Total breeding novice here… My friend has a really nice approved Throughbred mare she acquired through a friend a couple of years ago. This mare has had 3 foals in the past. Great mother, no problems with foaling. I know two by TB’s were live cover, but not sure about the warmblood cross she had. She’s a 2001 model, JC name Pandora Petit, with excellent conformation and an awesome hind leg. She started trying to breed her last year (cooled shipped semen), a couple of times to Liberty, once in the clinic, and once down at Barbara Schmidt’s farm. She didn’t take in both cases, so they switched stallions and tried DaCaprio more than once. Each time she would also come up with an infection that would have to be cleared up. This mare was examined for breeding soundness before this all began and she was as clean as a whistle… The repro vet is stumped and is telling her to switch stallions again or try to go live cover. To top it off, this year she tried breeding her other mare with no luck. Any help would be appreciated, and info on any warmblood stallions that do live cover would be awesome as well.
A couple of things come to mind right off the top…
Live cover provides a gazillion more sperm than AI so more opportunities to get pregnant.
Fresh cooled is in an ‘extender’, usually an antibiotic milk mixture that some mares can mount an inflammation reaction to, killing most if not all sperm inserted.
Horses, unlike cows, are not as easy to get a pregnancy
without careful planning when using AI techniques. A good vet is critical to the process.
Many years ago, I talked to a breeding manager at a BIG Standardbred farm. They stood several stallions and shipped semen out and had mares coming in from everywhere. She told me, when a mare did NOT get pregnant through AI, and everything looked “good” with the mare - clean culture, good timing, etc - they would recommend pasture breeding. They only allowed pasture breeding with one or two of their boys, so it did limit the breeding options. But they also said every single mare who was pasture bred ended up pregnant. I thought it was interesting - nature has its ways.
I tried it once with a mare who spent months at a repro specialist and didn’t take. She did take on live cover - unfortunately, she didn’t hold the pregnancy, and I decided nature made the decision for her - she was not to be a broodmare.
While I completely agree with Mystic Oak, I would also question the actual breeding procedures used… Was the mare ultra-sounded before she was bred? If so, how many times? Was she bred pre- or post-ovulation? How many hours before or after ovulation did the breeding occur?
When I first moved to Waterford, VA I had to also find a new vet that was proficient in AI. Well, the one I found spent countless hours at my farm (she liked it here by her own admission!!) while I had to take off from work every time. She also insisted that I should be in charge of thawing the frozen semen and then bring it to the wash stall where the mare was cross-tied. I think we tried to breed four mares that spring and -surprise, surprise - not one of them ended up pregnant! I had a HUGE bill and nothing to show for…
After that experience I took several courses in equine reproduction (which was quite an eye opener 
) and changed vets. Yes, I had to trailer my mares to the vet and they stayed there until they had been inseminated and checked for fluids BUT they ALL got pregnant. Talk about learning the hard way…
I guess all I’m trying to say is that there are many variables that determine the outcome when breeding horses, and it helps to be as educated as possible.
Good luck!
Thanks for the info! Siegi I’m not sure about the answers to all your questions, but the reproduction vet does not have tons of experience, I know she did an internship at Virginia Equine repro? I think it was. But she does not have a bunch of years under belt.
I’m not sure if the mare was ultrasounded before but I know she was after the second infection. I believe (and this is what I remember my friend telling me) that they bred while there was a follicle present and then again after.
Oh and they also did a biopsy… All good.
The follicle has to be at a certain stage (size, consistency, etc.) before you can successfully breed. Just having a follicle doesn’t mean anything… That’s why vets will ultrasound every 6 hours as the mare nears ovulation. And yes, that means getting up in the middle of the night on a regular basis…
All of the above are good points, and I would add that when you AI a mare, there is also the lube to think about, which can be full of preservatives and other chemicals which would not happen in a pasture breeding.
There are chemical free versions made for humans that would be quite expensive to breed a lot of mares with, but could be worth trying for that problem mare.
Happens with stallions too sometimes. Wits End Eventing has a stallion who was a total failure at AI, but when, as an experiment, they turned him out to pasture breed mares, he got foals. Whether they can use him for AI now, I haven’t heard. Maybe Wits End Eventing will chime in here.
Some mares just can’t be bred AI. They seem to react to the semen extenders.
I have two mares that did fine with cooled semen and also produced foals by frozen the first time I used it. But after that, any time I tried frozen, the mares would seem to take (positive ultrasound at 15 days) and then lose the pregnancy shortly after and turn up infected. Took me a couple of times to figure out that there was a problem using frozen with these mares.
After getting them cleaned up a third time used cooled semen again and voila, pregnancy.
there are quite a few mares that will not ever take to frozen semen, even though everything else looks good and there is not alot of fluid and no infection
i have spent fortunes over the years trying to get mares pregnant with frozen semen that just wont go
last year i did 6 inseminations on a 4 yo of mine with frozen semen for no result
and 2 the year before
as i only use frozen semen, i am no longer going to continue with this mare, just accept she will need live cover or possibly cooled semen
Paulamc
The other factor to consider is that (of course its stallion dependant) but my stallion routinely ejaculates 25-40 ml so that’s what goes into the mare live cover
With AI - you are putting in 55-60 ml per breeding and possibly double that amount over a 48 hour period, so you’re giving the mare twice the sheer volume to clear over each cycle and if she’s older and/or has clearance issues, and you aren’t helping things along with oxytocin, she may simply not be able to clear that volume of liquid each and every cycle
Would that extra volume be from the extender? Thanks so much everyone for your responses. All of this is very helpful. I have also gotten in touch with her previous owner who was able to get her in foal, the first time all three times.
^^^ Correct. You need to mix extender in with the raw semen to keep it alive for that 24-48-72 hour period. If you sent raw semen alone, it would die within hours, so you not only have increased liquid volume going into them over 1-2 inseminations but you are also adding a “foreign” substance by way of the extender into their uterus
I’ve learned a lot here just trying to figure out what’s going on. Especially after trying to breed her other mare twice, who is younger but not the one she wants a foal from. Vet keeps saying it’s the mare or switch stallions, when I don’t think that’s the case at all.
btw… this is the mare she’s trying to breed. Her old sales ad: http://www.warmblood-sales.com/SoldHorseDetail.asp?HorseID=14928&UserID=1882
Is she getting an INFECTION after being bred AI or a REACTION? Infection makes no sense if she was clean beforehand but coming up dirty afterwards. A reaction does
Ive sent semen to some mares where we needed to use a non antibiotic (non penicillin) extender because the mares developed a huge reaction to the penicillin in there but Ive never heard of one getting an infection from extended semen
Live covers - yes - if the stallion wasn’t cleaned properly or if he was harboring bacteria or if he contracted an infection from the last mare he covered if she wasn’t clean but never from the semen itself extended that resulted in an infection in the mare afterwards
It probably is a reaction, but being treated as an infection. I’m going to try to talk her into switching vets because I think that’s part of the problem here.
As these experienced breeders are stating, the Devil is in the details and none of us really know the details.
If the stallion’s semen is good quality and a mare has a good biopsy, there actually is NOT any good reason why she shouldn’t (eventually) conceive.
That being said, I recall Kathy of ER use to remind us that the AVERAGE for mares to conceive is 2+ cycles. So some mares will need 3.
Again, could be the mare had an inflammation, NOT an infection. Just too many variables to know for certain. I suppose there are the rare cases that require LC…but they are truly rare.
My guess is that the mare was simply mis-managed…
^^ This is my thinking as well… Thanks again everyone. Hopefully I can come back with a good update, that the mare is in foal
