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Re: [RC] [RC] ultra sound - heidiHi R-Campers I should have told you my mare was bred on July 25th and ultra-sound on Aug. 18th of last year. The Vet said she was not bred. Last year (Feb) she had a very strong 7 day heat. March a strong 6 day heat. Now this year Feb and so far in March no heat. Maybe I should have her re-tested??? Thank you Heidi, Truman and all for the answers. Hope Lundquist OK, here's some repro stuff--OT to endurance, except that those of us who breed endurance horses have to live with all this broodmare stuff, and 6 years later these little embryos become endurance horses, hopefully.... By my count, that U/S date is 24 days post-breeding, but you don't actually know when the mare ovulated. Many mares will have split heats, and often the second ovulation a week or so later is silent. I've lost count of the number of mares I've U/S'd at around 18-20 days, and there's NUTHIN' there, but the uterus FEELS pregnant. (A pregnant mare uterus in the early days is really skinny and firm.) If that is the case, I go back a week later, and 9 times out of 10, we find a baby that is just a week behind what the breeding date would suggest. Sperm will live that long in the mare's reproductive tract, and the 2nd ovulation is the one that will survive. At 24 days, one like this SHOULD show up as about a 16-17 day pregnancy--but it is easier to miss one at THAT stage because it CAN still be migrating around in the uterus (although most are starting to implant by then) than it is a week or so later. (Still depends on the operator and how thorough they are.) By 30 days post breeding, even a split heat conceptus will be 23 or so days old, and should be implanted and not missed. Where vets get in trouble with this (especially young ones who never had to function in the days before ultrasound and develop a "touch" for that early pregnant uterus) is that they pronounce the mare empty instead of using their fingers and realizing that what they feel isn't consistent with an empty mare. I shudder to think how many pregnancies like this get aborted with prostaglandin shots to bring the mare back in for a rebreed. To answer your question, Hope--yes, I WOULD get the mare rechecked. She may not be pregnant, and may have other reasons for not coming in heat (like a uterine infection or something). And she may very well BE pregnant. In either event, the fact that she hasn't cycled by now is a red flag, and if she ISN'T pregnant and you think you might still want to breed her sometime, I'd suggest doing a good repro workup on her, with a culture, etc., to make sure everything is ok. Heidi ============================================================ Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. ~ Homer Saferwiffle ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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