I prefer live cover to AI but the method depends on the stallion and the mare involved. I keep most of my stallions in stalls with daily turnout and breed them to mares that are in heat and showing it. I have 3 stallions that stay in paddocks and keep a mare or two in with them all the time. One stallion will not eat in a stall and another digs up the stall mats and tears them up. I only put more than one mare with a stallion if the mares get along with each other. Some are like possessive women and will fight for their "man." Those are only left in with the stallion while she is in heat and they are breeding and then she is returned to the mare pasture. Once the mare is confirmed in foal, she goes into the bred mare pasture. I would not leave a mare to foal with a stallion or let the mare pasture breed with a foal at her side.

I breed the old mares every year. These also seem to work a lot better with the pasture breeding. Some that do not take with hand breeding or AI will get in foal if left with a stallion who services them several times a day. I also notice some stallions and mares do not like each other, so I choose another stallion to breed to that mare. I currently have a 24-year-old mare due to foal in early spring to a 25-year-old stallion, so the old ones are still fertile. The 26-year-old Bronchia daughter has too many cysts to carry a foal, but comes into heat every month and sure enjoys staying with her boyfriend and has no problem sharing him with the other mares. I did have to AI my mare that has cancer since she could not be live covered and then did an ET since she could also not deliver a foal. She was over 20 and took the first time with the 20-year-old stallion and the ET was successful with the recipient mare.