Equine Reproduction
How to tell if your horse is in heat
All mares show heat uniquely. Some mares will show many signs of estrus while others will show none at all.
Typical signs include: urinating repeatedly, tail raising, gait abnormalities and unpredictable interactions with people and horses.
A heat cycle typically lasts 5 to 7 days.
Once the mare has ovulated the heat cycle will have ended and they will be in a diestrus state for 14-15 days.
Horses are seasonal polyestrus animals. This means that they come into heat in the spring (March/April) until the fall (October/November).
If your horse is having abnormal heat cycles this may be signs of uterine infection, ovarian cysts or tumors.
Managing Estrus
Ingestible Progesterone (Regu-mate)
Lutalyse injection
Transrectal Ultrasounds
Transrectal ultrasounds are used to check the stage of a mares heat cycle, confirm pregnancy, and to check for foal conformation in the later stages of pregnancy.
This can be useful for owners who are breeding using shipped semen.
Breeding Your Mare
Our clinic will work with you, your breeding manager, and the stallion owner to breed your mare.
Through regular ultrasounds we can time the breeding date around ovulation.
We will work with fresh chilled semen sent through Fedex or UPS. We also will assist with live cover.
Breeding Issues
If your mare is not able to be bred or is having irregular heat cycles then we will need to perform diagnostic work to find out exactly what is wrong.
This can include breeding soundness exams which can include palpation, transrectal ultrasounds, vaginal examination, and vaginoscopy. For further diagnosis, we may obtain a uterine culture or uterine biopsy.
All diagnostic work is best performed while they are in heat.
For stallions we can perform a breeding soundness exam to check the quality of the semen.
Stallion Collection
For owners that want to ship their stallions semen, or inseminate their mares with raw semen, we can collect using our onsite breeding phantom.
Stallion collection is performed at the discretion of the veterinarian.