Looking for help I have a 2.5 yr old colt. We collected him numerous times when he turned 2 with no living sperm, that vet told me he had not gone through puberty not to worry. Recollected him in Dec same result. Brought him to clinic for them to collect same thing. Morphology is good sperm count is ok not super about 3 billion in a 15ml collection. That vet says nothing he can do. I have tons and tons of breedings sold to this colt. I call a very large well know repo vet they say he may have a blockage and to collect everyday and see if that helps. If not might try Oxy to help with blockage. If nothing then we will test for alkaline levels to see if it’s a full ejaculate etc. Is he a “accumulator” any experience with this? He has not been sick I have owned him since 4 months no steroids etc. We was very sick with pneumonia at 5 months old and was on iv meds for a month but vets say that should not be affecting him now etc. Any help would be MOST APPRECIATED
You’re going to want to ask the mods to move this into the sport horse breeding forum, I would think.
What? Where should I post this
Well, you had it in the World Cup LV forum, but it looks like the mods took care of you. Good luck with your colt!
I once talked to a large breeder of Arabians, and he said that his colts often had low sperm counts in the two year old range. He said that they often started producing more sperm in later years, most often at 4. Arabs tend to mature slower than other breeds so I do not know if this is the case with your colt.
I wish you all the good luck in the world for getting this resolved in time for the breedings.
Thanks but every vet says at 30 months of age there should be mobile sperm. Anyone out there have experience with what is called an accumulator ?
I am not sure where you are located, but I would strongly suggest you have your stallion evaluated by a board certified theriogenologist (repro specialist). If you are able places such as Rood and Riddle or Haygard in Kentucky would be fantastic as they deal with a large amount of Tb studs. Probably some of the most experienced equine repro specialists in the world. They will be able to give you actual information rather than a bunch of opinions from non-veterinary repro specialists:)
Sadly, there are a few instances where young, otherwise healthy stallions are infertile and end up being castrated. I wish you luck with your guy.
Googling seems to indicate that accumulators will have very high sperm counts initially, with a lot of headless and broken tailed sperm. Are you seeing that?
I agree that you should get to a repro specialist–the best one you can find.
If you can advise what State you are in, I think we could all make some good suggestions for you as to who you could talk to or where you could send him to be analyzed / checked
Hope you can get this sorted out …
I am working with Colorado state they are suggesting collecting every day for 10 days etc. i was just hoping someone out there had something similar. As if a stallion is sterile there is no semen. And with no real reason Co state tells me there has to be a REASON for this ie. A blockage etc. Thanks for the help. His count is not super high and morphology is ok on first look. But all dead.
You might ping Royal Vista and see if they have any ideas. Does the horse improve if you collect him multiple times?
We have not done that yet. Starting that this week. First vet said he had not hit puberty. So after 6 months first collection all were dead. Then 3 days later we collected at clinic and all dead maybe like 4 were moving and that vet said nothing can be done, but he had never seen anything like this. So that’s when I contacted Co state and they told me to start off by collecting every day and see if it changes so that is what we will do starting tomorrow
[QUOTE=Destyny;7898779]
I am working with Colorado state they are suggesting collecting every day for 10 days etc. i was just hoping someone out there had something similar. As if a stallion is sterile there is no semen. And with no real reason Co state tells me there has to be a REASON for this ie. A blockage etc. Thanks for the help. His count is not super high and morphology is ok on first look. But all dead.[/QUOTE]
Sterility does not mean there is NO semen, just there is no viable (i.e.; useful) sperm. Sterility can be caused by many factors: genetics, infection, age, injury, etc. So a stallion can certainly produce an adequate amount of semen with no viable sperm (and from your description this appears to be the issue with your guy). He can produce an ejaculate (ie; semen) but the sperm contained within that semen is not viable.
A number of years ago I worked at a TB stud farm and we had a stallion go virtually infertile at a young age (I want to say he was 8). I remember looking under the scope and he had sperm but they were mostly broken and no real swimmers. I know we had Rood & Riddle and Texas A&M consulting - I think Dixon Varner was the one from Texas. You may want to see if he can consult - we actually flew him in a few times. We bred multiple times a day for weeks hoping to clear the issue. They also performed MULTIPLE testicular Ultrasounds. Luckily the stallion was one of the better mannered boys and tolerated the prodding well. Unfortunately they could never resolve the exact issue and he was retired with the hope that science would provide an answer in the years to come and he could return to breeding duties.
Contact Dr Stacey Tarr at:
http://stonehousemeadows.com/contact-us.html
They are in Wellington, CO and he was the head vet at Royal Vista before moving and opening his own practice. He is a brilliant vet and stallion handler and will be able to help you get to the bottom of what is wrong, and if anything can be done and what to do
Good luck! 
Thanks I will e mail that vet. I understand about a sterile stallion. But this is a healty 30 month old colt. I read all this stuff about ph levels alkaline leves etc. I’m being told that there has to be some reason. There were a very few living sperm. He has never been collected more then like 5x in a row. So I’m asking has anyone had an experience where they had dead semen for multiple collections until then they had viable moving sperm. Unjust upset that the vet said there is nothing he can do on one single collection which was his 2 nd collection in 6 months. And he is only 30 months old
What isn’t making any sense to me at all is the 15ml amount for the collection. It sounds like an incomplete ejaculate to me
Was there any gel that they filtered or was that a 15ml gel free ejaculate?
I am really wondering if something that happened during the collection process wasn’t comfortable for your young stallion, so he simply didn’t “use” the AV, you got a lot of gel which maybe wasn’t filtered out properly and acted to kill off the sperm. Or if they perhaps looked at some gel under the microscope???
Something just doesn’t add up properly here …
If it was Stacey Tarr, or CO State, or Rood and Riddle that has done the collections, then I wouldn’t even ask but if its a vet that perhaps isn’t well versed in collecting or dealing with young stallions, then perhaps that is more the problem than your stallion is …
The vet that did the collection is a repo vet. 15ml is in the low side for this horse usually we get 25 ml. 15ml was gel free. But even when we collected him when he was just 2 it was the same but this sperm count has gone up ( dead) or not moving but that number has increased.
[QUOTE=Laurierace;7898814]
Try asking here. https://www.facebook.com/groups/EquineRepro/[/QUOTE]
I second Laurierace. On here, you are likely only going to get opinions. On the Facebook group above, you will be able to converse directly with equine reproduction specialists and theriogenologists.
