The success of the Ontario Veterinary College’s (OVC) Equine Reproductive Service can often be seen right outside the facility doors in the turnout pasture.
For the past seven years, Karen Rutherford has been bringing her mare Cora to OVC for breeding. One look at her latest foal, eight-week-old Molly, who is co-owned and bred with Daniel Ingratta, underscores the success of this program.
Rutherford, a Registered Veterinary Technician at the University of Guelph’s OVC, has been breeding hunter/jumper horses for 17 years. As part of the Theriogenology team, she combines her interest in reproductive medicine with a variety of species. Cora, a Dutch warmblood by the stallion Corland, was bred by Rutherford and now is producing her own foals.
Karen Rutherford with Cora (photo credit
R.
Gullett)
Quality of care is one reason she chooses OVC, but above all it is the expertise available at the College.
“Why not work with a theriogenologist who specializes in this area and has seen just about everything?” asks Rutherford.
“Our focus is on diagnosis and treatment of fertility problems in male and female animals,” says Dr. Tracey Chenier, a board-certified theriogenologist and associate professor at OVC. Chenier and her team at the Equine Reproductive Centre offer a variety of services including fertility evaluations of mares and stallions, semen collection and evaluation, management of mares for fresh or frozen-semen artificial insemination (AI), embryo transfer and pregnancy evaluations.
Year-over-year, the service has consistently run at more than a 75 per cent pregnancy rate per cycle, says Chenier. The industry average is considered to be 50 per cent. This is because we manage the mares the way we do, adds Chenier.
Reproductive clients are housed in the Equine Sports Medicine and Reproduction Centre, completely separate from the OVC Large Animal Hospital so mares and their foals have no contact with sick horses in the hospital. The Centre offers a home-like atmosphere for equine clients, with large, airy box stall, a big barn, an individualized feeding program and daily turnout.
“The number of days a mare spends at the facility depends on where she is in her cycle when she arrives,” adds Chenier. “A typical stay is less than four days for frozen semen AI. Most come when they are in heat and ready to be bred.” Clients provide the frozen semen which is stored in nitrogen tanks until the mare is ready to be bred.
“We can offer frequent monitoring for ovulation that allows us to breed mares with frozen semen right on top of ovulation. We get excellent fertility rates with this,” says Chenier.
The increasing use of frozen semen has dramatically improved the quality of horses here in Canada in the last 10 or 20 years, she adds.
Rutherford mainly uses frozen semen and some fresh semen from stallions such as Banderas, allowing her to purchase from anywhere in the world. The wide pool of high-quality sires allows her to select for specific traits, such as athletic ability, confirmation, temperament and jumping form. Just a few of the sires she has been successful in getting foals from include, Voltaire, Balou du Rouet, for Pleasure, Popeye K and Corland.
In addition to the successful breeding program, experts at OVC often treat mares that are having difficulty getting pregnant. “We often see mares that have been barren for a while, so they’re not cycling normally and have some difficulty getting pregnant,” says Chenier. “We don’t know where they are in their cycle or what the specific issue is, so they will come for a full workup.”
This includes cultures, biopsy and ultrasound to determine the best options to restore fertility. In most cases, therapies or treatments and improvements to reproductive management will rectify the situation, she adds.
If there are significant aging or fibrotic changes in the uterus, clients may need to look at alternatives. Embryo transfer may be a good option in those cases. This allows those mares to have offspring even though they can’t carry a foal successfully, says Chenier.
Chenier suggests referring veterinarians look at proactive approaches to reproductive issues with their clients. “If veterinarians have mares in their practice that haven’t gotten pregnant, they could send them to us in the fall for a full reproductive workup. We can make recommendations for treatment and get the mare ready to breed for success the following year,” she adds.
Rutherford plans to continue to bring Cora back to OVC and hopes for more foals like Molly.
“The quality of care at OVC is second to none. Why not bring your mare
here and have outstanding expertise work with her?” adds Rutherford.
Cora and Molly