So……is this mare pregnant? UPDATE - vet says NO BABY

Well that’s a disappointment!

Kind of a bummer because we all love baby pics, but maybe better for Mikey? She deserves to be a “kid” herself before she has to grow up.

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Wow. That’s extremely surprising, given the amount of udder development shown in your photos. While some mares will get a small amount of edema and even fluid from eating clover, alfalfa, or soy, it is not typically anywhere near that significant.

So you have a growing belly, developing udder, a pee test that’s not yellow (and better yet, is of the green that would correlate with very late term which lines up with the udder development and a potential breeding timeline), and the vet says not pregnant?

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That is correct. She manually palpated and found nothing and I asked her to confirm via ultrasound (rectal) and also nothing. Weird false pregnancy?

Don’t be too sure.

I had a mare that checked negative for being in foal after being bred. It was her last chance to do something, anything, right. Nope. I ended up unloading her on the guy across the street. The next spring she had a lovely bay filly.

B***H.

I wasn’t too upset until I checked out the auction results from where she was supposed to go. The half dozen or so similar bred mares averaged ~$7K, high went for $15 or $20K.

I’m assuming your miss was early in the pregnancy, not a mare that looks a few weeks at most from foaling.

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Messing with any udder will not only stimulate but also you lose the teat plug that protects the udder from outside bacteria getting in. It may not cause them to develop more milk but handling does come with mastitis risks.

Colostrum isn’t produced until right before birth . I will say my experience is from having breeding goats( meat & dairy) and beef & dairy milk cows and while I have had many foals, I did not handle my mares udder at all before foaling . I can’t see where horses differ at all in that respect.

bummer!

if you’re even slightly sad about this… I’ll just leave this here because :crazy_face:

https://www.legacyarabians.com/legacyoutrageous

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No matter how many threads you repeat this comment on, the information it contains will still be misleading. Udder stimulation encourages CONTINUED lactation but will not CAUSE lactation in a female animal that has not yet given birth.

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In your opinion but an udder is an udder and it is a known fact in the goat and cow world. I will say that maybe a slighter risk since a mare has such a small , high udder but any milk producing animal ( or human) can get mastitis.

Also there have been people who brought goats and cows into milk fully by milking an animal with a " precocious udder" where they spontaneously started developing an udder due to hormones.

I think this is the 2nd time I have " repeated" this but if more than it is in response to people who should not be handling their mare udder.

@2bayboys I can’t believe she is open. How did the vet explain that?

You have repeated that same comment for YEARS on almost every single milk testing thread on this board. No matter how many times the rest of us correct your misinformation, you continue to repeat it.

And nice job quoting me before I finished/edited my thought. An udder is an udder, you are correct. But you are NOT correct that manipulating an udder will CAUSE a female who is not already lactating to begin doing so.

And, yes, any milk producing animal can get mastitis. However, there is no significant risk of causing mastitis from properly executed milk testing. Unless maybe your mare lives in filth and/or has an extremely atypically pendulous udder.

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I seem to recall one or two threads on here where vets missed very late term pregnancies because the foal had moved out of range, but I don’t remember if those misses included an ultrasound

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Long ago, before ultrasound, a new vet missed on a 17 year old mare a friend left us in his will.
She gave birth two weeks after being called open.

Another vet said close to term, some foals lay so low, it was hard to tell.

This being a young mare, everything very tight in there, it would be hard to miss, I think?

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I am just not sure your vet is correct… Are you feeling any movement in her belly or flank area?

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No I haven’t felt any movement. I did test the milk again and ph looks around 7 still. Which I don’t know what that means at this point :woman_shrugging:t2:

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Is it possible the mare has cysts or a hormonal issue (non pregnancy related)?

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I can’t speak to cows or goats, but can say that horses aren’t either. Expressing a few drops of milk to milk-test mares has been done for FOREVER. It is a totally acceptable practice even among top repro vets . We’ve had this discussion before, several times. I’m not sure why you still feel it’s such a taboo practice, despite the top of this game condoning it.

Mastitis is not that common on horses. I have no idea how that compares to ruminants. It is COMMON, and desirable, to make sure a mare is ok with her udder being handled.

Do you never clean your mares’ udders? Never handle them to get beans out, or clean between the teats?

No? Yikes.
Yes? Have you ever caused mastitis from that? Because mastitis isn’t limited to a bag full of/filling with milk.

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All of my mares, once they realize what I’m doing down there, LOVE getting the smegma-type material cleaned out from between their teats.

I think too many people automatically assume tails rubbed = deworming issue. For a well cared for horse, that’s always ended up being dirty teats/anus for me!

Op, what disappointing results, but… man oh man the rest of everything points to baby. Weird!!

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I agree, @endlessclimb! I actually clean my mares’ udders and under their tails with a baby wipe as part of my daily grooming routine. They LOVE it, and I can tell when I’ve slacked off and skipped a few days, because the tail rubbing starts almost immediately.

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