Swiss national stud
The Swiss National Stud is located in Avenches in the canton of Vaud . It was founded in 1899 and has been a competence center for keeping and breeding horses since 2000 and also serves to support and promote Freiberg horses, training and further education and research.
history
A federal foal farm was set up in Thun as early as 1874 to raise stallion candidates. In 1899 the "Federal Foal and Stallion Depot" was founded in Avenches. The development towards a stud, which was also dedicated to the preservation of the Freiberg horse, received an important impetus in 1927, when 10 mares of this light cold-blooded breed came to Avenches for the first time. With the dissolution of the Swiss cavalry in 1972, the stud lost its military importance, in 1994 the stud was restructured and the stud farm was privatized. In 1998 the name was changed from “Federal Stud” to “Swiss National Stud”. The decision of the Federal Council in 2000, which issued a performance mandate for the management of the stud and established a global budget, was also decisive. In 2009 the stud merged with the agricultural research institute Agroscope Liebefeld-Posieux to form ALP-Haras.
Trivia
In 1969 the first foal produced with frozen semen was born at the stud. It was named «Icecream».
