Friend had this done on a fairly young mare who was also dangerous when in season. There was no noticeable improvement in the mare’s temperament after more than a year. The mare was eventually put down as she was deemed unsafe to handle by most people and my friend was not in a position where she could keep the mare at home … she had to board.
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Replying even though I have not spayed my mare because I JUST started seriously thinking about it and why more people don’t do it…
After copious internet research and finding all kinds of good and bad results I spoke with a vet at Rood and Riddle. Basically the biggest surprise to me was it indeed can put them into constant heat. I had no idea. He said the teaser mares they use here at the breeding farms are quite often spayed for that reason. That was discouraging.
So I guess I am not going to pursue it, just thought I’d share this very recent info I learned. Best of luck in what you decide.
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But again, as said above - the “seems like she’s in heat” to stallions wouldn’t also be “ovary pain” which might be the reason for grumpy behavior under saddle.
If a mare doesn’t have ovaries, what part of being in heat would be problematic? I mean - I guess if they were really displaying all the time, maybe that would be an issue. But, is that how it would definitely present?
(If so, wouldn’t adding progesterone be a possibility?)
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Totally valid questions which I do not have the answer to!
@sunkistbey and @phantomhorse, that is helpful - thank you.
@DLee1 I’m not sure how far you got into your research, but there are several studies from the past ~10 years (albeit with small sample sizes) that have shown that while yes, spayed mares still experience heat, the negative heat-related behavior tends to improve. One showed dramatic improvements in rideability, one showed more favorable results compared to Regumate, and the other showed overall improvements in unwanted behaviors. One thing that struck me about the studies is most owners reported that their mares were cycling - some just as much or more - but were still reporting fewer behavioral issues and overall satisfaction with their decision to spay.
I think its just your goal - if you are trying to eliminate heat entirely, yes that isn’t going to work. But for certain behavioral situations there is evidence to suggest it can be effective. I’m not trying to convince you one way or another - I wouldn’t be considering it if Regumate worked perfectly. But I was put off by the fact that they still cycle until I understood that cycling after a spay doesn’t necessarily mean cycling with all the same unwanted behavior as before a spay.
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@Rel6 I am definitely interested in hearing your journey.
My mare, 5 this June, is very difficult to manage during her heat cycles. So far the injectable regumate has been “ok” but she will lunge at any one coming close to her stall during the peak of the cycle. She had a few months of not requiring the shot and was actually quite calm… she is always rather standoffish but happy to work (usually).
She bit my trainer this past week when she was being lazy during ground work, the trainer tapped her sides and she turned to lunge to bite and made comment. Of course trainer corrected it.
We had just given another shot on Sep 28 - when she started peeing on everything. Like I said she had a few months where she was a dream off of the shots.
She also had the hormone tests done and her results didn’t show granulomas or anything - this was done in January.
We have treated for ulcers (very low grade), kept her on the blue rocks but I was about to change to the Gut X to mitigate the long term issues with omeprozale.
Its… frustrating. and like you - it feels dangerous. Our vet comes out for another consult on Monday.
I’m just curious, not offering advice. If the issue after spaying is that the mare stays in heat because of the lack of Progesterone that is produced by the now absent ovaries, couldn’t you spay to remove the painful organs but also keep the mare on Regumate/Progesterone to keep her from going into heat? I mean, if you spay and the behaviors continue during heat cycles, then it wasn’t a painful ovulation or tumor, so you wouldn’t you still be able to use Progesterone to control the heat cycle?
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I had my mare spayed in 2018. Total cost was just over $2K including nearly a week at the hospital (longer than initially predicted but not due to any complications or problems with the surgery).
I’ve had multiple mares for over 30 years and never had one with true reproductive/hormone issues. Until this mare. She was clearly in pain (sometimes she’d stand in her stall and just pin her ears at nothing - and she was otherwise the most friendly, social, easy going, happy mare I’ve ever owned!) and dangerous to ride during ovulation (just before she seemed “in heat” - then she was fine). Regumate worked beautifully for one year, then stopped working, even at a higher dose. Multiple ultrasounds determined that she produced way too many follicles - one ultrasound showed up to 10 follicles distributed on both ovaries, some as large as 2cm…while she was on Regumate.
Surgery went well and recovery was pretty smooth and quick. It is done standing with sedation. She was on stall rest with hand walking for a week or so, then back to normal life. I think I was back to light riding in 3-4 weeks and jumping by 6 weeks. She was sooo much happier after the surgery and so much more consistent to ride. She has had no related problems since. She does very occasionally experience a very mild “cycle” (such as when a new gelding joins her herd), which the vet told me was not uncommon as not all of their hormones are tied to their ovaries, but there have been no associated negative behaviors. Even if she had become constantly “in heat” (which is rare but possible, according to my surgeon), her behaviors were clearly due to ovary pain so were unlikely to resurface in the absence of ovaries.
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This sounds shockingly similar to my mare - we also found many follicles while on regumate, one as large as 60mm. She sulks in the back of her stall and acts angry and defensive, but genuinely is very cuddly and loves to be pet/scratched/cuddled (unless she’s in heat, in which case she does not want anyone near her). I’m glad to hear you had a good experience with surgery and the recovery process wasn’t too onerous.
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I was encouraged to redo the hormone test, so that might be worth it for you since its been a while. One of the dangerous parts is that the behavior isn’t something we can discipline. She has her baby/fresh/mareish moments where you correct it/get after her and she is offended but rational and understands. When she is in heat and lashes out, there is no rationality. Any attempt to correct it just blows what little sanity she has left and makes it all spiral worse. I was always taught that correcting behavior quickly and appropriately is the key to keeping yourself safe - so to have her mental state be such that behavior isn’t readily “correctable” feels very dangerous.
I sympathize with the frustration! Maybe the consistency of keeping her on the shots will help? Good luck!
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I have wondered this! I would really like not to have to spend the $$$ on surgery, and then also spend it on Regumate, but considering spayed teaser mares are given estrogen to bring them in to heat, I am also curious if anyone ever uses progesterone to keep spayed mares out of it…
My vet was out yesterday. In fact, I had the most senior vet come out. My trainer was there and he got to see her under the lunge, under saddle, stall behavior, etc. I had made a spreadsheet over the past year for every time heat was just - TONS of urinating or crabby, to when she was in clear pain. Last fall when she went to another trainer for breaking, the groom couldn’t get her up from the stall floor. The trainer was called up and he went into the stall and she was lying there winking and urinating while laying down. They had thought she was colicking but discovered she was so uncomfortable. He had recommended the altrenogest shot.
I made a spreadsheet and timeline from last Fall to where we are today. Complete with while she had the bloodwork, treating for ulcers. Luckily my trainer and I speak mostly via FB messenger (since I am about an hour away from the barn) - so I had documented dates for when she had each injection, etc.
It seems she is most “intense” at the beginning of Fall and at the beginning of Spring. Rest of the time? She may be her usually standoffish self (she has NEVER been a lovey dovey horse. She is very workmanlike, doesn’t want to be fussed over and prefers to be engaged in work and left alone afterwards), but she is not out of her mind. My vet remembered a few weeks ago when he worked on another horses she had charged to the stall door when he went by - he figured it may be lunch time or somethinig and didn’t pay attention.
My vet did see some slight, very slight lame steps while she was warming up and on tight circles and then as she warmed up, perfectly fine. She had some very slight heel pain. Since her mother had some front end lameness and since my mare has cracks on her front from stomping we did pull x-rays - perfect. Although he wants the toe to be shortened. Ironically even with significant palpation around her flanks, her underside, her back (after the outburst of behavior from don’t touch me) she showed zero signs of pain (frustrating for the rest of us).
He noticed that her behavior improved significantly when we were all actively doing something with her. For example, under saddle pleasant no resistance. Standing for x-rays she was a dead still and inquisitive as if she was super interested in what we were all doing. Sharp difference from when he first handled here and we had multiple squealing fits and an attempt to kick face palm
Based on the sharp swings in behavior at start of Fall and early Spring (he said Fall can be a challenge for some mares since cycles become inconsistent due to the time change) he felt right now lets try to do more aggressive hormonal treatment then taper to the normal altrenogest. He gave her a shot of depo and altrenogest. She is not doing any recognized horse trials right now so he felt if this would help smooth the way to the end of her heat cycle and beginning of the heat cycle it would be worthwhile. Understandably there could be concerns about depo outside of even FEI with some horses having anaphylaxis but he has not personally had that experience.
He is carefully watching the deployment of a new intrauterine device of magnetic pearls being tested for mares. He said marbling didnt work so well and could be dangerous due to the breakage, falling out, etc. But that this newer device supposedly prevents all of that and has shown promise (Pearl Pod). He just has not had a lot of personal experience or other feedback from other mare owners and vets so he is not ready to make that recommendation yet. He would like another year since it just came out on the market for use.
He did not advocate for the surgery. He felt that unless she truly has granulosa its not advisable due to the problems others mentioned her. He said in all candor since the cost is relatively low (lower than many other equine surgeries) if it was a sure thing out of the park then we would see more of those surgeries for performance horses. He felt the surgery is still tough on them and had some concerns about the surgery for such a young horse (mine is 5) and impacts on joints, bone, etc.
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Aggressive stall behaviors are a common symptom of ulcers and kissing spine.
Losing the plot when corrected (overreactivity) makes me think there is something physical going on that has yet to be diagnosed.
I would be curious to see a video of the horse. The more OP divulges, the more it sounds like an undiagnosed lameness.
I would think that if there was something pathologically going on while cycling (ie granulosa or ovarian cysts) that it would be evident on ultrasound or other diagnostic tools.
Absent a correct diagnosis , medicine is poison, surgery is trauma and alternative therapy is witchcraft. —A. Kent Allen.
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I think now you’re just being a little obtuse. Ulcers and kissing spine do not leave a horse happy, comfortable and easy going when out of heat, and aggressive, angry, and uncomfortable when in heat. Not to mention both have been ruled out 
I am definitely not posting any videos of the horse just to enable armchair veterinary care, since it seems to be going just fine without any.
No, according to the two repro vets we have worked with there does not have to be pathological findings (such as tumor or cyst) for her to be in acute pain and discomfort while cycling. She can ultrasound normal and still experience very extreme, painful heat cycles.
And I’ll be sure to pass along that cheery anecdote to her actual DVMs and the surgical team at Cornell as well.
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That makes sense! My vet also mentioned Pearl Pods, but said they had been having a difficult time getting them. My mare was the same in terms of flank pain but no back pain. We did x-ray her back just to be sure and it looks great.
Hopefully the depo helps - my vet did not feel it was worth it because it has poor results with suppressing heat. Fingers crossed!
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Thanks for the insult, but you would be wrong. They certainly can. That you would state that suggests you have very little experience with either.
You are missing the point. Your vet team does not have a diagnosis.
There are many symptoms that the average owner misses or has no idea about, and they only pick up on it when an unrelated stressor or trigger (like heat cycles, a change in trimming, a change in environment, etc) causes inflammation or otherwise antagonizes the issue. Like other posters have said several times to you in this thread, it may be the heat cycle and its associated hormonal changes are making a previously semi-bearable issue suddenly unbearable.
Or it may just be that the mare’s symptoms are more pronounced during heat, and you are only able to pick it up when it is obvious she is in discomfort.
Horses are naturally very stoic to protect themselves from predators. They will hide discomfort and pain until it is too difficult to do so.
I have no idea your credentials, your vets’, or your horse’s. I only know that the average owner has no idea what body lameness looks like, and many people blame a mare’s “heat” versus looking objectively at their own management or riding.
You did not say either KS or ulcers were ruled out until just now. So, you scoped the stomach and x-rayed the spine?
Feel free to pass along my cheery anecdote to whomever. You started a thread on COTH, and don’t like the answer[s] an open discussion forum provides.
If it was going so fine, you would not have started a thread looking for answers because your vets are “stumped”.
If you only wanted a specific answer, you shouldn’t have come to COTH.
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What he saw yesterday was not real flank pain but more of… I don’t like you touching me there so I will squeal and try to kick you. But he couldn’t reproduce sensitivity like he could with her front end.
I hope the depo works - it kind of scares me like what if she drops dead like the rare cases can. But I also trust him and his experience.
I feel like we have been chasing a ghost - we had her scoped for ulcers she had VERY VERY minor glandular ulcers so we did treat that and she resolved. I am putting her on gutx as well. But I do think based on what we have been documenting for the past year this is our next best steps.
My vet wants me to keep a journal over the next 4 weeks to give him an idea of how this worked.
Good luck to you!
You are missing the point: I did not start a thread looking for answers because my vets are stumped. They aren’t. I started a thread asking for other people’s experiences with spaying a horse. Many were not positive, yet I appreciate those anecdotal experiences all the same.
As you yourself admitted: you don’t know my credentials, you don’t know my vets credentials, and most importantly…you don’t know the horse. And as you yourself also mentioned, I have not given some complete history of all the diagnostics performed to rule out everything else. As I mentioned above, you either believe its not an underlying lameness issue or you don’t. I do not care one way or another whether you think it is or not. I am not personally interested in providing all the information you need to make your diagnosis. It is of no value to me or my horse what an anonymous person on a forum thinks.
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You seem to be taking this pretty personally, OP. I am only chiming in with my experience, which you asked for in your OP.
It wasn’t what you wanted to hear, so you got snippy.
Remember this is a discussion forum and is subject to discussion. It receives a wide audience of people. The replies in this thread are not just about you. Other people read these threads, and learn something. This thread will be viewable until COTH closes; there are people who will find this thread in a search because they are in a similar situation.
A life skill is to take what works for you, and leave the rest. If you want to control the discussion and its participants, I invite you to write a book.
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I was actually thinking the same about you taking this very personally. You came into this thread saying that you are “a skeptic about cycles really making an otherwise healthy horse miserable,” and then have argued that point relentlessly at every turn. I’m not sure why that is so unbelievable to you, but I do hope you never have a horse with that issue. But if you ever do, I agree it is nice that you’ll have this thread to turn to.
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