Plan is to u/s Monday and Pray one has moved or started resorting… Thanks to FedEx we’re late in the season and significantly over-budget…thoughts, experiences?
Jennifer
One season the mare got bred back late. She twinned, and over the course of three days, numerous attempts were made to reduce them. They were right on top of one another, and they never separated enough to try.
We ended up trying to play the numbers, in that most twin pregnancies reduce on their own. At the 90 days mark, there were still two heartbeats. Ended up giving her several shots of lute of three days to abort. Empty mare that season. Lots of vet bills.
When this happened to a mare I’d bred I was surprised to learn that a relatively high percentage (60%?) of twin pregnancies reduce on their own by about 30 days. We ultrasounded frequently and I was very happy my mare did just that.
If she didn’t, the plan was to bring her to the regional expert and he would try to reduce using a needle. If that didn’t work, we’d use lute to abort.
Mare foaled a healthy colt the next spring.
[QUOTE=ThirdCharm;6499639]
Plan is to u/s Monday and Pray one has moved or started resorting… Thanks to FedEx we’re late in the season and significantly over-budget…thoughts, experiences?
Jennifer[/QUOTE]
I’m not comfortable just playing the waiting game. I would go in and attempt to reduce one of them. The problem is that yeah…you can take a chance and hope one reduces on its own, but if it doesn’t, it’s more difficult to reduce it with each passing day. At 18 days, I can still manually manipulate them away from each other. Each passing day, they get larger and that becomes more and more difficult and believe me, I’m not saying it was easy at 18 days. FWIW, I have yet to lose a pregnancy when manually reducing a twin - knock on wood - but I probably just jinxed myself <sigh>. I really feel for anyone that has to reduce a twin. It’s HARD work! Hate doing it. Good luck!
A friend of mine has had two sets of twins born five years apart on the exact same day. I know the first time she tried to have one pinched but it didn’t work. One baby was a bit weak but all of them survived and grew up and are just fine. They were TB/Dutch crosses.
Not always the end of the world I guess.
[QUOTE=LookmaNohands;6499800]
A friend of mine has had two sets of twins born five years apart on the exact same day. I know the first time she tried to have one pinched but it didn’t work. One baby was a bit weak but all of them survived and grew up and are just fine. They were TB/Dutch crosses.
Not always the end of the world I guess.[/QUOTE]
Actually, more often than not, it is more like “the end of the world”. Usually the mare either aborts both, one or both die at birth or shortly, or the mare herself dies trying to deliver them. I would never let a known twin pregnancy go to term.
I’m with Kathy on this one; we never play the waiting game. We try to reduce as early as possible which is usually between 13 and 15 days.
This breeding season at the barn I board at one of the mares had twins. I guess it didn’t come up on the ultrasound because I’m pretty sure they ultrasound all the pregnant mares and have pinched twins in the past.
One of the foals had died way before the other one and was about the size of a cat and decomposed. The other one was small but fully formed and was also born dead. Luckily the mare is fine.
Just because sometimes twins work out doesn’t mean it is a good idea to allow horse pregnancies to continue with twins.
Had this with my TB older maiden mare. She is 15 and didn’t think she would catch on the first try. She did but it was twins and they were right on top of each other. Did our best to separate but no luck so pinched anyway and prayed. Re-checked 14 days later and we had one. Checked again 30 days later still one. Our plan was to try and aspirate if the pinch didn’t work or abort.
She is now about 5 months and all is well.
[QUOTE=showhorsegallery;6499873]
Just because sometimes twins work out doesn’t mean it is a good idea to allow horse pregnancies to continue with twins.[/QUOTE]
Certainly not one person on this thread is suggesting that letting a mare go to term with twins is a good idea.
Yeah absolutely not on letting her deliver the twins. The rest I can’t speak to since I have no experience with that but it is not a risk worth taking.
A past vet I used had successfully managed to “massage them apart” when I had twins touching in the past. He then successfully pinched one and the other went on to a live foal. For what is was worth he had never lost a pregnancy either reducing a twin so having twins never bothered me. We were always able to pinch and just happy we had a pregnancy.
I have not had twins for a number of years now <touch wood> but would seek out your best repro vet in the area to reduce the one today if possible! Don’t want until Monday, it needs to be dealt with sooner than later!
[QUOTE=Cindy’s Warmbloods;6500022]
A past vet I used had successfully managed to “massage them apart” when I had twins touching in the past. He then successfully pinched one and the other went on to a live foal. For what is was worth he had never lost a pregnancy either reducing a twin so having twins never bothered me. We were always able to pinch and just happy we had a pregnancy.
I have not had twins for a number of years now <touch wood> but would seek out your best repro vet in the area to reduce the one today if possible! Don’t want until Monday, it needs to be dealt with sooner than later![/QUOTE]
I agree with this… having had a mare have twins and survive all three … (yes I guess we were lucky) but we had u/s and were told no twins… then had to deal with it… and not healthy strong foals…
As an owner of a TB mare that delivered healthy twins, I would NEVER want to go through that experience again. Ever.
Too risky for the mare and the mare needs to come first.
This and what Equine-Repro said. And in the future start looking and trying to reduce before 17 days so that they are still mobile and it is easier to separate them if they are close the first time you look. Good luck. I would not put off trying to get one pinched.
I had this situation this summer. My very experienced repro vet was unworried, would not pinch at 16 days, and said one would kill the other, and we would check for a fetal heartbeat in 15 more days. All worked out as she predicted.
I was definitely a basket case, though, especially with people telling me to go to another vet for pinching, and especially when my mare went in heat right before the 30 day ultrasound. My vet said some will also just be hussies,:lol: Good luck!
Wow! :eek: I would NOT be comfortable with that approach and would definitely be hoping to pinch early on. The situation I discussed above happened after repeated attempts to reduce. After that, I began having my mares checked earlier (day 15 or 16) in order to give us a bigger window. The last time I had a mare twin, the vet was doing the first preg check and pinched the twin before he even took his arm out of the mare.
[QUOTE=hansiska;6501114]
Wow! :eek: I would NOT be comfortable with that approach and would definitely be hoping to pinch early on. The situation I discussed above happened after repeated attempts to reduce. After that, I began having my mares checked earlier (day 15 or 16) in order to give us a bigger window. The last time I had a mare twin, the vet was doing the first preg check and pinched the twin before he even took his arm out of the mare.[/QUOTE]
I totally agree with this. We do the first preg check between 12 and 14 days and there is no reason not to pinch a twin at that first check. The earlier it is attempted the easier it is; easier to manipulate the twins away frome each other and there is still plenty of time to try again (before implantation) if you need to.
Not sure if anyone has mentioned this but you could try finding a veterinary clinic that performs ultrasound-guided transvaginal twin reduction (a needle is passed into one of the embryos and fluid is aspirated).
[QUOTE=hansiska;6499687]
When this happened to a mare I’d bred I was surprised to learn that a relatively high percentage (60%?) of twin pregnancies reduce on their own by about 30 days. .[/QUOTE]
I’d go on to say IF THEY ARE IN THE SAME HORN. If they are in separate horns, your odds plummet. I’d consider the “numbers game” only if they were in the same horn near each other. We had that happen last year - actually, mare late ovulated a THIRD one, and my stallion’s semen lasts forever (literally 5 days later!), so we ended up with three. Ugh.
We had twins that were stacked and the university recommended waiting and reducing the pregnancy at a later date. I am not sure that I will repeat that in the future, but it can be done. This is a great article - http://www.aaep.org/images/files/WolfsdorfsampleScientificPaper.pdf
