One of the favorite wintertime activities for horse breeders is to look for mates for their mares for the coming breeding season. This takes the form of visiting local stallion owners, studying pedigrees, and going through ads in local and national horse publications, searching for the perfect match.
In the past the search has generally been confined to stallions within a reasonable driving distance. It gets impractical for most of us to send our mare a long distance, particularly if she is nursing a young foal. Aside from the cost of transporting horses long distances, by the time they get back home, you have missed the first 2 or 3 months of the foal's life. Both the mare and foal come home strangers. The thought crosses your mind, "there has to be a better way."
Thanks to modern technology there is a better way. Dawn lives in Clarkston, and only had to endure a short trailer ride to Lewiston to become pregnant to a Colorado stallion. Erress and Cashmere from Lewiston didn't even need to leave town to become pregnant to stallions in Michigan and California. Lace, Nita, and Kiesha of Genesee just coasted down the Lewiston hill to meet their mates from Michigan and California.
These matings were made possible by the recent relaxation of breed association restrictions which in the past required the mare to either be physically mated by the stallion, or if bred by artificial insemination she was required to be on the same premise. Several breed registries now allow semen collection and shipment to distant sites, with subsequent registration of the foals produced.
The relaxation of these rules has paved the way for the development of new technologies in preservation of stallion semen. The mares mentioned above were all inseminated with fresh, cooled, transported semen.
With fresh-cooled semen, the stallion semen is collected and then processed with a special extender to preserve its longevity. It is then placed in a special shipping container which automatically cool the semen at the proper rate and holds it at the proper temperature while in transit. At this temperature it remains viable for up to 72 hours, however for best results, we like to use it as soon as possible, generally within 24 hours.
For anyone wishing to pursue this method of breeding, the following summary will give you an idea of what is involved.
1. Contact the stallion owner well ahead of the breeding season to find out what is required to secure a place in his stallion's book. This would generally include an advance payment of a portion of the total expected fees, and may require your mare to undergo a pre-breeding exam by a veterinarian. Whether or not a veterinary exam is required, it is a good idea to have the mare checked out. It is best to identify any problems and have them corrected prior to breeding.
2. Contact your veterinarian and see if he or she is interested in assisting with this project. Breeding with cooled transported semen is a big commitment for both the veterinarian and the owner.
3. When the mare comes into heat, contact your veterinarian and the stallion owner. The mare needs to be checked daily during her heat cycle in order to predict when she will ovulate. The stallion manager needs to make arrangements to have the stallion collected and the semen shipped as soon as the mare is ready.
4. Now comes the tricky part. We need to co-ordinate airline flight schedules, the stallion breeders schedule, and try to predict an unpredictable animal's schedule to get fresh, viable semen into the mare within a few hours before or after ovulation. After having done this for several years, it is amazing how many mares ovulate on weekends or holidays when airlines into Lewiston are few, stallions are at shows, and owners and veterinarians are unavailable. We can control our own availability on this end, however we can't inseminate with semen that we don't have. It is important that the stallion manager be as committed to getting your mare pregnant as you are.
5. When the shipment comes in the mare is checked again. She is thoroughly cleaned, and an insemination pipette is passed through her cervix. A syringe containing the semen is attached, and the semen is injected directly into the uterus. We save back a small sample and check its quality. If we don't think she will ovulate within 24 hours, we order another batch of semen.
6. Assuming that the mare is fertile, the airline didn't misplace the shipment, the flight schedules worked satisfactorily, the semen was of high quality, and the mare ovulated as predicted, you have a better than even chance of having a pregnancy.
Although this method is not for everyone, for those wanting to introduce some new genetics into a breeding program which is unavailable because of distance, this removes the distance factor. Aside from the breeding fee, the major expense is the cost of shipments. As a general rule it takes between one and two shipments to get a mare in foal. Occasionally one shipment will suffice, however it can take more. Veterinary fees are variable depending on how long the mare stays in heat. But whatever the cost, when you first see that tiny heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor you will think it was worth it.
One of the favorite wintertime activities for horse breeders is to look for mates for their mares for the coming breeding season. This takes the form of visiting local stallion owners, studying pedigrees, and going through ads in local and national horse publications, searching for the perfect match.
In the past the search has generally been confined to stallions within a reasonable driving distance. It gets impractical for most of us to send our mare a long distance, particularly if she is nursing a young foal. Aside from the cost of transporting horses long distances, by the time they get back home, you have missed the first 2 or 3 months of the foal's life. Both the mare and foal come home strangers. The thought crosses your mind, "there has to be a better way."
Thanks to modern technology there is a better way. Dawn lives in Clarkston, and only had to endure a short trailer ride to Lewiston to become pregnant to a Colorado stallion. Erress and Cashmere from Lewiston didn't even need to leave town to become pregnant to stallions in Michigan and California. Lace, Nita, and Kiesha of Genesee just coasted down the Lewiston hill to meet their mates from Michigan and California.
These matings were made possible by the recent relaxation of breed association restrictions which in the past required the mare to either be physically mated by the stallion, or if bred by artificial insemination she was required to be on the same premise. Several breed registries now allow semen collection and shipment to distant sites, with subsequent registration of the foals produced.
The relaxation of these rules has paved the way for the development of new technologies in preservation of stallion semen. The mares mentioned above were all inseminated with fresh, cooled, transported semen.
With fresh-cooled semen, the stallion semen is collected and then processed with a special extender to preserve its longevity. It is then placed in a special shipping container which automatically cool the semen at the proper rate and holds it at the proper temperature while in transit. At this temperature it remains viable for up to 72 hours, however for best results, we like to use it as soon as possible, generally within 24 hours.
For anyone wishing to pursue this method of breeding, the following summary will give you an idea of what is involved.
1. Contact the stallion owner well ahead of the breeding season to find out what is required to secure a place in his stallion's book. This would generally include an advance payment of a portion of the total expected fees, and may require your mare to undergo a pre-breeding exam by a veterinarian. Whether or not a veterinary exam is required, it is a good idea to have the mare checked out. It is best to identify any problems and have them corrected prior to breeding.
2. Contact your veterinarian and see if he or she is interested in assisting with this project. Breeding with cooled transported semen is a big commitment for both the veterinarian and the owner.
3. When the mare comes into heat, contact your veterinarian and the stallion owner. The mare needs to be checked daily during her heat cycle in order to predict when she will ovulate. The stallion manager needs to make arrangements to have the stallion collected and the semen shipped as soon as the mare is ready.
4. Now comes the tricky part. We need to co-ordinate airline flight schedules, the stallion breeders schedule, and try to predict an unpredictable animal's schedule to get fresh, viable semen into the mare within a few hours before or after ovulation. After having done this for several years, it is amazing how many mares ovulate on weekends or holidays when airlines into Lewiston are few, stallions are at shows, and owners and veterinarians are unavailable. We can control our own availability on this end, however we can't inseminate with semen that we don't have. It is important that the stallion manager be as committed to getting your mare pregnant as you are.
5. When the shipment comes in the mare is checked again. She is thoroughly cleaned, and an insemination pipette is passed through her cervix. A syringe containing the semen is attached, and the semen is injected directly into the uterus. We save back a small sample and check its quality. If we don't think she will ovulate within 24 hours, we order another batch of semen.
6. Assuming that the mare is fertile, the airline didn't misplace the shipment, the flight schedules worked satisfactorily, the semen was of high quality, and the mare ovulated as predicted, you have a better than even chance of having a pregnancy.
Although this method is not for everyone, for those wanting to introduce some new genetics into a breeding program which is unavailable because of distance, this removes the distance factor. Aside from the breeding fee, the major expense is the cost of shipments. As a general rule it takes between one and two shipments to get a mare in foal. Occasionally one shipment will suffice, however it can take more. Veterinary fees are variable depending on how long the mare stays in heat. But whatever the cost, when you first see that tiny heartbeat on the ultrasound monitor you will think it was worth it.