Can a broodmare produce a small amount of milk even if open?

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Leeana

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Let me start off by saying, my laptop crashed a couple months ago - the laptop that I kept all my breeding dates on for the crosses I did in 2010 for 2011. My memory is not the greatest, however, I know this mare was handbred the middle of April (Est day, I want to say April 19th) and then perhaps the last week or first week of May, however..I cannot say for sure she was bred that second time. Anyway, she is semi large in the belly...she is a borderline 38" mare, bred to a 33" stallion. She is an older mare, 20 years old "been there done that" when it comes to foaling...and she has a very slight bag, its just a bit puffy and I can express a couple drops of milk. So she is producing milk - so she cannot be open?

So I guess my question is - if she took on the April 19th breeding, she would be 342 days due on March 27th.....making her today 339 days in foal. If she took the second breeding (which I cannot say I have the exact date for that), she would be about 320 days in foal today.

I guess i'm asking for thoughts on if she is bred or not, I'm hoping for bred as this would be a 3/4 sibling to my perlino show colt, Taker..

Advice ? Thank you
 
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Milk production has little to do with actually being pregnant. Mares can produce milk years after having a foal, I've seen it many times.

We have had a mare here with a false pregnancy, too, that was producing milk (had a foal prior though) and had us totally fooled.

Andrea
 
My broodmares almost always continue to produce a skim milk coloured liquid even when not bred, especially if they had a foal the year before.
 
I had a 20 year old mare that I was always able to express milk from all the time.To make it even better if she was bred she would become pregnant looking like normal the following spring, her bag would get bigger, she would start looking like she might be ready to foal and right around when she was due she would stop those behaviours, she would slim right up and her bag would dry up. Go Figure? We never did figure out if this was caused by a false pregnancy or if her body was just so uesd to going through these changes year after year it just did it on its own.
 
When our mare had a "false" pregnancy in 2007 (she was US in foal early on) she bagged up right on schedule based on her breeding dates, produced milk that I tested and it even progressed across the color chart and then stopped. That was when I got suspicious and had an external US that showed she was open. She had had 2 foals before, not sure if that matters. But yes, a mare can certainly produce milk and be open.

ETA: I keep all my breeding dates the old fashioned way - hand written in a notebook and on the calendar.
 
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One of my mares last year, also had a "false pregnancy". She had two foals prior to that, and was ultrasounded in foal very early on by her previous owner. I bought her, and as her due date came along, she was actually dripping "milk" or "white fluid"...However her bag wasn't full, and then the dripping stopped a few hours later, and I had her confirmed open.
 
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Mares do not have false pregnancies.

Once a mare has a foal and nurses, she will always have a little fluid in her bag from then on, even years later. Its just "left overs".
 
Mares do not have false pregnancies.
Well, if my mare didn't have a false pregnancy, she sure had everyone thinking she was PG and about to foal. She got HUGE....belly got as big as a barrel and eventually "dropped" so that she was bell shaped. She bagged totally up, she got soft in the tail....she even produced WAX!! And she had no baby. I know she didn't slip it without my knowledge because I had her in the barn, under camera! For two flippin weeks. That's how convinced I was that she was going to foal any moment. Yes, she drove me darn near to drink. I've been breeding horses for many years and had never seen anything like it. Then after all the other mares had their babies, she "got over it". She REALLY wanted to be a mother!
 
Mares do not have false pregnancies.

Once a mare has a foal and nurses, she will always have a little fluid in her bag from then on, even years later. Its just "left overs".

Wrong. Even have vets here at Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine that will admit to seeing false pregnancies. And have had my own here 2 years ago complete with a false labor. It happens. The only thing my mare didn't do was break her water and produce a foal.

But to answer the original question, yes open mares can bag up and produce milk. I've seen yearling mares, never exposed to a stallion, produce a bag and milk. Usually from a high protein diet.
 
No, not wrong. There is no such thing as a false pregnancy in a mare. The ONLY thing that a mare can do is loose her pregnancy after the placenta has formed, so even though everything is out of her body, she still thinks she's pregnant and won't cycle that year.
 
I think in this case Mr Luszcz is correct. But some of the error my occur with the understanding of the phrase 'false pregnancy'. Is a mare 'false pregnant' if she shows signs of being pregnant but isn't? Yes. But, mares do not hold on to a CL for an entire pregnancy followed by signs of parturition like other species can. For mares a 'false pregnancy' is unlikely to last more than a few weeks to a few months with the longer of these being due to a loss of a fetus/embryo. So she wasn't really 'false pregnant' instead she aborted.

Unfortunately any discussion on the topic would have to include a definition so that everyone agreed to what they are talking about.

Dr Taylor
 
When you compare the mare to other species, then yes, they do not have false pregnancies in the sense that a dog would. But when you are at day 340 with what appears to be a visually pregnant mare with a bag of milk, that is acting pregnant yet does not produce a foal then there is no other phrase that best describes what you've just witnessed.
 
My own mare did exactly the same thing was hand bred once (June) season over 3 days and never showed a season after that. She was US in foal in the October and she went through the motions was in from Jan onwards - come May near to her dates she started to bag, change shape, softened behind, cow pats, getting needy and demanding to go to bed(its her way
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) and then like you flicked a switch she went back to normal. She had my vet fooled and we did bloods which came back negative. I was watching her for 5 wks.

This yr I had her blood tested and my vet said "sure she is obviously in foal" - I said "You said that last yr"
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So she was blood tested and tested positive. Have seen her sides flutter and belly kicking (but she belly kicked last yr too). She is the size of a small house and has run with the stallion all yr. I had her in for covering and once she took she was turned out.

She is due May 17th so cant wait to see the first baby by my 4yr old stallion

Meant to add that my vet reckoned that she either aborted early in the pregnancy or reabsorbed but her body seemed to go through the motions
 
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You people are amazing, you always discuss things just as I need them. I have a mare that was covered by my stallion several times as they lived out together. She is now starting to bag up but she is still not very big in the belly (but she does have enough fur to heat the hole family so it is hard to tell) Anyway, tonight I tested her with Foal-Time strips just to practice really and it said that she is at 7.2. Would this happen if she is open or would it be higher. I know I just have to wait and see but I am getting excited. She had the most gorgeous tiny smokey black colt last year and I wouldn't mind at all if she did it again
wub.gif
 
You people are amazing, you always discuss things just as I need them. I have a mare that was covered by my stallion several times as they lived out together. She is now starting to bag up but she is still not very big in the belly (but she does have enough fur to heat the hole family so it is hard to tell) Anyway, tonight I tested her with Foal-Time strips just to practice really and it said that she is at 7.2. Would this happen if she is open or would it be higher. I know I just have to wait and see but I am getting excited. She had the most gorgeous tiny smokey black colt last year and I wouldn't mind at all if she did it again
wub.gif

I use the pool strips and when I initially test my preggo and bagged mares the pH is usually 8.4-7.8. As they get closer to foaling, it drops. Needed to add that my false pregnancy mare did drop her pH all the way down to 6.4!
 
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