Signs that mare is ready to breed

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

The time is almost here when we breed our maiden mare. Today she has started "winking" when teased by a stallion but not peeing, standing for the stallion or anything else. My question is about how many days from now would she be ready to breed? We have our mare at a boarding farm, so we aren't able to monitor her ourselves everyday and have to rely on the barn owners. The barn owners thought she was last in heat on April 16th, but they didn't keep a close enough eye on her to know if that was the beginning or end of her heat cycle.

We had planned to take her to the stud farm to be bred, but our situation has changed and we now need to do shipped semen, although I will probably go and physically pick up the semen since it's not too far away. I need to give at least 24 hours notice for the semen order. I'm concerned that she's going to be ready to breed over the weekend when it's harder to get semen and get the vet out.

Also, is it common practice to have a maiden mare's hyman broken prior to AI? I totally forgot to ask the vet when he came out for a pre-breeding exam.

Thanks for any input!

[bndranch]

First of all with AI usually the vet monitors them really close when they start coming into heat. They do daily ultra-sounds to monitor the follical size and only they will know when its time to order semen. Personally here I have never heard of the mare owner having to call to order semen its either the vet OR the breeding facility the mare is kept at. If you aren't following the follical size I would say that the likely hood of getting her in foal the first time with shipped semen will be very small.
Most vets they know and understand that when breeding a mare that you go by the mare not the time on the clock or by the day of the week.
Personally if it were my mare I would have the vet out everyday to monitor her follical size and let him determine where she is in her breeding cycle.

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

Well, we hauled our mare to the equine vet clinic today to have her ultrasounded and the vet thought she was ready so she was inseminated her too. It was really interesting seeing the ultrasound and the procedure. The only thing we have to watch is the mare has two good follicles ready to release, so we need to be on the look out for twins. We have to take her back again in two weeks to ultrasound again to see if it took and check for twins. It would be so much easier to have the vet come out to the barn, but they really wanted her in stocks. Darn mare hates any type of shots and getting the tranquilizer in her is the hardest part. However, we found that peppermint treats are a wonderful way to take the mare's mind off of what is going on. Getting her back in the trailer took some time because she didn't want to wake up enough to be bothered about jumping in. But we got there and back safely.
I really hope she takes on this first try. The charges for shipped semen and vet bills are crazy. I can't afford to do this too often.

[bndranch]

Well good luck with your mare!! Did the vet ultra-sound her after inseminating her to make sure she ovulated? Most will ultra-sound before make sure the eggs are ready to drop then they inseminate. Once they inseminate they will ultra sound the next morning to make sure that the mare did indeed ovulate. If she hasn't ovulated by then they they will give a shot to have the mare drop the egg. When they did this ultra-sound on my mare they found some built up fluid in her uterus so they gave her a shot of oxytocin to clear that up.
Then my normal vet did the post 16 day ultrasound to check to make sure there was an embryo, then we did another one at about 30 days to check for heart beat.
Again good luck. I LOVE AI (not so much the expense) have exact dates! And the good AI vets are awesome. We have one of the best not too far!!!
Again good luck and keep us posted!

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

The vet didn't think we needed to bring Princess back until the two week mark. She was pretty confident she was ready and gave her a shot to push ovulation to make sure. This vet specializes in reproduction, so I'll have to take her word that she knows best. I really hate to stress my mare out with extra ultrasounds if we don't have to. Our arab mare will never stand still enough for an ultrasound with being tranquilized, and she absolutely hates getting stuck with a needle. It's about an hour drive to our vet, in some pretty heavy traffic and our trailer is a very noisey clanky stock horse type that makes the mare nervous. Oh...if money were no problem I'ld own one of those nicely padded enclosed goosenecks with a decent truck....and a big barn with a riding areana...and rolling plush pastures....and....lots of beautiful horses ...and...oh sorry..I think I was dreaming again!

[risingrainbow]

Oh do I understand the dreaming part. If I would only win the lottery, the things I would do.... In the meantime, every reproductive vet is different about how they think things need to be done. Some are very proactive doing everything they can think of and some believe in not pushing any more at the mare than absolutely necessary. The later is easier on the pocket book.

Some mares just don't do well with all of these things that man has come up with to make sure Mother Nature does a more effective job of settling. Those mares do better with as little intervention as possible. It's really just a matter of finding out what works best for your individual mares.

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

I have an update on our mare Princess we're trying to breed. The first breeding didn't take. We had her ultra sounded at 16 days and she was not in foal, and one of the two follicles that had developed did not close down properly, thus not releasing the proper hormones to settle a pregnancy. Now we're trying again. We really thought she was showing signs of heat last week, so this time we were able to take her to the stud farm last Wednesday. However, last Friday when the vet was out she showed no sighs what so ever of being in heat. On Monday they ultrasounded and no follicle developing, and the one that didn't close down is just sitting there doing nothing. The vet gave her a shot of some hormone (starts with a P) to jump start her system. They'll recheck her again this Friday to see if she's starting to get with the program. My daughter went out to visit her last night and she's starting to do some winking, so hopefully she'll be ready soon. I know what this silly mare is doing, she's waiting to get pregnant so that she'll foal out next May 24th! That's my daughter's wedding day!

[Linda]

Oh my wouldn't that be something. lol Well, you could always have a wedding at the stables. That way you'd get two things done at once.
Good luck with your mare, I hope she takes this time around.

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

Princess was finally bred this past Monday. Today the vet will check if she's ovulated, and either breed her again or we can bring her home.

I just know Princess would think a wonderful wedding gift would be to foal on her girl's wedding day. Instead of the reception hall we have reserved, maybe I should look around for a place with foaling facilities and wedding facitlites! You think they exist? The place we board doesn't have the best facilities for a wedding. We're already joking that their marriage will come with a baby and boy do we get the suprised looks. Then we have to explain the baby is a foal!!!

[ShowMama: aka Pack Mule!]

Yipee!!! Princess was bred on Monday and ultrasounded on Wednesday and has ovulated. But once again she produced two follicles, only this time the ultrasound showed they both closed down properly. Lets pray this breeding took and hopefully only one follicle takes. One more ultrasound in two weeks to check if she's in foal and to check for twins. If this doesn't take, I don't know whether to keep pursuing it this summer or not. Our rebreed fee for next year is really high.