11 year old Arabian mare. Had her second foal 2.5 years ago - all went well except mare retained the placenta and refused the filly. I hand raised the filly and she thinks I am her Mom but that's a whole other topic. Tried last year and this year to breed the mare again (the 2.5 yr filly is "that" nice) but the mare is not keeping the fetus over 2 months, sometimes only keeping it a few days. When the mare is pregnant, even for a short time, she acts very stallion like, hormones I presume. Her biopsy is at a level 2 and cultures are clean. What else should we be looking at? Thank you. Cherie.
Jos
Posted on Monday, September 11, 2000 - 06:51 pm:
It is difficult to give a definitive reason in a situation like this without reviewing a variety of things, so I will give you some generalities to explore.
One of the first things to consider is the "cleanliness" of the uterus. You indicate she has a grade II uterus, which is indicative of there being some problems present in the uterus itself, although they are not usually the kiss of death at grade II. When the biopsy was performed, was there any sign of a uterine infection present? In other words, were there a high number of neutrophils present in the cytology smear if one was prepared (or in the biopsy slide itself), and were there any bacterial colonies cultured from the sample, if there was a culture carried out? If there was no cytology read and culture performed, the I would suggest that this be explored further in the absence of any indications to the contrary of the potential for a bacterial inhabitant.
If we know or assume that the uterus was "clean", then the next area to explore is fluid presence in the uterus either before or after breeding as a result of an inflammatory response to the breeding process itself (a natural occurrence), or simply as a result of delayed uterine clearance. This situation if present can often be dealt with by the use of Oxytocin pre- and post-breeding. There is more information about this available by clicking here.
Although there have never been any controlled studies, the anecdotal evidence is strong to suggest that supplementation of Progesterone in early pregnancy can assist some mares in retaining an otherwise unretainable pregnancy. This is usually done with the use of the synthetic Progesterone "Altrenogest" which is marketed under the trade name of "Regumate". This is usually started about 3 to 5 days after the mare ovulates, and is carried on until either she is checked NOT in foal, or until either about day 40, 120 or 300 as the attending clinician recommends.
As I say, it is difficult to give you specifics, but I hope that maybe these suggestions will give you something to work with!
Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2001 - 08:24 am:
I also have a mare that lost a foal at nine months, had had two healthy foals before, when we rebred she had a false pregnancy. She breeds easily...but we lose the foal between 30-60. she is normal in hormonal, her uterus has no sign of infection, everything was fine...the vets I work with specialize in repro. the second test he pulled showed a problem with placental development. This mare is too nice not to have a baby out of but I am not sure where to go from here, I made the decision not to rebreed but feel that there has to be an answer somewhere. Should I have him do another uterine test...any suggestions welcome.
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