia we could ship it to her chilled. Depending on the stallion, some semen can last over 48 hours when chilled under the correct conditions, although most semen is inseminated within 24 hours.

Before the breeding season starts we recommend bringing your stallion in for test collections so that we can establish the quality of semen that he gives and what extenders are best suited to provide the best quality samples possible for achieving pregnancies.

There are two options available for fresh and chilled semen:

Walk-in Stallions

If you are local to us and would like to keep your stallion at home with you then we offer a walk-in service whereby when your stallion has a mare that needs fresh or chilled semen you bring him into our station in Stellenbosch, we do the semen collection and you can then take him home again. We will process the semen and make all shipping arrangements.

Resident Stallions

If you are not local to us or would just like to stand your stallion at the station we offer a full livery service. You still keep 100% of your stud fees.

By having your stallion stand at the station you automatically expose him to all the visitors that pass through our gates. We welcome you to encourage any potential mare owners to contact us to arrange a viewing of your stallion who we will turnout and present to them in a professional manner.

If a visitor makes an appointment to see a specific stallion we will not show them any of the other stallions on sight unless they specifically ask. Because Iconic Sires doesn’t own any stallions you can rest assured that we remain completely neutral and promote all stallions in the same light.

Semen Freezing

You may choose to have your stallion’s semen frozen for a number of reasons, the most common being:

  • so that your stallion can continue with his competition career without being interupted by breeding duties;
  • for storage for insurance purposes should he ever be injured or die;
  • before gelding just incase he turns out to be a star later on or
  • for the shipment of semen internationally.

We have state of the art technology and use up to date international techniques in our laboratory to freeze semen. A sample from every collection that we freeze is put through a series of rigorous tests ensuring the best chance of success and that your stallion’s reputation is not tarnished by poor quality samples.

It is still advisable though to check that your mare owners use vets that are experienced in the handling and insemination of frozen semen as no matter how good the semen is, if the correct proceedures are not followed and the insemination is not timed right the mare will not conceive and semen and money will be wasted. If you are unsure please feel free to contact us and we can advise you on the right questions to ask when selecting a vet.

Numero Uno

Numero Uno

Frozen Semen Storage and Distribution

Whether you have semen frozen by us or somewhere else we have the facilities to store and distribute it for you.

Our liquid nitrogen storage tanks are topped up at strict intervals and checked regularly and we use modern vapour shippers, which have a minimum holding time of 7 days, to transport frozen semen safely.

International Semen Freezing and Distribution

We are currently exploring this area and hope to be able to offer this service to our customers soon. Please keep checking our website or contact us for updates.

Phantom Training

Having a stallion that is able to use a phantom mare makes the semen collection process much safer and easier for the stallion, the handlers and the mare. Once trained to a phantom most stallions don’t need an in-season mare present to tease them. Some don’t even need to see a mare at all.

We have the experience needed to train stallions to mount a phantom, whether they are first-timers or stallions who have been covering mares naturally for years. We believe in teaching stallions to respect their handlers but we don’t use brute force or aggression because an angry or frightened stallion can be incredibly dangerous. We rather use positive persuasion and encouragement to train our stallions and our aim is to have a stallion who is calm and responsive to his handler, allowing the handler to dictate when he can mount and when he should stand back and wait without getting over-excited. Some stallions take to it easily whilst others need more time and patience before they fully understand what is expected of them. We work at a pace that the stallion is comfortable with rather than forcing him and and only ending up with a very frustrated stallion.

Semen Evaluation and Fertility Testing

If your stallion is having problems getting mares infoal, you would just like to know the quality of his semen, or you have some frozen semen that you would like checked, we can perform a number of tests to find out what the semen quality is.

We evaluate sperm motility (movement), concentration (the number of sperm cells) as well as morphology (conformation). We can then advise on a course of action to take to improve fertility if necessary. This may involve something as simple as a change in routine or diet.

We can also carry out extender tests to see which extenders are best suited to keep his semen alive and active the longest.