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AI happens every day---either a then-and-there sort of thing with the
mare and stallion both on the premises, or using cooled, transported and
sometimes frozen semen. At Cal Poly, we use AI exclusively with Reign
On, because he's not very nice to mares and owners don't want their
mares coming home with bites. Otherwise, it's very common for a popular
stallion to have a single semen collection extended and split among
several mares, as when it's done right, the fertility rates are equal to
natural cover and sometimes even higher in mares that are susceptible to
infection. A reasonably fertile stallion has more than enough motile
spermatozoa to go around.
I happen to prefer AI because my broodmare doesn't travel well, I don't
have the time to go driving her all over anyway, and I'd rather pay for
a Fed Ex shipment of Goo-to-Go and have my long-suffering vet on hand to
deal with it. You have to either really know your mare's natural cycle
to inseminate her at the right time, or bring her in with Prostin, have
your vet come by at appropriate times to check for follicle size and
time the stallion semen's arrival so you introduce sperm to egg at the
right time. All of which your vet will know how to do, they do ALOT of
it.
Using a surrogate mare isn't quite as common, but still pretty common.
Your mare and the proposed surrogate mom are brought into a synchronous
cycle with Prostin. Your mare is inseminated and hopefully, the egg
fertilized there in the oviduct like normal. Before the fertilized egg
implants into the wall of the uterus, it's flushed and put into the
uterus of the surrogate mare and that's that. At least in theory. My
mare (same one as above) has been used twice in the past as a surrogate
mom and did just dandy both times, producing some really outstanding
foals from a show mom that had better things to do. She never knew they
weren't hers and we never had the heart to tell her that big strapping
TB mares do not generally produce purebred Arabian foals without alot of
help.
One of the nice advantages of using a surrogate mare who's done all this
before over your own (I assume maiden) mare is that you'll often get a
nicer, bigger foal out of it. Developing foals grow to the capacity of
the uterus they're squashed into and if a foal is in a bigger, roomier
uterus than a maiden's, the fetus will be larger at least at birth.
Experienced mares are also generally better moms (already knowing the
ropes) and are usually better milkers than maidens, though not always.
It's hard to beat a really savvy old broodmare who knows exactly what
going on and how to deal with this new little stranger. So if you are
going to use a surrogate, be sure to find one that you already know for
sure is a great mom.
It is possible to freeze stallion semen, but you'll lose about 50% in
the freezing and thawing, so cooled semen and a fast Fed Ex service is
better. It's also possible to freeze fertilized embryos, but I don't
think this is very commonly done. Unless you're planning on waiting for
twenty years to implant the embryo, why not just wait until you're ready
to breed and do it all with umm...fresh produce, as it were? I know at
Cal Poly we froze embryos as a class assignment, but what the viability
% is, I don't know. It just so happens my stepdaughter is the product
of human frozen embryo implantation, and in her case it took sixteen
fertilized embryos to get one live birth. But that's a different
species, anyway. For that matter, saying that Lila Marie's biological
mother is a "different species" is about as diplomatic as I can get this
late at night. But let's not get started on THAT.
The registries do have plenty of rules regarding AI or any sort of
fiddling around. In the case of AHR, you have to get a permit before
you do ANYTHING to breed the mare, breed the stallion, transport semen,
tra la tra la. The permit for transported semen for the mare is $150,
for the stallion $100 if he doesn't already have it (most do these
days), which are good for the life of the horse, not just this one
time. Embryo transfer permit is $250. Lots of paperwork. If you used
a surrogate mare, the foal is registered as the offspring of the mare
that produced the egg, not the mare that carried the foal. Registering
the foal costs the same $50 for non-members regardless of how the foal
got there. They won't let you register multiples from the same
procedures, such as you can't superovulate the mare, fertilize and
implant a dozen surrogate mares, wait until they all foal, pick out the
best of the bunch and then register THAT one, or the Top Three, or any
monkey business like that. I'm pretty sure you're allowed ONE
registered foal from ONE breeding, but I'm not real sure about those
details. In any case, I'm not sure the stallion owner would be
enthusiastic about you paying only one stud fee and registering two
dozen offspring. Though it might be fun to ask just to see the look on
their face :-D
Anyway, if you don't want to lose your mare for a season (and it's
longer than 11 months because you have to allow her time to raise the
foal, not just time for the pregnancy), it's a pretty good and
relatively easy thing to use a surrogate mare. I was amazed and dazzled
at how easy it was with Lady. It is going to cost more in fees to AHR
or IAHA (and they cut you ZERO slack if you want a registered foal) than
doing it the old-fashioned way, but still might be worth it to keep the
donor mare competing. Also keep in mind that if you have to lease a
surrogate mom, you're going to have to support her as well to one extent
or another during the pregnancy, as well as appreciable costs for
veterinary procedures---when I was done getting Lady settled in foal via
AI, I had spent $300 in vet bills and Mike said it was one of the
cheapest he'd had all season. And Mike Peralez is GOOD.
Hope this helps.
Susan (who isn't really into this stuff but luckily still has the
textbooks around)
Can the multiple foals all be registered to that
> stallion? Is it allowed? What about using a surrogate mare? How would
> the get be registered?
>
> Kris - I don't want to give her up for 11+ months !!!!
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