| This thread has been locked, it will not receive new replies. |
|
Locked on 02/24/2006 9:22:08 AM PST by Admin Moderator, reason:
Thread Nine: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1584833/posts |
Posted on 10/04/2005 9:56:41 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share. In the previous threads we have had a great time talking through lessons, training, horse lamenesses, illnesses and pregnancies... and always sharing pictures and stories.
I always have a link to this thread on my profile page, so if you have something to say and can't find the thread in latest posts… look for it there and wake the thread up!
I also have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will now be pinging everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list. As FreeRepublic is a political site, our politics and other issues will probably blend in…. There are many issues for horsemen that touch politics… land use, animal rights/abuse cases that make the news…. Legislation that might affect horse owners.
So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends. There are lots of ways of doing things and we all have our quirks, tricks and specialties that are neat to learn about.
Previous threads:
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!
No problem, glad to be of assistance. You might consider embryo transfer if your mare is not able to carry a foal or if you do not want to do without her as a riding horse. It costs a bit more because you have to have a recipient mare but you can usually lease them. Since the University of Ga has a top-notch vet school, they probably have an embryo transfer program. Texas A&M and Colorado State both do this. You lease the mare from them and pay the AI, collection, and transfer fees.
What they do is inseminate your mare at the appropriate time, wait until the embryo is at the proper development and before implantation, then flush the uterus out. The collected embryo is then implanted in the donor mare who has been prepared with hormones to be on the same cycle as your mare. They can now even freeze the embryo so the donor and recipient mares do not have to be in the same place.
That is really mindblowing. You can now produce a foal whose father never saw the mother, and whose mother never sees the foal!
Most, if not all, Trakehner breeders offer at a minimum fresh cooled semen for AI. Some also offer frozen for overseas breeding.
Please keep me updated on how things progress. I'd love to get a photo one day of your new Trak/Arab baby!
That's really interesting. I wonder why they don't just fertilize the egg . I would think flushing for one already ready to go would kind of be a hit and miss situation.
Another question, if you don't mind. Why don't people freeze sperm before gelding. I have heard so many people say about their horses "if I had known how well he was going to turn out I would have kept him for a stud".
A lot of breeders do, at least in the Warmblood breeding world. I know of one stallion that has been dead for over 5 years and his owner just used the last frozen straws she had in 2005.
It does cost to store the semen as you have to have the proper facilities or pay to have it stored. I guess a lot of ordinary folks just don't think about it.
Warmblood breeders have been at the forefront in breeding technology for years. Most warmblood stallions do not cover mares live. They are collected, mostly on a breeding dummy but some by handheld device, and then the semen either fresh cooled for immediate use or frozen for later use.
I think the AI and flush method is used because it has proven to consistently produce the best results. It isn't that difficult to collect the embryo via the flush method, and fertilization rates are much better the natural way than in a petrie dish. I think the embryo is collected around 10 days after fertilization whether AI or live cover.
Heh, Heh. I think you look cute:)
Spent the day with Jenny, it was her doctor's appointment today, 7 wks to go:). Then we went to her house and put up her crib and did some touch up painting in the baby's room, and unpacked all the things she got at her shower Sun. Just now checking in.
Becky
Huh. I would have though looking for a microscopic egg would be difficult.
Not really so difficult. I found the following description of how this is done in horses:
"To perform the flush a catheter is inserted into the uterus. The catheter has a cup that fits over the cervix to form a seal, and a special solution is flushed through the uterus, a liter at a time. The flushed fluid is then filtered to separate cells and debris from the solution. The small amount of solution that is left is set in a Petri dish and examined under a microscope. A trained eye will find the egg, no larger than a speck of dust, somewhere at the bottom of the dish."
Once your eye is trained and you know how to use the microscope, it wouldn't be very difficult to find the embryo. In fact, this is easier in horses than in humans since the embryo is much larger. There are a number of companies now in business that specialize in this.
That's amazing. So someone raising horses could actually breed their mares more often. Grade mares heading to slaughter could probably be really good mothers for these special babies. I wonder if it affects the biological mare though.
Grade mares heading to slaughter would most likely not be producing milk.
Becky
You are probably right. I was just thinking this might be a place for horses that no one wants, provided they are treated well.
They don't have to at that stage of pregnancy. We are talking about within days of conception. Hormones are used to synchronize the recipient mare's cycle with the donor mare. Once the embryo is implanted in the recipient, the pregnancy proceeds just as if the recipient mare is the one in which conception ocurred. They have even used mares that have had their own ovaries removed as recipients but found that they got better results using mares with ovaries. This is actually a fairly mature process now in horses and the success rate is 75 to 80% which is on par with the natural process.
Drafts are used quite a bit as recipient mares, and low-cost grades are also used. The idea is not to risk or depreciate your high-value mare but still produce offspring from her. There is a Canadian company that offers embryos and offspring for sale produced from top show mares via embryo transfer. You can either buy the embryo for transfer into your own recipient mare or lease one of their recipient mares at their facility and pay for the resulting foal which is shipped at an appropriate time to you.
The last couple of years the University of Colorado has offered for sale a number of mares being retired from their recipient mare program. Most of them looked like QH crosses with some draft blood. I would think that mares from PMU farms would be excellent candidates as recipient mares.
This was a big deal in the AQHA a few years ago when a breeder sued to be allowed to register more than one foal from the same mare in the same year. He won the suit based on restraint of trade and now the AQHA allows up to 3 registrations per mare in the same year (I think! but don't hold me to the number).
When you are pregnant though, major hormone changes occur. I was just wondering if it caused stress to the donor mare.
Probably less stress than having to go through the pregnancy. Yes, there are hormonal changes, but mares have hormonal changes when cycling normally. To the mare's body, it would feel like a conception then slipping the embryo before implantation. This happens all the time naturally anyway. She would just then return to a normal cycle as if she naturally aborted the embryo.
Well that's good. Well I'm off to work again. I'm doing a split shift orientation and have to go back from 5-9
I may have misunderstood your post. I'm sorry. I thought you were talking about foals already born needing a mother....brain laspe:)
Becky
LOL! I was starting to wonder about you! No, we weren't talking about nurse mares. You are absolutely right about that though. They do need to have milk.
There is an entire industry mostly in Kentucky that exists to supply nurse mares to Tb foals who either lose their mothers or are rejected by them. There are a few groups who exist to find homes for the nurse mare foals that are replaced by the Tb foals.
A few years ago, a horse ran in the Kentucky Derby named Pulpit. His dam is Preach who tries to kill her newborn foals and rejects them right away. They know now to immediately take her baby away and put it on a nurse mare. If she didn't produce such great racehorses, they probably would just sell her on to become someone else's problem. But, she really churns out racehorses.
Was Preach with her momma or hand nursed? I've read that animals that are bottle fed sometimes don't have materal instincts when they reach adulthood.
Good morning everyone...
Company coming today!
Great hat Frog :~D
~sip~
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.