And So It Begins


The middle of February marks the official opening of breeding season. That's the date we begin covering mares with the goal of early babies in 2024. The early mares have already been under lights and teasing to the local neighborhood gelding. They're shedding and excited about their males companions. Come February 15th, they get to meet their mates, whether in person for a live cover or via a syringe and a straw.

Seeing as the 15th is a mere week away, we started checking the mares. This means that we ultrasound them and take note of where they are at in their heat cycles. Because all of the recipient mares seemed interested in their gelding herd mate in the last week, we expected to see some follicles and folds. One of the mares had a pretty CL in one ovary, meaning that she had recently ovulated. Two more mares had nice big follicles on the screen, but only one had decent folds.

For those not into breeding, follicles develop in each ovary, left and right, until one follicle becomes dominant. Eventually, the mare will ovulate this follicle. Once the mare has ovulated, a CL (corpus luteum) will be present and aid in maintenance of pregnancy at the beginning. If the mare is not pregnant, the CL will fade, and she will go on to develop another dominant follicle.

The issue with breeding is that it doesn't always go according to plan. The one mare with a big follicle (40 mm) should have had good edema in her uterus, especially considering how well she teased with the gelding. But, she didn't. We'll check her again and go from there.

Breeding typically involves a lot of ultrasounds, teasing and thinking about why things aren't working as they should. Of course, sometimes things works exactly as they should and everything is easy. Sometimes, things seem to work as they should but no one gets pregnant. So it goes with breeding.

As a side note, the first two mares appear close to foaling. They could anytime between now and three weeks. The wait continues.

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