The Breeding Process - The Mare

The Breeding Process – The Mare
By Tina Lewis, MyEquineNetwork.com Contributing Writer



If you have booked your mare to be bred to a stallion this year, or are thinking about doing that, you may want to know what is actually going on at the Stallion Station or breeding farm after you drop her off.



Breeding your mare is a process that takes several days, and sometimes weeks, so it is not always possible for you to be there when the actual breeding takes place. If you happen to be lucky enough (or know your mare’s cycle well enough) to bring your mare to the breeder’s when she is in heat and ready to be bred, you may have witnessed the process. If not, here is what should be happening, and does happen, in most cases.



First and foremost, it is always a good idea to have your mare checked by your veterinarian for breeding soundness and cultured before you drop her off to be bred. It is well worth the minimal amount it costs to know she is healthy, ready and able to conceive and carry a foal before you invest a lot of time and money into trying to get her to do just that. 



Whether your mare is being bred live cover or is going to be artificially inseminated, your mare should be teased every other day to determine when she will be coming into heat. This will establish when she will be ready to accept the stallion or become impregnated by his semen. Your breeder will bring her to him to tease (or him to her depending upon your breeder) and she will eventually exhibit signs of estrus that will tell your breeder when she is ready to begin the breeding process. Typical signs are general receptive behaviors, such as squatting to urinate (urine is cloudy), turning her back end to the stallion, and general acceptance of his presence. Signs of not being in heat are very apparent, and the biggest sign she is in heat is when they disappear. She will strike, squeal and generally try to get away from the stallion as quickly as she can. This process is very dangerous and requires an experienced handler.



A mare generally stays in standing heat from 5-7 days, so if she has been teased on a regular basis your breeder will know exactly when she came into heat, and knowing how long she should be in heat, how much time he has to get her bred. Pregnancy will happen as a mare ovulates, and ovulation occurs at the end of the heat cycle. As a result, breeding your mare on day one or two of her heat (with the exception of a foal heat which lasts only about 3 days) is a waste of the stallion’s energy and his semen. Most breeders begin breeding on day 3 or 4 of a mare’s normal heat cycle, confirmed by the teasing regimen. Knowing the previous history of a mare and her cycles is also very helpful to your breeder. This information may be asked of you at the time you drop off your mare, and is usually in the form of a Mare Information Sheet of some sort. 



 If a mare is brought into the facility and is already in full blown heat, the breeder will not know for sure when her heat cycle began and would be safer to breed right away. This is to prevent missing her ovulation in case she is on the last day of her heat cycle. He will then breed her every other day until she shows no signs of heat when teased to the stallion. Once she shows no signs of heat, she has ovulated and will not breed. It is not necessary to breed every day since stallion semen is viable for up to 48 hours in the mare. Breeding more often than that is simply putting viable semen on top of viable semen and is not necessary.



The key is to have viable semen inside the mare’s reproductive tract when she ovulates. In the absence of ultrasounds, breeding her every other day during her heat cycle until she shows no signs of heat should accomplish that.



If your mare is being bred live cover, her tail will be wrapped so it stays out of the way, and she will be washed and rinsed thoroughly (rinsing is especially important as soap is spermicidal) so dirt, bacteria or debris do not compromise conception or carrying the foal to full term. She will be put back into her stall or pen after breeding and the tail wrap has been removed.



If your mare is being bred by artificial insemination, the stallion will be 
collected, the semen evaluated, your mare washed, rinsed and her tail wrapped. 
In general, she will be put      
into breeding stocks to protect the breeder from being kicked while inseminating her with the semen. The semen is put into a sterile syringe after evaluation, attached to a pipette, and, with a sterile, gloved, lubricated hand, inserted and guided into her vagina and her relaxed cervix for insemination. The semen is injected through the pipette into the cervix. Usually about 50 milliliters of raw semen is used from one ejaculate, depending upon the outcome of the evaluation of his semen. If more than one mare needs to be bred that day, calculations will need to be done to determine how many mares can be bred and a Teasing Protocol will determine which mares will need to be bred with the ejaculate that day. Collecting the stallion the next day may be necessary to breed additional mares that may be ready to breed if semen volume was not sufficient to breed them all. Semen Extender may also be used in some cases to help increase the Volume, especially when the Concentration of the semen is very high. 



 In each case, the mare would then be watched very closely during teasing between 14 and 17 days after she last showed signs of heat to see if she again shows signs of heat or Estrus. Estrus lasts 5-7 days, and Diestrus ( the period between heats ) is about 14 days - for a total of 21 days in her cycle. If she does show sign of heat, then the teasing and breeding process must be repeated, as she is most likely not pregnant. If she does not show any signs of heat, she needs to be checked for a possible pregnancy by a veterinarian.




Here is a great link to go to see every thing you could ever need to know about Breeding from square 1:
http://www.thehorse.com/TopicSearch/Default.aspx?nid=5&n=Breeding%2FReproduction