Future Husbandry

Cordelia leaned on the fence and wrinkled her nose in disgust as she watched the - farmer dude? She guessed fiddle (it was the only word she could come up with) with Keanu. 'Daddy, why are we doing this?' she asked.

'It's a good looking horse I got you there, we'll be able to make a lot of money selling his sperm.'

She blushed bright red. 'Daddy! Ewww! Gross.'

Beside her the horse breeder's partner laughed. 'I'm guessing you don't spend much time on the farm, little lady?'

She gave him her best withering look. 'Do I look like I spend time on a farm?'

'So - why did you get a horse?'

'I like to ride Keanu - it's fun and he's beautiful … but I didn't sign up for…' she waved her hand in the direction of the field and the farmer dude with his various implements and vials, '...this.'

'Well, just think of all the other little ladies who'll get their own beautiful ponies out of today because you put your animal out to stud.'

'What am I? Joan of Arc? Why do I care?'

The horse breeder guy laughed again, 'she's a firecracker you got there,' he said to her dad.

Her dad nodded absently, he wasn't really interested in talking about Cordy, he wanted to talk semantics - how much sperm would they be able to take? How many mares would they be able to use it on? How much money was he looking at making? They fell to talking figures. Cordelia zoned out and examined her nails, not wanting to watch whatever the hell was going on in the field.

'Yeah - you should keep an eye out for some of the foals…' she heard the horse breeder say. 'That's one fine stallion you got and - bred with the right mare - the offspring could make a very shrewd investment. Plus the fire cracker might like another little pony.'

'Would you tug him off in a field as well?' Cordelia muttered under her breath. Either the men didn't hear her or chose to ignore her crude remark.

'So will he only be bred with other palominos?' her father asked, 'keep the pedigree?'

'Maybe - people'll bring their mares to us. This is expensive stuff they're getting so it should only be good quality horses they bring. Can't imagine anyone paying the price for this and then bringing an old nag or a donkey.'

Cordelia's brow wrinkled in confusion and she finally looked up from her nails, joining in the conversation once again. 'Why would anyone bring a donkey to mate with a horse?' she asked.

The horse breeder glanced at her, 'if they wanted a mule,' he told her.

'Why don't they just get their mules to make baby mules? You know - like normal people.'

The man chuckled. 'Doesn't work like that, little lady. Only way to make a mule is to breed a horse and a donkey. Mules are hybrids - they're all sterile. Well … sometimes the females can breed but the males?' he shook his head, 'never. You get that a lot in animal husbandry - two animals of a different species but the same genus can breed together but the offspring is always infertile. You can do it with lions and tigers too.'

'Why would anybody want to do that?' She sounded halfway between bemused and disgusted.

'Because they can! Because you can get a good mix of two animals strengths in a whole new creature. The whole world of animal husbandry is complex and fascinating. You know if you breed a zebra with any other type of equine you'll get the stripes? Called a zebroid. Short little guys - but quite cute.'

'Huh - I have so many questions. The main one being, why on earth are you telling me all this?'

The man laughed again, shaking his head, 'she's a pistol,' he said to her dad, 'you never know when you're gonna need to know about the mating capabilities of hybrid creatures, little lady - this could come in useful one day.'

'Sure - it's just bound to crop up on my mid term papers.'

'Maybe one day you'll find yourself with a hybrid on your hands - want to know if it's got viable sperm or not. Now you know.'

'Right - that's gonna happen. Just the other side of never.' She wrinkled her nose in disgust, shook her head and went to wait in the car. Of course she was never ever going to have to know if a something crossed with another something could have children or not.