Hypothetical question:
If you have an unwanted pregnancy, how do you abort it and how long do you have to do so? Assume the mare is not to be bred back the same year.
Well, technically you can abort at any stage. A simple prostaglandin shot will abort an early term pregnancy; after that we usually combine a prostaglandin shot with a saline infusion.
Just another hypothetical question relating to this. Will the prostaglandin shot ALWAYS work? Or is there a chance it could not work. What is the dosage?
No, it will NOT “always” work. A friend of mine had a 18 month old filly get bred by her full (or half) I don’t remember brother.
The vet gave the “mare” TWO prostaglandin shots several weeks apart.
Mare delivered foal 11 months later – surprisingly healthy – actually no harm was done to mare or foal.
The best way is to have the vet pinch the embryo early. Later on I’m sure they have other, “mechanical” ways of abortion.
We have given lutalyse to destroy the CL during the first month. After approximately 32 days endometrial cups have formed so if you are successful in aborting the embryo the endometrial cups will persist. The result is that your mare will not cycle for at least 3 months due to endometrial cups so the breeding season has definitely passed you by. I had an accidental breeding one year and didn’t know it until my mare didn’t come into heat. I was following her for a planned breeding to an outside stallion. She showed strongly and I hadn’t seen anything so I didn’t think she was in heat when the mares busted into the stallion paddock, beat him up and forced him out over the top rail. Poor guy. When she failed to come in we discovered she was at about 32/33 days. We used lutalyse and it worked but we did lose the entire breeding season due to the endometrial cups.
A pregnancy further along can be mechanically aborted. You can ask your vet about that.
A couple of years ago my mare twinned and we didn’t confirm it until she was about 35 days, so too late to abort. That year, I elected to try a procedure where one of the twins is terminated, so a later abortion if the procedure doesn’t work. The vet tried twice, once at about 90 days and again at about 100 days. He didn’t want to let the pregnancy go longer, as terminating after 100 days becomes much more difficult. I had to terminate the pregnancy, and gave a series of prostin shots over a couple of days, which worked. As mentioned, she didn’t cycle again until early the following spring.
Thanks for the info. I’ve always had ultrasounds done early on and throughout the pregnancy, only once had twins that the vet was able to pinch early on.
[QUOTE=Derby Lyn Farms;4925729]
Thanks for the info. I’ve always had ultrasounds done early on and throughout the pregnancy, only once had twins that the vet was able to pinch early on.[/QUOTE]
My mare has many uterine cysts, and it has become increasingly difficult to be sure there is a singleton pregnancy. We were able to pinch when necessary a few years ago, and I always check no later than 15 days, but that year a zygote was there at the 30 day check. I opted to try the late twin reduction rather than starting over.
The year that one of my mares was inseminated with 7 straws of the correct stallion and one straw of a champion pacing standardbred - we just lysed the pregnancy as soon as she checked in foal (reminder to all…always read the name on the straw BEFORE putting it in the mare - because you sure can’t take it out). The mare caught again on the next cycle. With twins. On top of each other twins. THe vet was out three or four times to pinch. THey never moved from each other. We’d go in the house for a coffee, and try again, and they were just GLUED to each other.
Because it was late in the year and there was no trying again, we decided to wait to see if Mother Nature would take care of the situation. At thirty days, two heartbeats. We made the decision to wait to 82 days because statistically more than 70% of twin cases will resolve by then. At 82 days, still there and both looking very viable. It took a series of 5 prosti shots over a period of days - but it took care of it. Needless to say - that season was shot.
As an aside, there was a substantial amount of discussion between myself and my repro vets and Dr. Barry David who was at Blue Ridge Equine at the time…as to whether to wait intil the 4/5th month and do an intra-uterine injection to kill one twin. We decided as a group that with this mare, who had a tendnacy to make gigantic foals that were cooked a little too long, that the presense of a mummified twin might make her delivery go way bad wrong. But Dr. David had pioneered this procedure while at Hagyard and had a lot of success with it.
I hear you Clint about the multiple cysts. One of my mares has about 10 after foaling two weeks ago, and my vet says there is no way, even with mapping, that she is going to be able to pinch a twin if it happens. She ovulated in the face of Regumate on foal heat (I was trying to push her out - this is why I should have used P & E) so I’m short-cycling her on Friday and we are going to do a flush or two with DMSO to see if we can reduce them. I’ll let you know if it works.
Does anyone know for sure how long after the Lutalyse is injected the foetus takes to die?
I’m in bits as my vets have made massive **** up and after telling me my mare had lost her pregnancy (after 3 scans!) she was pg’d at 78 days…scanned again at 82 days and found heartbeat!
This was last Friday and she has been on regumate since then but I don’t want to scan her until next week just incase it traumatises her after all that’s happened.
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