How many of you have done it and how accurate was it? I am planning on fetal sexing my mare in 2 weeks as I need a filly!!! And can’t wait 300 days to find out! This mare has only given me one mare (11 years ago) and all the rest have been colts:( I need a filly to replace her when she retires soon as she is 15 years old.
If it is a colt it will be for sale:) Buddenbrock-Davignon-Matcho
My friends who have had it done have had enough surprises at birth to make me have little faith in sexing.
You need to find someone who does a LOT of fetal sexing to get good results. I know some practicioners that I would absolutely bet the farm on being accurate as they are at 90% plus accuracy. That being said, those people are few and far between! It completely depends upon how experienced your vet is.
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;6436127]
You need to find someone who does a LOT of fetal sexing to get good results. I know some practicioners that I would absolutely bet the farm on being accurate as they are at 90% plus accuracy. That being said, those people are few and far between! It completely depends upon how experienced your vet is.[/QUOTE]
This. My 2012 Hofrat colt was correctly sexed. He was an ET and was ultrasounded at the right time for sexing. I do not have enough faith in it to have an ultrasound just for sexing. I was hoping the vet was wrong! I really wanted a filly. 
Hagyard-Davidson-McGee came out and did mine. Colt. He looked offended when I questioned how accurate the procedure is. He gives you a certificate showing his findings. That is all that this particular practioner does! That’s it! I would e happy if he was wrong cause I was hoping for a keeper filly, but have been told that he just really isn’t wrong. If he isn’t sure, he doesn’t guess.
Dr. Friend of Rood & Riddle loves doing them and is really good at them. Very accurate but does a ton of them. 
Our vet pegged first babY for next year as a filly. He did say we owe him a case of beer if he’s right though so the stakes are not terribly high. I’ll let you know if he was right next April.
I had it done once. Vet said colt, it was a filly. I didn’t complain
So far I’m 100%…WRONG :D! It’s no where as easy as they would lead you to believe <LOL>. Granted, I’m probably wishful thinking on what we’ll produce, but hey, one can hope! As my own mares are usually the only ones hanging around at the right time to check, I don’t get that much practice either. Doesn’t help that I often forget to do it at the right time. But holy smokes! Talk about trying to find the “needle” in the proverbial haystack. Hmm…I’ve got one that’s close to the right time for checking…May have to give it a go again!
We used to do this as a matter of course, but when the promised filly was a colt this year and the promised colt was a filly last year, have stopped doing it. It was just one more expense, one more invasive procedure and one more haul to the clinic and something that we felt we could easily do without.
My old (and favorite) vet always said fetal sexing was 50% accurate… :lol: That said, Dr. Friend at Rood & Riddle does have an amazing track record for accuracy. (But I’m not having him do my Mildred, because I still like the surprise!)
We make it a regular practice around the 60-day check so there is no additional cost and nothing that we would be doing out of the ordinary. The mare and the baby have to cooperate and the vet has to have quite a bit of experience for it to be reliable. That said, the vet is batting a 1000 at our farm but I know he’s made a mistake or two, just not any here. If he makes a mistake, he makes a mistake. It certainly is not the end of the world. And at the rate we’re going this year (colt year from hell), I’d be very glad if he evened up his average and was wrong with everyone he’s sexed so far :lol:
Personally, I have a love-hate relationship with fetal sexing. On the positive side, it certainly makes planning easier, but on the negative side, it takes the wind out of your sails when the baby is not the gender that you were hoping for. The disappointment makes me feel just a bit guilty that I’m not quite as excited as I was originally when that black dot was scanned.
You know we’re going to peak… just not going to tell ya :yes:;):lol:
Don’t peek - one of you will slip up and tell!
So funny!
I find this thread so timely… I am not a long time breeder by any means and over the past few years, I have never attempted to identify the foal gender at the 60 day US…
But this year, with a different vet (completely random reason for the change), it was offered to me…
So, to this vet I said, “don’t tell me, unless I correctly guess the sex also…” :eek:
Now, I guess I have to admit to all of you that I do the “human medicine” thing, professionally, and I do use ultrasound for a few procedures in my own practice (and, NO, I am not an OB/GYN!), so I kinda know what I’m looking at with an US… :yes:
On the up side, perhaps as with human babies (of which I have none), I sooo enjoyed watching those little legs kick back and forth! 
And, after staring quite a bit at the screen, I said “I don’t see any Mr. PeePee!”
My vet agreed that he believes that my mare is carrying a filly! 
Naturally, what anyone really wants is a safe delivery for the mare and a healthy, well conformed, foal who will/can become the adult horse you desire! :yes:
But, I have to say I was a bit tickled over a filly out of this mare… She is an older mare that has had some reproductive difficulties over the past couple of years. She is also the mare who I attempted to breed with my Stravinsky xx, aka Trachit xx, frozen semen with NO success…
And, now it appears that she is carrying a Default xx filly…
Yeah! :winkgrin:
But, a colt would be fine also! :yes:
[QUOTE=mitma;6438654]
I find this thread so timely… I am not a long time breeder by any means and over the past few years, I have never attempted to identify the foal gender at the 60 day US…
But this year, with a different vet (completely random reason for the change), it was offered to me…
So, to this vet I said, “don’t tell me, unless I correctly guess the sex also…” :eek:
Now, I guess I have to admit to all of you that I do the “human medicine” thing, professionally, and I do use ultrasound for a few procedures in my own practice (and, NO, I am not an OB/GYN!), so I kinda know what I’m looking at with an US… :yes:
On the up side, perhaps as with human babies (of which I have none), I sooo enjoyed watching those little legs kick back and forth!
And, after staring quite a bit at the screen, I said “I don’t see any Mr. PeePee!”
My vet agreed that he believes that my mare is carrying a filly!
Naturally, what anyone really wants is a safe delivery for the mare and a healthy, well conformed, foal who will/can become the adult horse you desire! :yes:
But, I have to say I was a bit tickled over a filly out of this mare… She is an older mare that has had some reproductive difficulties over the past couple of years. She is also the mare who I attempted to breed with my Stravinsky xx, aka Trachit xx, frozen semen with NO success…
And, now it appears that she is carrying a Default xx filly…
Yeah! :winkgrin:
But, a colt would be fine also! :yes:[/QUOTE]
I hope you are right, b/c it sounds like you really want a filly!
However, at the 60-70 day mark, when we are sexing foals, there is no penis yet formed. You are looking for the genital tubercle and the difference between male and female can be very, very subtle.
Here’s the description (from The Horse Magazine):
The veterinarian will proceed posteriorly to the abdominal attachment of the umbilicus. Just posterior to the abdominal attachment of the umbilicus is the tubercle of the male fetus. To identify a female, the most posterior area of the fetus must be scanned. The female tubercle is best observed in a plane including the tailhead and the distal tibias or hocks. It appears just under the tailhead within a triangle formed by the tailhead and the two tibias. Definite identification of the female tubercle is difficult from any other plane.
Determinations are made in utero by locating the genital tubercle and defining its position relative to other fetal structures. The genital tubercle is the precursor to the penis in a male and the clitoris in a female. It is sonographically visible as a hyperechogenic, bilobulated structure about two millimeters in diameter that develops on the ventral midline between the hind legs. Around Day 55 of gestation, the tubercle migrates toward the umbilical cord in a male and toward the anus in a female.
Since we cannot determine the sex before approximately 60 days of gestation, sex determination is best diagnosed on a 60- to 75-day-old fetus.
And heres a link to images of colt vs. filly on an ultrasound: http://www.wisconsinequineclinic.com/uploads/AS_-_FETAL_SEXING_BLACK_AND_WHITE.pdf
Now imagine that you are trying to get those views on a moving fetus and you can see how difficult fetal sexing can be!
The vet who did my 1999 Feiner Stern breeding had a pretty good track record for fetal sexing, and she was not even a repro specialist. She told me essentially the same thing as what Hillside said - the genital tubercle is closer to the umbilical cord in a male and more toward the anus in a female. And yes, she correctly sexed that foal as a filly. As a joke, she also told me the foal was chestnut (dark bay stallion, red bay mare), and lo and behold, it WAS a chestnut filly! :lol:
Sorry didn’t clarify!
[QUOTE=Hillside H Ranch;6438696]
I hope you are right, b/c it sounds like you really want a filly!
However, at the 60-70 day mark, when we are sexing foals, there is no penis yet formed. You are looking for the genital tubercle and the difference between male and female can be very, very subtle.
Here’s the description (from The Horse Magazine):
The veterinarian will proceed posteriorly to the abdominal attachment of the umbilicus. Just posterior to the abdominal attachment of the umbilicus is the tubercle of the male fetus. To identify a female, the most posterior area of the fetus must be scanned. The female tubercle is best observed in a plane including the tailhead and the distal tibias or hocks. It appears just under the tailhead within a triangle formed by the tailhead and the two tibias. Definite identification of the female tubercle is difficult from any other plane.
Determinations are made in utero by locating the genital tubercle and defining its position relative to other fetal structures. The genital tubercle is the precursor to the penis in a male and the clitoris in a female. It is sonographically visible as a hyperechogenic, bilobulated structure about two millimeters in diameter that develops on the ventral midline between the hind legs. Around Day 55 of gestation, the tubercle migrates toward the umbilical cord in a male and toward the anus in a female.
Since we cannot determine the sex before approximately 60 days of gestation, sex determination is best diagnosed on a 60- to 75-day-old fetus.
And heres a link to images of colt vs. filly on an ultrasound: http://www.wisconsinequineclinic.com/uploads/AS_-_FETAL_SEXING_BLACK_AND_WHITE.pdf
Now imagine that you are trying to get those views on a moving fetus and you can see how difficult fetal sexing can be![/QUOTE]
Sooo very true and I neglected to explain further what my vet had said at the time… He did tell me that the issue of “Mr. Pee Pee” was rather moot! :yes: And he did explain that while I was noticing no apparent penis, what he was noticing was the “female tubercle” that was basically located near the anus and would later become the vulva… Imagine how silly I felt!
But, trully, I will be most happy with a safe delivery in this mare and a healthy baby, irrespective of the gender! :yes:
[QUOTE=mitma;6439042]
the “female tubercle” that was basically located near the anus and would later become the vulva… Imagine how silly I felt![/QUOTE]
Clitoris.
I was present when my friend’s mare had a check-up ultrasound after pinching a twin. The remaining fetus was in a position so we were looking at her from “underneath”. The vet said this was a vet’s dream in terms of a view for fetal sexing. We could see the four little legs and he pointed out something (I can’t really recall what it looked like, probably just another wee dot or darkening) that he said would be in front of the hind legs in a boy but behind the hind legs in a girl. Probably the tubercle y’all are mentioning! It was definitely behind the hind legs. It was pretty cool to see!
Unfortunately, the mare subsequently lost the foal so it won’t be confirmed one way or the other. But it was a first for both me and my friend, and fun at the time.
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