Anyone else having problems with mares cycling??

Anastasia

Anastasia

Well-Known Member
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30 December 2004
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Over The Rainbow
www.morayfirthstud.co.uk
Well I dont know about the rest of you but we are having REAL problems with our mares this year not cycling properly. Worse with the mares that have foals at foot.

I have spoken to several other breeders in Scotland and some in England and they are all saying the same. If you were lucky enough to get your mare bred in April you were laughing, but trying to get anything from May onwards has been a real trial.

Was speaking to a vet yesterday who said that one mare had the same sized follicle for 50 days!!

We have had mares on Regumate and PG injections and some are still doing nothing at all. I think the weather (cold, wet and windy) we are getting has been a major contributing factor in all of this because we have never had problems like this before with our mares as they are normally so easy to bred to.

Just wondered how everyone else was getting on just now........
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Know where you are coming from exactly but have managed to get 4 pregnancies in the last week unfortunately none of our own mares as yet!!!!!!
 
We've had good success with our mares so far this year; but I must say that we've had some big problems with vets - lots of vets who "know what they're doing" but are in fact being very inefficient, and sometimes doing terrifying things and making ridiculous suggestions.

So, my first query would be: How experienced is the vet you are using? Especially if they're using progestin/Regumate & prostaglandin - are they aware that if not used correctly, mares can ovulate during the Regumate treatment? I've heard of lots of people who are not aware of this, and hence are chasing follicles at the wrong part of the mare's cycle.

I guess it is quite possible that the weather is playing havoc with the mares' cycling, but since they are mostly controlled by length of day/light, the cold and rain shouldn't necessarily cause you big problems.

Have the mares been moved to different grazing/stabling from last year? There are bacter/fungi called endophytes which can effectively stop mares cycling if ingested. I imagine that the weather could have increased endophyte growth.

Anyway, how are the mares kept? How many? How are they being checked/monitored?
 
I have heard a LOT of people have had problems with their mares, I'm so glad I've decided not to put anything in-foal this year TBH. And yes, i think its definitely down to the weather.
 
One mare was put on Regumate for 10 days and jabbed with PG on the 11th day and still no signs (this is not scanning every day as we are not in the right part of the country to have someone on hand for doing that all the time). We are teasing on the most part with the stallion twice daily although getting a heap scanned this afternoon. 3 mares were jabbed twice with PG only, space of 7 days between (this was at the recommendation from the company who makes it). One came into season and is now bred with, the other two are showing nothing at all, despite daily teasing. Funnily enough both have foals at foot.

There has been no change in any regime at all from previous years. Mares are outside all day (6am - 7pm) in the same paddocks and stabled at nights with hay and correct diet of feed inc minerals etc from nutritionist.

We have two mares at home both with foals at foot showing no cycling. Had their foal heats etc but nothing since. One our own mare who is normally the easiest mare to bred with. The second for a client.

We also sent two mares away for insemination who also required to be given PG but they were being scanned several times a day and have since been bred to and we are now awaiting the results. However one ran a silent heat as she showed no interest in the teaser stallion, they only caught her due to consistent scanning.

Like I say, because of the part of the world we live in we are not able to scan the mares at home daily.

I agree that most mares are dependant on light etc but I do think heat has a lot to do with it as well. We have friends who breed Hanoverians in Idaho and they are getting tremendous high temps just now and their mares are not cycling either and the vets have put it down to the fact the temperature is a very unseasonal 36 degrees.

We are in the North of Scotland and actually get more daylight hours than England in general, so if going on daylight hours alone then we should not be having this problem.......
 
OH yes, indeed, tell me about it!!! I am almost at the stage of giving up for this year.

My mare foaled (no problems at all) technically 12 days late on 26th April. She had no signs of a season at all (and the stud were checking her) until the end of May. I wanted to put her back in-foal at her next season. . . . . this is where is starts going pear-shaped. They gave her a PG injection to bring her in for the middle of June. She came in and they scanned her at the beginning of her 4th day in season, she'd already ovulated. So they left it a week and injected her again - that was last Saturday and scanned her first thing Tuesday morning. This time nothing, no sign of her coming into season, no follicles, nothing. They were supposed to scan her again today but thus far I've heard nothing from them. I was hoping to have to go and get semen any minute now but . . . .
If she's not in season with this injection I'm going to call it a day for this year as I don't want a late foal next year. Fortunately the stud with the stallion I want to use are being really nice about but I am keeping them posted on all (non)developments.

The stud have said that all the mares are doing peculiar things this year. They have all foaled late and all are having strange cycles. Is it the weird weather, do you think. We have had plenty of rain down here but without flooding, thank goodness, but it's quite cold. I've had the central heating back on - it's the end of June, for God's sake. Global warming? I think not!
 
We have been lucky enough to get 2 in foal in the last month, however the other mare (who is the most randy creature that ever lived) has had 2 prostaglandins and nothing....not a thing and she's on the walker with our stallion daily!
TBH we've given up it's getting a bit late. My vets tearing his hair out as has mares doing nothing all over yorkshire
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Our mares can't cycle at all...........I might try to teach them to drive the wagon though - that might help.....sorry..........
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Mine weren't too bad until I took the stabilizer wheels off!
 
my mare was 48hrs out of season when she went to stud so they jabbed her,scanned her every other day covered her (the tart stood as good as gold for the stallion!!
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and scanned her on 17th day............no foal!!
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shes been covered again and fingers crossed it worked
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this time as there was no reason for her not to be in foal, no infection, fluid etc a friend has her mare at same stud and shes not in foal either same thing happened with her! the stud is desperate to get some of the girls home as they are very full at the mo, none of the girls tho this year seem to be catchin or havin seasons! bet the boys are lovin it!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Thank goodness we've got thoroughbreds as they were covered during our sunny season in February and all of them took first time and are all due to foal within 10 days of each other from mid-January. Good luck with everyone still trying.
 
We didnt have any bother with the early mares it the last batch that we have had in and some in season no follicles appearing and going out of season again,
Some have a big follicle but not in season PG them and they are coming into season and ovulating 24 hrs after jab and then not in foal even though you have covered them spot on.
Absolute bloody nightmare never known a year like it.
Except my own mares and yearlings who we dont want to cover that are squirting at anything that moves.
 
Snap! Same problem. All the signs were good last month, but no baby! Showed no signs of coming back into season so the vet scanned here again and said send her straight back to the stud...

She and the stallion are out in the field acting like an old married couple; spend their days yawning and sleeping...inseparable, but look as if they're only interested in holding hands!!!!
 
God Yes! Trust this to be the year I send my mare away to stud!! Rose has had awful probs coming into season and then when she was there was fluid. Scan on Monday to check pregnancy but not holding out much hope!
 
bracken would be in seventh heaven if she was allowed to roam with 'hubby'!!!..............trust me to pick this year though!!............i have got everythin crossed that she's taken this time as dont want a late baby if can help it!!..........wonder is the mares and stallions are in cahoots so they get more fun with each other with out the babies??
 
It seems to be a problem for a lot of people this year. I know someone who sent their mare to stud in March and she took first time. However the problems seem to have been occuring since the weather took a turn for the worse, but maybe it's a coincidence.
 
Having looked back through archives of various breeding forums (what a geek), I've noticed this type of comment appearing year after year (all around May-July):

1999 "This is a bad year"
2000 "Dang this is a bad year"
2001 "the vets here are saying they've had a very bad year this year"
2002 "..but this has been a bad year"
2003 "This is an awful year for us"
2004 "we are having a horrible breeding year...."
2005 "Very Bad Year Here i really don't know exactly what's causing all the repro problems in our area"
2006 "The terrible luck we've had with breeding this year..."
2007... Just read this thread.

Every year about this time you will start to see the "it's a bad season here" posts coming through.

Basically, every year someone somewhere has a bad time of it. But if you look at all the data available from vets and research studies, the percentage of successful conceptions doesn't change. Those of you who are having a bad time, the law of averages (or luck, whichever you prefer) states that you will probably have a good season next time around (unless you're doing something wrong of course, in which case averages don't count for you, or you can see it as bad luck
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I think this is all very true but on the whole we dont get many problems the last time was a very similar year to now was in 2002 when it was very wet in June.
The mares were being very idifficult then all of a sudden the sun came out and the mares came into season and were all scanned in foal.
In fact we had so many come into season at the same time the stallions were covering 3 times a day.
So the weather definately has a bearing.
 
i know a few people who put there horses in foal last year, they where sent early but didnt catch till july and august! so few late foals due now!! one friend almost gave up and was on way to get mare when stud called tlo say mare at long last in foal!
 
Andypandy, we have been breeding very successfully for several years now and never experienced a year like this year. It has also been one of the wettest years during the months of May and July, coupled with fog in our area that did not shift for 11-12 days followed by continuous rain.

We have never had the amount of mares we have had this year going onto Regumate or PG injections. We must be our vets best friend just now......
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This year we are breeding mares via natural and AI and both are having their problems with different people, so everybody cannot be doing a bad job.
 
We don't use regumate but have found three injections of 2mls of PG 48 hours apart for mares proving difficult has worked well for us both last year and this. From what I understand its a practice used in areas of New Zealand and Australia where vets have to routinely fly in to do all the stud work in a short period of time then fly out again. Or when the stallion is made availible for a short period of time for natural service tying it in with the vets visit.

If the mare is showing in season after the second injection we do not inject the third. Obviously its very important to have a follice to work with and be sure that your not too close to a previous ovulation or it will do more harm than good.

Is it possible that the mares are short cycling and the ovulations are being missed?
 
Opie I have no idea if they are short cycling. We live quite far North and dont have good horse vets on hand to continually scan the mares. Lucky if we get it once a week and even then it is costing a premium as the vets are an hours drive away!!

Of the mares scanned on Friday last week we had three with good CLs present and were given 1ml of PG. The one without foal has come into season and bred to last night. The two with foals are still being teased with no success. Have the vet coming back on Thursday to re-scan.

It took a lot of persuasion for our own vets to give a PG injection 7 days apart, let alone every two days!! The downside to not have good horse vets on hand.
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Nightmare .. excuse the pun.. you might want to look into the ovulator and extrenal scanners that are now availible on the market.
 
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