I recently had two of my mares, mother and daughter, spayed. The
mother is 13 years old and, shall we say, very demonstrative when she was in
heat. She also could be cranky at times, and she was bad to pin her ears
at us if she was loose. Once she had a halter on, she had good ground
manners and was good under saddle.
Her daughter, on the other hand, could be downright dangerous when horses
other than her herd mates were around. She would flit and then try to kick
the snot out of them. Her behavior didn't make her very much fun to
ride in a group.
I put her on Regumate for a month first and found that it worked well, but
I wanted something permanent. I researched ovariectomies a bit and decided
on LSU. They quoted a price of $800 to $1000 per mare, no discount for
more than one :-( . I probably wouldn't have done it if it had just been
the older mare, but I decided to take both of them since the six year old was
going.
The horse must be off food 24 hours before surgery. They
did laproscopic surgery with the mare standing. They make a 3 or 4
inch incision in the flanks. Mine stayed at LSU for three days.
Once home they were stalled for 2 weeks, then turned out in a small paddock
for another 2 weeks before going out into the big pasture. At 5
weeks they can go back to whatever you were doing before.
I will say that I am very pleased with the results on both of my mares, and
it was money well spent. I figure for $1,600 I got rid of two witches that
were replaced by much nicer horses. I have ridden the younger mare a lot
since the surgery and she acts totally different. For the most part, she
ignores geldings that previously she would have been flitting with.
And neither mare does any ear pinning now.
If you are considering it, talk to a veterinarian at one of the
colleges. I highly recommend LSU if you are close enough.
