Help! Twin embryos!

K

keeperscottage

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 June 2007
Messages
1,357
Location
Hertfordshire
Visit site
Our lovely mare, Scare McClare, has been at stud for a month now and we were contacted by the stud this afternoon to say that she'd been scanned in foal, but there were twins so one was "scraped out". They would scan her again next week, and if there was a heartbeat, we could take her home (YIPPEE!). How common is this? My daughter is now convinced that her beloved mare is going to have a deformed foal! Has anyone out there come across this before? Should we be panicking? Love to hear from you!
 
Very common in TBs, less so in others. Twins are generally a bad thing for the mare (and foals) so they have been "pinching" one of the twins for a long time. This is one of the reasons where there is a second early scan to check if there are twins and deal accordingly.
 
Thanks, Wishful! Scare McClare's a TB and this is her second foal (her daughter is now 7 years old). I tried to ring her previous owner (who is a friend of mine) this afternoon to see whether this happened when he bred from her. (She's actually gone to the same stud and has been covered by the son of her first "husband" - first hubby, Primitive Rising, sadly now deceased). I'm desperate for this venture to be successful - couldn't bear it if something went wrong! Can we look on the positive side? My daughter is paranoid that the foal will now be what she calls "a mong"!!!!
 
Don't know a huge amount - OH is the vet, not me! However if horses which were twins weren't "right" vets wouldn't do the pinching (which has been standard practice for a LONG time) and it would have been largely bred out by now.
 
Snap! I've had the same news myself today!

Had a call a fortnight ago to say that Swallow had put up twins and one was pinched.
Last week, son gets a message for me to say that she is ok, still in foal, great relief!
Today, I get an email to say during scanning they found twins so it's been terminated! we're now back to the drawing board again.

My question is, did they botch up last time and not pinch anything out or did she actually have triplets in there?!

Now she will be covered again as many times as she will stand and then she can come home where we will scan her as I don't want a foal any later. It's a bit de`je vue (can't spell that!) as far as this stud is concerned too.

It's usually TBs that put up twins but saying that, it could well be more common than we think, just that TBs are scanned regularly and many ponies aren't so some could slip through without us knowing and as they usually expel one or both during later on in pregnancy, many times, you wouldn't have known they were carrying twins.

As Wishful said, they've been pinching out for some years now and it is a very safe procedure. The theory and practise is it is better to lose both if one can't be pinched out or they're too close together and then cover again, than it is to produce twins. Some mares can be prone to it but not always.

Good luck!
 
Thanks, MFH_09! Your post was most helpful, and I hope all goes well your mare, Swallow. I've just spoken to our mare's previous owner (who's married to a vet) and he said he would speak to his wife about the problem, but was 99% sure all would be okay!
 
My New Forset mare, Teazle, was in-foal with twins last year. A successful pinching was carried out, lucily each embryo was in each horn. I was told it was very rare in Natives (typical)
smirk.gif
as its been bred out of them.

But twins are common, so don't panick. Fingers crossed for you and Good Luck
grin.gif
 
Mine conceived twins last year [one in each horn] and vet crushed one. No problems and I have a lovely filly foal [even though she's rapidly going grey!]. She was scanned a couple of days after the twin was crushed just to make sure the other one was OK and then again at 30 days when she could go home. Like someone else said, twins are very common in TBs (apparently something like 60% of TB mares conceive twins) and mine's half-TB so we'll be keeping a close eye on her again this year!
 
This sounds a lot like she had two embryos and a cyst. In the early stages, uterine cysts can look a lot like concepti, so it's quite possible that they could have tried pinching a cyst. Either that, or they didn't pinch adequately. I'm not sure about triplets - it's pretty unusual to get more than 2 ovulations at the same time.

Good luck for the next time around!

Jamie
 
oh dont worry i had the same experience last year but was told at the next scan she had aborted the other embryo which was sad UNTIL 4 months later when i then found out she was still in foal !!!!

I am now awaiting my baby to be born !!

they normally squish the smaller of the 2 but mine were both the same size !!
 
Dont worry both my mare and my friends mare were in foal with twins last year, the vet pinched out one and they have both given birth to healthy foals this year, its fairly common practice. Our foal seems huge, I can see why mares can have problems having twins. Good luck
 
Hannah threw up twins last year when she was covered. They found them at the 14 day scan, pinched one, then scanned again at 15 days to discover whether the remaining embryo had survived the evening. It had... so then we had to wait for the 28 days scan to see whether it also had a heart beat. Which again, it did!

11 months later she had a big healthy colt (who is now 3 1/2 months old) so I would not worry about the effects of it being a twin. Usually it is because the mare produces more than one egg, and it seems to be more common than I first thought. My mare is IDxTB, but got quite a bit of bone to her
smile.gif
 
One of our mares has foaled 3 times....2 of the seperate times she was scanned she was in foal to twins. The first time this happened both were aborted and she was served up again, and produced a very healthy filly. Next foal she had was fine, and then to her 3rd she was scanned again for twins, which in this case one was pinched re-absorbed and we had a very healthy, VERY stunning colt
 
Once again, thank you everyone who has posted on the subject of twins! You really have all helped to put my mind at rest and we look forward to having our mare back in the field and resuming her position as top of the pecking order!

Thanks again, everyone!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top