Abortion/Lutalyse question

[jumpymeister]

I went up to New Holland over the weekend and came home with a rescue

She’s a 12 y/o Belgian mare, Amish “broke to work”, skinny (2.5 BCS), but not in terrible shape physically - she does have breeding injuries though. She has bite marks all around her withers and right shoulder and her vulva was swollen. Bite marks looked to be a week or two old.

Had the vet out of course, but she is very skittish with anything new, and blew through a lot of sedation (oral and IM) - we were not able to pull blood at all.

Vet wanted to just give her a shot of Lutalyse to abort anything that’s in there - but here’s my concern: what if she had been bred prior to this past incident and is further along than 15 days or so? I understand from lots of Googling that Lutalyse is effective at aborting up to 34 days, not terribly reliable 35-90 days and hit or miss after that - what I cannot find online is: if Lutalyse does not cause an abortion in a mare, does it cause any harm to the fetus?

Our plan, assuming that we could get blood, was to run the blood for a preg check (no vet has volunteered to palpate 17.2 hands of nervous lol), and if it came back positive, we would keep the foal (vet said the blood test is sensitive after 3 months, and I don’t really want to abort anything much older than that), and if the test came back negative, we would just give her a shot of Lutalyse to abort any early embryo that may be in there.

Thoughts? Suggestions? We could just give her the shot without a preg test, but I am concerned about damage to an older fetus…

[Riverotter]

I haven’t luted horses, but in goats and cows, Lutalyse either gets rid of it or doesn’t. It is a hormone and doesn’t affect the fetus at all, just tells mom to come into heat because she’s not pregnant and that expels the fetus. That’s why it only works early.
I can’t imagine that it would work differently in horses. Did you tell your vet your concerns and ask him about it?

[Home_Again_Farm]

This link covers many alternatives with the likely results:

http://www.horse-repro.com/ARTICLES/PDFs/InducingAbortion2.pdf

[jumpymeister]

Great, thanks! Vet was not as informative as I’d hoped…different vet coming Monday - I’ll pick his brain if I have any questions that this article doesn’t cover…thanks!

[Equine_Reproduction]

Prostaglandin probably won’t have any negative effects on the fetus. Never say never, but it works by lysing the CL (corpus luteum) not by compromising the embryo/fetus. If it is a later term pregnancy, it’s not likely to work.

[ahf]

I’ve had to terminate a twins pregnancy at 90 days (after trying dilligently to pinch one, we decided to wait to see if the mare would reduce on her own - as most twin pregnancies do).

It took 3 shots over 3 days of lutalyse to get it done, but it got done. Mare suffered no ill-effects. The fetuses were so small, I never saw any evidence of them.

Your problem is, of course, that giving just one shot will be very difficult, multiple shots may not be doable.

[jumpymeister]

Yeah…the vet got two shots in the other day…sedative, and then a vaccine…took me an hour after she left to be able to rub her with just a syringe and have her not think I was going to kill her with it. Poor thing - stupid amish

[ahf]

How food driven is she?

[Equine_Reproduction]

[QUOTE=jumpymeister;6492511]
Yeah…the vet got two shots in the other day…sedative, and then a vaccine…took me an hour after she left to be able to rub her with just a syringe and have her not think I was going to kill her with it. Poor thing - stupid amish :-([/QUOTE]

Use insulin syringe and needle when possible. Needle is so fine and small, most horses don’t worry too much about it. Just pinch a large chunk of skin and insert the needle behind it…Won’t work for shots that need to go deep into the muscle, but for prostaglandin and oxytocin shots, it works GREAT!

[jumpymeister]

She’s very food driven! But so food driven that that is all she thinks about…food, food, food, food…and she gets fussy if you try and do anything while she is trying to eat. She is also very quick to assume that anything new is trying to “kill” her - danced all over the place at first for her first bath today, but then once she realised that it didn’t hurt, she stood like a rock - it’s been the same for the curry comb, brush, fly spray, etc - except those all feel good, and a needle doesn’t She has come a long way in just a week though - different vet comes tomorrow. She is a little cocky, and not as intimidated by a big horse, so I am confident that she will come up with a better sedative cocktail than just dorm. I do need a coggins too, so we have got to get blood regardless of a preg test - and based on everyone’s advice, I think I’ll just go ahead and have her give her the Lute shot regardless and let the universe decide if she’s supposed to be in foal or not

[Kyzteke]

@jumpymeister;6495226

I think I’ll just go ahead and have her give her the Lute shot regardless and let the universe decide if she’s supposed to be in foal or not

Keep in mind what everyone has said – ONE shot is not likely to do the job. Be prepared to give her one over several days.

But Kathy’s idea about the insulin syringe is a good one…just remember to do it under the skin – NOT in the muscle. The horse won’t even feel it.

Then give her a carrot AFTERWARDS.

[Callaway]

If she were mine, I’d try sedating her again and have your vet ultrasound her before you decide to give her multiple Lutalyse injections. Did your vet try giving your mare Dormosedan at your previous appointment? It is usually highly effective for sedating horses. It can be given IV, IM, or sublingually.

[judybigredpony]

You need a Vet who has good working knowledge of Sedation in Draft Horses.
They are NOT always going to react the same as a smaller hot blooded horse.
I had a Clydesdale who did not react to Tranq like my OTTB and my Vet who does Amish horses told me Drafts can and will react diffrently.
Don’t they require a Coggins at New Holland? Horse should have had one pulled there…

[Kyzteke]

@Callaway;6501060

If she were mine, I’d try sedating her again and have your vet ultrasound her before you decide to give her multiple Lutalyse injections. Did your vet try giving your mare Dormosedan at your previous appointment? It is usually highly effective for sedating horses. It can be given IV, IM, or sublingually.

Why? Multiple doses of estrumate or smaller doses of lutalyse are very low in uncomfortable side-effects, the drug is cheap, and using an insulin syringe to administer will not bother the horse. There is far more risk in ultrasounding an uncooperative mare than giving her afew extra hormones…:winkgrin:

By the time you’ve paid for a farm call, an ultrasound AND sedating the horse enough so she can be ultrasounded, you’ve spend over $100. I can’t quote the price off my head, but I think estrumate is about $10 per dose…

[Callaway]

[QUOTE=Kyzteke;6503680]
Why? Multiple doses of estrumate or smaller doses of lutalyse are very low in uncomfortable side-effects, the drug is cheap, and using an insulin syringe to administer will not bother the horse. There is far more risk in ultrasounding an uncooperative mare than giving her afew extra hormones…:winkgrin:

By the time you’ve paid for a farm call, an ultrasound AND sedating the horse enough so she can be ultrasounded, you’ve spend over $100. I can’t quote the price off my head, but I think estrumate is about $10 per dose…[/QUOTE]

I suggested that because it doesn’t sound like it’s an easy task to inject the mare. To me, it makes more sense to see if there is even a pregnancy there, rather than have to try and inject her multiple times. I would agree with you if injecting was not an issue.

[Kyzteke]

@Callaway;6504102

I suggested that because it doesn’t sound like it’s an easy task to inject the mare. To me, it makes more sense to see if there is even a pregnancy there, rather than have to try and inject her multiple times. I would agree with you if injecting was not an issue.

Kathy is really right about those insulin syringes.

If you do it into THE SKIN and not the muscle and have someone petting the horse on another site, it hurts less than a fly.

[Slewdledo]

We did 5 days of lutalyse on a mare with twins 20some days along and it worked.

[Slewdledo]

Actually, thinking about the mare I just posted about in the mistaken identity thread, we acquired another mare from the same person at the same time. That mare never came into heat, so we gave her a shot of Lutalyse to bring her in. She then proceeded to abort a 9±month fetus. She had been bred without the owner’s knowledge (or caring, apparently.)

[jumpymeister]

I’ve had 3 different vets out now…she scared the first two off…the third wasn’t intimidated by her size or striking feet or teeth coming at us - she really doesn’t want a shot, so she has made the decision that we need to just wait. This third vet is working with us though. He gave her a TON of oral sedation just to see what would take her worry down a notch for me to work with her easier, and we are planning on starting her on reserpine a week before she’s out of quarantine, and then I will take her to their clinic, where they have stocks, at the end of her quarantine. My job over the next two weeks is to get her okay with just pinching the skin on her neck and lightly pressing a toothpick to her neck as preparation for a shot…vet and I decided that it wasn’t worth the risk to either of us just to hurry and get a needle in her neck…once she’s at their place, we’ll be able to do a repro exam and make a much more informed decision about what to do.

To the sedation question - the second vet that came out had me give 3cc oral dorm an hour before our appointment, and she managed to stab her with another 1.5 Im dorm…she would look a little sleepy, but then the minute we approached her neck again, even just to rub her, she woke up all the way - she is proving difficult to just sedate Third vet gave her more oral sedation than I have ever seen given (he said it was the most he had ever given as well - a cocktail of ace, xylazine and torb) - and he said he probably could have doubled it! Thankfully though, she has gotten really good for grooming, bathing, fly spray, etc - just anything that even hints of pain sets her right into defense mode…

[Callaway]

[QUOTE=Kyzteke;6504283]
Kathy is really right about those insulin syringes.

If you do it into THE SKIN and not the muscle and have someone petting the horse on another site, it hurts less than a fly.[/QUOTE]

When a horse learns they don’t like needles, it doesn’t matter how thin the needles are or how little it hurts, they still are problematic to inject. Ask me how I know…