Has Anyone had a mare sterilized?

[carlenehorse]

Wondering if anyone has had a mini mare sterilized. Wanting to know what the risk are? What was the recovery time? How did the mare react? Cost of the sterilization.

Thanks Carlene

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

I've helped overectomize a half dozen big mares. There are several ways to do it. The traditional method is a flank surgery, usually standing, where they make an insicion on each side of the mare and remove the overy that way. They alternative is to go in vaginally, make a single hole, and remove both through that one hole. The benefits of this method are: no scars; much faster healing; and much cheaper. The drawback of that method is there is a small risk of herniation, and therefore the mare must be tied in a stall for two days and not allowed to lay down or roll. I'm not sure you could do this version of the surgery with a mini mare though.

It is abdominal surgery to go in with flank cuts. There will be a scar, and the healing process takes a few weeks. There aren't many "side effects" really... its pretty straight forward. Cost varies dramatically from one part of the country to the other. One place I worked at charged $700 or so for the flank version... the last place I worked charged $250 for the vaginal method.

My biggest question is why do you feel this is nessesary? There are generally only two reasons to have an ovex mare... first, as a tease mare. Those are pretty common... its easy to give injections of estrogen and bring an ovex mare into heat. There is no progesterone from ovulated follicles (CL's) to prevent the mare from showing, making them on-demand tease mares. The other common reason for removing overies is to remove a tumor.

If your reason is your mare (no offense) is a hussy, you need to think long and hard about this. If she is a tease, she may not change once her overies are removed. Showing heat is not just the active expression of estrogen.. its also the lack of progesterone. Without progesterone keeping her out of heat, even if she lacks estrogen she may show heat and may try to attract the boys. This is why some mares appear to be cycling during the winter even though their overies and hormones are completely shut down. If this is the reason you are thinking about it, you might consider progesterone supplimentation, through long acting injections or through Regumate. You might find the results more to your liking.

 

[carlenehorse]

No the reason is that she produced a dwarf foal and I don'thave the pastures to keep her from my stallion. She is a wonderful mare and my son loves to show her. She is part of the family and I will never breed her again. I was looking into another alternative.

Thanks Carlene

 

[backwoodsnanny]

I also have a mare that I wished I could afford to make permanently infertile. Helen's mom. I would like to sterilize her for much the same reason. I dont want to ever take a chance on her being bred again and I do have paddocks where she can be separated but I have been around these little guys long enough to know that accidents do happen. If she were sterilized there would never be a worry about her having any more babies.

 

[miniwhinny]

I just looked into it since Twoie's dystocia has prevented her from being able to have babies again and I can't afford an "accident" it would kill her. My vet, who is very good told me not to do it. She said it's not like spaying a cat or dog. For horses it's major surgery and a very hard recovery and with Twoie's low pain threshold she didn't think Twoie could take it. She said when we get Twoie better we'll discuss medical sterilization methods...or just keeping her and my stud apart at all times.

 

[chandab]

Provided it would be safe... I wonder if the "shot" they use to temporarily sterilize wild horses to control herd numbers would work for domestic horses? I realize it only lasts a year or two, but I've still wondered about it.

 

[carlenehorse]

Chanda

That could be another idea. She delivered the dwarf last night around 9:30PM and that baby wants to live.

I have been syringe feeding her and she is a little pistol. Her tongue sticks out and she can't latch onto the nipple. She is super tiny and we are calling her Precious for as long as she stays with us.

I am giving her every fighting chance.

Carlene

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

The zona vaccines and GnRH vaccines aren't QUITE ready yet... they are effective and all but still aren't completely worked out. They are certainly an option though... I'll see if I can't dig up the brand names so you can ask your vet if they can purchase them for you.

 

[Lisa-Ruff N Tuff Minis]

Chanda

That could be another idea. She delivered the dwarf last night around 9:30PM and that baby wants to live.

I have been syringe feeding her and she is a little pistol. Her tongue sticks out and she can't latch onto the nipple. She is super tiny and we are calling her Precious for as long as she stays with us.

I am giving her every fighting chance.

Carlene

Good for you. we had our dwarf Sadie with us for a little over a year and HUGE vet bills i mean HUGE and was with the surgon and the other vets donating there services for a large portion of it but I can say honestly she taught me and my family more in her year of life then I think we could have learned in years about so many different things. Was worth every penny and then some

 

[carlenehorse]

Thanks Nathan I appreciate any help on these products.

Lisa she is alreay a part of our lives and she is not even 24 hours old yet.

If anyone wants to see a picture I would have to e-mail it for someone to post it for me.

Thanks Carlene

 

[Bluerocket]

A Vet here in KY will insert a STERILE SURGICAL marble in a mare to act like an IUD -- I don't know what the success rate is with it --- we wanted to do that to our dwarf mare - turns out her pelvic opening is so tiny he could not find an insertion tube nor surgical marble small enough for her -- I kinda figured we did not need it if the opening was ThAT TINY.

You might check into that.

JJay

 

[carlenehorse]

Thanks Jjay I appreciate the information.

Someone PM'd me about them posting a picture. I can't figure out this PM for nothing. Could you e-mail me at

cjfontenotgt.rr.com

Thanks Carlene

 

[chandab]

The zona vaccines and GnRH vaccines aren't QUITE ready yet... they are effective and all but still aren't completely worked out. They are certainly an option though... I'll see if I can't dig up the brand names so you can ask your vet if they can purchase them for you.

Nathan,

If you come across that information, I'd appreciate a PM, too. I have a mare that I don't want bred (I have no intention of ever breeding her, but stallions often have a mind of their own and can be very determined).

Thanks.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

JJ, the success rate on those depends on who's watching... its entirely a placebo effect. Many mares spit the marble out within a few weeks, others get infections from them. Human's and mare's reproductive systems are very similar, but not in this respect.

 

[miniwhinny]

My fear with chemical sterilizations is what would happens should the mare be sold. We never, ever intend on selling Twoie, that little girl has a life long place here with us, but I'm the horse person and if anything happened to me I'd hate to think of anyone buying her and breeding her. I have a vet app. this Tuesday so I'll talk more with my vet then.

Seems like Nathan is a wealth of info though. Thanks Nathan.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

The only reference I was able to find of a brand name drug was Improvac, made by CSL Limited, Australia. Its a GnRH vaccine. There is at least one other brand avalible. I'm not sure if the zona vaccines are commercially avalible... its porcine anti-zona protien antibody. They have been shown to be 95% effective with a single annual injection. ("Porcine zona pellucida (PZP) immunocontraception of wild horses (Equus caballus) in Nevada: a 10 year study." Reprod Suppl. 2002;60:177-86.)

I did find a paper that showed contraception using an "o" ring IUD... it causes "uterine cytology and histopathology indicat[ive] that the IUD causes mild chronic endometritis without permanent changes in the endometrium. We conclude that based on our observations, the O-ring-shaped IUD is an effective, safe and practical contraceptive method for mares." (Theriogenology. 1995 Oct;44(5):629-39.) In their six mares it prevented a fertile stallion from getting them in foal (didn't say anything about behavior in the abstract). This might prove to be much more effective than marbles... I still think it has ethical questions, but it is reversable.

 

[runamuk]

Way back when oh 10-12 years ago.....I know one of the mares in the show barn was treated with ..for lack of a better term..norplant for mares. It worked quite well for her and her owner was very pleased with the results....you might look into that as well. I know several of the universities have more programs for dealing with mare sterilization maybe do a google search and see which come up............I am thinking ohio, oregon, penn, uc davis, wazu.......

I owned a spayed mare she was my first horse and the best horse I have ever owned. She was spayed due to foal founder that almost killed her.....her entire uterus and ovaries were all removed. She had a very stable disposition.

:

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

Norplant was used once upon a time.. it too has no scientific backing to it. The drug in it was proven to be ineffective at modifying behavior or maintaining pregnancy. Works for humans, but does not work for mares. The only injectable that works is natural progesterone in a time release formula, requiring weekly injections.

Norplant is another placebo unfortunately...

 

[runamuk]

Norplant was used once upon a time.. it too has no scientific backing to it. The drug in it was proven to be ineffective at modifying behavior or maintaining pregnancy. Works for humans, but does not work for mares. The only injectable that works is natural progesterone in a time release formula, requiring weekly injections.

Norplant is another placebo unfortunately...

Thats nice.

As I said this was a slow releasing implant used to stop the mare from cycling and might be worth investigating as it did not require daily or weekly injections or oral administration, and was not overly cost prohibitive. The other benefit was it was not permanent so down the road they could breed the mare if they so chose.

 

[Nathan Luszcz]

Right... I'm saying that you are correct in thinking it was Norplant, and it actually does not work. I sure wish it did! It would be very nice to have a single injection that was reversable. That injection (and marbles) have been shown to stop mares from showing heat in the same percentage of mares as those that stop spontaneously.