My Embryo Transfer experiences by Judith Matthews, June 2002 After buying Wel Kantje in Germany and getting her home safely it seemed a shame not to be able to ride her and have foals as well. Someone suggested Embryo transfer. So after a few enquiries it was found that a Vet in Chrischurch was doing it with some success with a very good trotting mare that had injured her pelvis and couldn’t have her own foal. Well Christchurch is a long way from Kaitaia so had a discussion with my Vet Dr Fiona Sucich. She knew nothing about it but went off to find out. Fiona went through her list of specialists and found that Animal Breeding Services in Hamilton were doing embryo transfers in all sorts of animals but hadn’t done any horses. Of course horses are harder then anything else to do things with and more expensive. But they said they would give it a try. So we set about getting recipient mares. They suggested that they should have had one foal and be young and healthy. And you needed 4 for each donor so you could get one to synchronise with your mare. Well I borrowed and bought mares, the drawback being you have all these grass munchers living at your house! The way it goes is the donor and recipient mares have to ovulate within 48 hours of each other so the uterus of the recipient mare is in the same state as that of the donor mare and will be able to receive the embryo. After conception the embryo floats in the uterus for 9 or so days so can be flushed in this time. The optimum time seems to be around 7 days after conception. It varies with different Vets it seems. To get the mares synchronised we PG’d the recipients and had a practice run to see how long they took to ovulate. It really varies, some are 4 days and some are 8 to 9 days so our book keeping had to be fairly good. Then of course nature changes things and it doesn ’t happen the same twice. Generally though we found the time from PG to ovulation is much the same each time. Very hot weather seems to speed some of them up and generally mess things up. So we got ourselves organised and then got Wel Kantje served with fresh semen from Anamour, the transfer Vet came here it was easier then taking 5 horses to Hamilton. Well the first time we tried we didn ’t get an embryo, it was really disappointing. So we had to start all over again and it is really a lot of work palpating 5 mares for 4 or 5 days etc. The second time we tried SUCCESS and the embryo made it as well. We have a 3 year old now. We had success the year later as well but unfortunately the filly died in a paddock accident. We have a yearling filly by Dream Boy at the moment. Then I got more daring in 2000 and we used frozen semen. We got embryo ’s but apparently they aren ’t as viable and none survived. Tried again this season and got embryo ’s from 3 mares with frozen semen and at the moment one has got to 4 months in the recipient mare so we have got our fingers crossed. It is by Gymnastic Star out of my young Weltmeyer mare Weltliebe, so hopefully it will be successful. I think if the costs were all added up including our own time it is a very expensive exercise to do it the way we have done it. Now there is a service being offered for a set fee and they flush your mare and take the embryo and put it a recipient out of a herd of mares being run together, then you buy or lease the mare that was used. Then it can be returned. I found the major drawback was running the extra mares, they need all the care and attention the rest of your horses need. At the moment I am not planning to do anymore transfers here and am selling the recpient mares. But I have got to a stage of having some good imported mares that can have their own foals. For someone with a very good mare in work it is the ideal way to go, but be prepared for disappointments, but of course that is just horses.