Would you bother to try to harvest embryos from a mare that appeared not to conceive? ie one that never checked in foal at 12/14/16 days
Or is that truly the definition of pi$$ing your money up a wall?
Yes, if I really wanted a foal from her and I had the finances. Often it is mares that are having difficulty getting pregnant that are used for ET. If she has a negative culture/cytology and everything else (reproductively) looks good then this would be the next step.
Depends what the reason for her not conceiving is.
If it is because she carries a lot of fluid, then flushing an embryo would be quite a challenge wading through all that fluid and, if it is urine she is pooling, it is toxic to the embryo. This would not make her a great ET candidate.
If she is not conceiving because she consistently fails to ovulate despite hormone manipulation, then she is not a good ET candidate.
If, however, you do ultrasound followup on the mare and you know she is, in fact, ovulating and the reasons for the embryo disappearing between ovulation and day 14 ultrasound are unclear, then you could try a couple attempts at flushing to see if you retrieve an embryo.
You really won’t know unless you try. You can expect the hormone manipulation of your donor mare, plus your 3 young recipient candidates, the breeding and then the flushing/implanting to be costing anywhere beteween $3500 to $5000 per cycle.
You need to cycle approximately 3 recipients along with your donor mare because they might not all time up exactly. You want your recipients to be young, but experienced moms, reproductively sound, and cycling just slightly behind your donor mare in ovulation timing.
This kind of money spent for ET is only worthwhile in a mare who has stellar qualities and a pedigree that makes you really excited. Otherwise, the money is better spent buying a reproductively sound mare who has those said stellar qualities and pedigree.
Personally, I tend to use mares for ET who don’t have a problem getting pregnant. Conformationally, they’re in good shape and have carried a foal to term before, but there were circumstances that caused their uterus to now fail such as a bad infection causing permanent scarring, or injury during a birth to the uterus or vaginal canal, or a cesarean section that didn’t quite go as expected. They can still conceive quite readily, but they cannot carry their foal.
I only ever send one mare along as my recip mare. She needs to have her prostin shot about 36 hours after the donor, and I have never had a failed attempt yet.
And for the OP’s question, if your vet is doing anti-inflammatory protocol pre-during insemination, the pooling should not be an issue. (She of course has to ovulate)
I have two mares that never make it to day 14, I havent ever even asked why, I just started ET’ing them, and they are always flushing out embryos at 5-7 days.
And you know if your vet is finding two or more CLs at ovulation, that you have a chance of having two embryos, so you can freeze one, and flush the other into a recip, so then you have one in the freezer for use at a later time.
[QUOTE=imajacres;5588958]
I only ever send one mare along as my recip mare. She needs to have her prostin shot about 36 hours after the donor, and I have never had a failed attempt yet.
And for the OP’s question, if your vet is doing anti-inflammatory protocol pre-during insemination, the pooling should not be an issue. (She of course has to ovulate)
I have two mares that never make it to day 14, I havent ever even asked why, I just started ET’ing them, and they are always flushing out embryos at 5-7 days.
And you know if your vet is finding two or more CLs at ovulation, that you have a chance of having two embryos, so you can freeze one, and flush the other into a recip, so then you have one in the freezer for use at a later time.[/QUOTE]
We reccomend a minimum of two recipient mares. You’ve obviously had very good success, but you will sometimes have a recipient mare that ovulates too late or too early and then w/out a back-up you are in trouble. Some clinics (such as ours) offer ET, but don’t freeze embryos, so that isn’t always an option if you recover two embryos (best to ask first). In addition, if you are planning on doing an ET then you typically flush at day 7, but if you want to freeze then you flush at day 6, so if you get two embryos that are 7 or 8 days along they are not good candidates for freezing.
Basically in the OPs case, if the mare cycles regularly, has a clean culture/cytology, is ovulating, etc. etc. then the only way to know if flushing an embryo is going to happen is to give it a shot. She could very well be conceiving, but losing it before the 12 day check. Or she could be not conceiving at all; those mares are tricky. If you do a few embryo flushes without getting anything and all else has been managed appropriately then you might start looking at problems with the oviduct, etc. But, that is a lot of “IFs” and a long way down the road at this point.
Thanks
I’ve been quoted $1500 chute fee (ie everything for the whole season) for the mares (donor mare and the two recipient mares (that I already have)) plus $300 for the actual transfer.
I’m trying my last breeding attempt today and have pulled out all the stops (a Settle infusion and plasma infusion). The mare is being managed immaculately vis a vis flushing/fluid/oxytocin etc etc so I’m not quite at the ET route yet and I’m not sure if I will get there - maybe she’ll take this time! Is she a good mare? Yes. Is she a great mare? Probably not.
I would have to think long and hard about ET.
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;5588975]
In addition, if you are planning on doing an ET then you typically flush at day 7, but if you want to freeze then you flush at day 6, so if you get two embryos that are 7 or 8 days along they are not good candidates for freezing. [/QUOTE]
I wanted to elaborate on this point made by Hillside because I do think it has some very interesting ramifications. First, as she noted, flushes are typically done around day 6 to 6.5 when one is planning on freezing an embryo. Typically, the conceptus doesn’t even drop into the uterus until some time around day 5. I don’t know of too many that attempt to flush that early as chances are good the embryo isn’t even in the uterus to flush. Secondly, if you flush around day 6 to 6.5 as necessary to freeze the embryo, if you have an asynchronous ovulation, you stand the very real chance of missing a second embryo. If your intent is to freeze in the first place and not to transfer the embryo, that’s one thing, but if you are planningo n transfering the embryo into a recip mare, typically you shoot to flush some time between day 7 and 8.5. If you flush at 7 to 8.5 days and have had an asynchronous ovulation, you’ll probably catch the second ovulation’s embryo on that flush…it’ll be small, but definitely freezable :).
There are a whole range of options available to do ET’s. The most expensive part of the entire equation is the recip mares. If a facility is providing them, they have to have them available and that’s expensive. We’ll do ET’s, but we don’t provide recip mares. We give mare owners the option of managing their own mares and provide the protocols for synchronization. I wish that it “did” synchronize them accurately simply by using prostaglandin, but I’ve had mares that ovulate within 5 days of receiving prostaglandin to hanging on to a follicle for 9 days. Creates some real issues if you’re trying to line them up. We typically will use P&E or the LA Altrenogest available through BET pharmacy and have had great success doing that.
Good luck MM! You deserve a break at some point!
Kathy - Does this sound logical to you? A mare ovulates and is bred with frozen semen within 6 hours of ovulation. This mare then ovulates a second time but not until 24 hours after the first ovulation. The mare is then flushed at day 8 from the first ovulation and nothing is found . The mare is then flushed again at day 9 to be sure the second ovulation isn’t missed as an embryo. Said mare has become in foal with twins under similar circumstances.
Good luck MM! You deserve a break at some point!
Thanks Kathy!
Just out of curiosity, if you missed the second ovulation embryo, could it still create a viable pregnancy? Or does the flushing ruin the uterine environment?
[QUOTE=Molly Malone;5589692]
Good luck MM! You deserve a break at some point!
Thanks Kathy!
Just out of curiosity, if you missed the second ovulation embryo, could it still create a viable pregnancy? Or does the flushing ruin the uterine environment?[/QUOTE]
Never say never, but it’s not likely as you have both compromised the uterine environment, but you have also dilated a closed cervix. Typically when we’re done doing an ET, we also give the mare a dose of prostaglandin to bring her back into estrus - something that should be done WHENEVER you compromise a closed, diestrus cervix ;).
Well, in many cases, the donor is given PGF2-alpha after the flush to make sure she isn’t pregnant (at least that is how I always have done it). So that would mean that you would not maintain a pregnancy even if it was there after the flush.
But…on a side note, I know of at least one case where a donor mare was not given PGF2-alpha and she ended up pregnant (they did not find an embryo on flushing, but the donor actually became pregnant and it was discovered after she was sold as a riding horse). She was a VERY poor candidate to carry since she had a horrible dystocia before and had lots of scar tissue and it was recommended that she not carry for that reason. In the end, she did end up foaling fine, for the new owner.
We always give prostaglandin after doing an ET flush, whether we recover an embryo or not. Not so much to make sure the mare isn’t pregnant, but to bring her back into heat. It really isn’t a great idea to go through a diestrus cervix (as Kathy said), put fluid in and then not bring her back into heat so that her body can deal with the inflammation that you have caused from flushing, etc. The one single time we didn’t give prostaglandin after flushing was with my own mare, who I was desperately hoping that we had simply “missed” flushing the embryo on (highly unlikely, but, as I said, desperate) and I talked my husband into not giving the prostaglandin. She absolutely exploded with fluid, had a nasty discharge and ended up being treated for an infection at that point. Whether or not that would ever happen again, I don’t know; I won’t try it again. Hard lesson learned on my part. To my husband’s credit, he never said “I told you so” :).
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;5589744]
To my husband’s credit, he never said “I told you so” :).[/QUOTE]
Wow! I’m impressed <lol>.
[QUOTE=Equine Reproduction;5589764]
Wow! I’m impressed <lol>.[/QUOTE]
Well, he probably feared for his life! I get a little…high-strung during breeding/foaling season, particularly w/my own mares 
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;5589818]
Well, he probably feared for his life! I get a little…high-strung during breeding/foaling season, particularly w/my own mares :)[/QUOTE]
ROTFL…I can relate! And I’m sure he and Jos could commiserate :). I don’t stress my own mares so much, although they end up getting bred late in the year when things slow down, but stress is just part of this time of year.
[QUOTE=Equine Reproduction;5589852]
ROTFL…I can relate! And I’m sure he and Jos could commiserate :). I don’t stress my own mares so much, although they end up getting bred late in the year when things slow down, but stress is just part of this time of year.[/QUOTE]
I’m sure they could! It’s nice to know that at least one other couple out there has the same “discussions” that my husband and I do! My husband is the most laid-back, kind, take-things-as-they come kind of guy and I’m the opposite. I worry about EVERYTHING and expect the worst. I worry about client mares not getting pregnant, client foals getting sick, client foaling mares having problems, where’s the semen, will she ovulate, etc. Then my own mares! I swear, it is amazing I don’t have an ulcer by this time every year…
Sorry to hijack!
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;5588975]
We reccomend a minimum of two recipient mares. You’ve obviously had very good success, but you will sometimes have a recipient mare that ovulates too late or too early and then w/out a back-up you are in trouble. Some clinics (such as ours) offer ET, but don’t freeze embryos, so that isn’t always an option if you recover two embryos (best to ask first). In addition, if you are planning on doing an ET then you typically flush at day 7, but if you want to freeze then you flush at day 6, so if you get two embryos that are 7 or 8 days along they are not good candidates for freezing.
Sorry, forgot about this thread. I only want to work with vets that freeze embryos, as I figure for the money I am putting out, I want to have embryo #2 frozen if there is such a thing, as well as have the option to freeze any/all embryos found if my recip mare would not be timed well with the donor.
That is when they get flushed at day 7- if there have been two good looking CLs. Then, if both make it to day 7, one goes in the recip mare, the other in the freezer.
If there is only one CL to freeze, it is flushed earlier, and if it is to be put into a recip, then the donor is flushed later.
But again, it is the vet’s call. I leave it to them, they are the pros. I tell them what I want, they tell me, can do or not, and then it is up to them. I really feel for all the repro vets out there who have to deal with clients.
I think I would go nuts if everyone that wanted me to play violin in my professional capacity would be telling me how it should be done, or asking why, how etc.
I would have to suggest they take up a career in violin playing:-)
