Ultrasounding minis

[riven]

Hi there,

I was wondering if I could get some advice please on this topic. The vets I have asked have been unkeen to internally ultrasound minis. I have used the Weefoal tests and plain old wait and see. But I have read from various breeders etc both in Europe where I am (UK) and America, that they routinely scan their minis to pregnancy diagnose, even at 21 days to confirm pregnancy.

I would love to be able to scan my minis (the vets have said they can scan externally but the mares must be quite far along to be reliable) at an early stage, as I use outside stallions and want to be able to have them scanned in foal before bringing them home the way you would do with a big horse. Please can anyone give me some advice on this? If your vet scans, does he use a special probe? How are some people managing to scan the little ones?! My mares aren't tiny, all in the 32-34" range.

Thanks!

Liz

 

[FurstPlaceMiniatures]

I am a dairy farmer, we use ultrasound all the time/preg check, jsut thought i'd share my views on preg checking.

Honestly, at 21 days, if there is fluid there and a Corpus Luteum on the ovary (which is there a good chunk of the cycle), she's deemed "pregnant." It really isn't all that reliable, you could've just caught her at the right time of the estrous cycle that she has a CL, and she has a bit of fluid from the semen not taking, she's getting ready to bleed off, etc. It's an old trick some farmers use to improve their conception rate, but their early embyonic death rate shoots RIGHT up, as they were never pregnant to begin with and the second preg check they come back open, (however, that's not on a farm evaluation sheet!).

The BEST way to tell is by watching your mare. If you have a system that works, why ultrasound? Rectally, I know if you do it a little too early or too roughly, it can actually knock them out of foal. Watch 17 to 30 days post breeding (every mare has a different cycle!), is she standing? Showing interest? How does the stallion owner guarantee pregnancy? Does she stay for 2 or even 3 estrous cycles?

The best way to get a date of foaling are to have exactly what days she was mounted. Even with preg checking via ultrasound, it can be tricky to tell exactly how many days along they are.

 

[Riverrose28]

I've had mares ultrasounded just this year. My vet uses a probe made for llamas, usually. On one really small mare 30" she just used her hand holding the probe, hope you understand what I'm saying. I was also told that the mares had to be at least 21 days after the last breeding.

 

[JWC sr.]

We have ultra-sounded for many years and Cindy can pick them up at around the 21 - 30 day range if needed. We have cut down our herd numbers now days, but when we were breeding 40 - 50 mares a year thereby givng a pretty good cross section for comparison. She would hit 97 - 99 per cent within 3 - 5 days of her predicted date.

She uses an internal (rectal) machine calibrated for minis and a special internal probe/wand that works really well.

Hope that helps..

 

[drmatthewtaylor]

I am a dairy farmer, we use ultrasound all the time/preg check, jsut thought i'd share my views on preg checking.

Honestly, at 21 days, if there is fluid there and a Corpus Luteum on the ovary (which is there a good chunk of the cycle), she's deemed "pregnant." It really isn't all that reliable, you could've just caught her at the right time of the estrous cycle that she has a CL, and she has a bit of fluid from the semen not taking, she's getting ready to bleed off, etc. It's an old trick some farmers use to improve their conception rate, but their early embyonic death rate shoots RIGHT up, as they were never pregnant to begin with and the second preg check they come back open, (however, that's not on a farm evaluation sheet!).

The BEST way to tell is by watching your mare. If you have a system that works, why ultrasound? Rectally, I know if you do it a little too early or too roughly, it can actually knock them out of foal. Watch 17 to 30 days post breeding (every mare has a different cycle!), is she standing? Showing interest? How does the stallion owner guarantee pregnancy? Does she stay for 2 or even 3 estrous cycles?

The best way to get a date of foaling are to have exactly what days she was mounted. Even with preg checking via ultrasound, it can be tricky to tell exactly how many days along they are.

I think you are confusing some of the differences between cows and horses. Cows have CL's that can be seen and felt on the ovaries, horses do not. Cows somewhat diffusely produce fluid in their uterus in early pregnancy, while horses have a discrete vesicle that is visible as early as 10 days and palpable as early as 21 days.

As cows are nearly impossible to diagnose pregnancy prior to recycling, then they are generally not examined until after they have gone past at least one cycle. Horses, on the other hand, can be diagnosed successfully pregnant as early as 10 days post ovulation and pretty easily by 16 days post. Thus, most herdsman kind of already know if a cow is pregnant, whereas most horse owners will not yet know.

Why do it so early? Why not just wait until next spring and we will all know?

1) Twins-although not common overall and less common in ponies/minis, twins do occur. Twins can end the reproductive life of a mare and can cost her her own life.

2) A mares gestation is about 11 months. If it takes her just 60 days to get pregnant, just a few years in a row, then she will miss a whole year.

3) If a decision was going to be made as to whether or not a mare was going to be kept for another year based on her producing a foal, then the ultrasound is far cheaper than a year's care. Keeping a horse (mini's and ponies might be cheaper, but don't underestimate your costs) costs about $5/day or about $1800/year.

4) Using an ultrasound to diagnose a pregnancy as far safer than asking a stud to tease a mare until he gets kicked.

If its not that big of a deal to you whether or not your mares are pregnant, then I would encourage you to reconsider whether or not breeding is something you should be doing.

Dr. Taylor

 

[Joanne]

To add to Dr Taylor's post,

The advantage of rectal ultrasound to me is that you can follow the pregnancy along. A mare that is pregnant at under 60 days, may not still be pregnant at 100 days. If you hand breed your mares, or remove the mares from the stallion after they are confirmed in foal you can loose a season wrongly believing your mare is in foal and anticipating a foal that will never be born.

Ultrasound also lets you follow the position of the foal and at the end of the pregnancy it is nice to know the fetus is vertex (head first). It is a blast seeing the heartbeat and the foal moving.

We ran into the same problems with veterianrians here that had large hands and were not willing to ultrasound miniature horse mares. We, like many other miniature horse owners have invested in our own ultrasound equiptment and routinly ultrasound our mares. If I had a veterinarian willing to ultrasound I would have never learned it on my own. But I do love knowing what is happening in my mares. There is a learning curve and this is not without risk.

 

[JWC sr.]

Joanne,

Large hands can be a problem, but if a wand is used and you go thru the hassle of repeatedly cleaning the ultrasound head. You can and we have been sucessful doing it without the perfunctory clean out of the anal cavity when we had to due to the small size of the subject animal.

In any case the purchase of an ultra sound machine was a large purchase for us, but one we are very glad to have made it as it is just one more management tool for us to use when trying to produce quality foals and keep our mares/stallions healthy along the way.

Our Vet was the one that suggested and helped us find/purchase our machine. Which we appreciated, the mini setting on it has proved to be a great tool for us to use on our Minature Horses, Miniature Herefords and Miniature Zebus also. All a little different, but with the different settings it works well.

 

[JAX]

My vet uses a small hand held probe. She gloves up and then inserts the probe in its own glove then lubes up and goes in anally. I only have two mares that have to be sedated the others are very used to it and simply stand there and wait. Normally I take them in at 14 days days after last breeding date and usually she has no problem finding the "blip" at that time. In 20 years I have had three mares that she could not find it but they "felt tone" and so I brought them back in a couple of days and found that yes they were indeed pregnant. Oh and she didnt even charge me for the second US in those cases. Yes I feel quite lucky that my vet is a small woman with very small hands!!

 

[rabbitsfizz]

At 14 days you can see the heart beat.

If you can't it is a) too early or b ) she isn't in foal!

My Vet used a full size probe without any problems but I took the mares to him, this was not a portable machine.

I actually see no point, nowadays, in diagnosing this early unless you suspect something is up- when it is useful to know if the mare is getting in foal and then terminating or just not getting in foal, but if it a matter of using an outside stallion I would definitely hold fire, if she misses a season, and test a bit later as then you have more chance of diagnosing a pregnancy that will be sustained.

When I had access to free diagnosing I found I had quite a few conspectuses at 14-18 days that were not there any more at 30 days...

 

[Joanne]

No Jane, you cannot see a heartbeat at 14 days. Did you mean 24 days?

At 14 days you have just a small sac. At 20-21 days you see a dot of an embryo. You can pick up a flicker of a heartbeat if you are lucky and have a good machine.

 

[Tremor]

For those of you who ultrasound, do any of you check for ther genders?

I know of a woman on a "big horse" forum who did and ended up with a filly (as the ultrasound showed).

Idk the science of this but it is possible.

 

[JAX]

We dont usually have a problem seeing the fetus at day 14 of course it is still free floating in the middle and is not yet attached to the side. We have had a few that seemed to "fold" up at about day 21 and were difficult to see if they were still viable but we re-USed in a couple days and yep they were still there and looking good. I also have only seen the heartbeat a handful of times and those were because the mares were acting like they were coming back in season and i thought they had slipped the foal and so had them rechecked and i got to see the heartbeat. I believe those were probably around day 28-30 days.I read about the gender checking as well but have never remembered to ask my vet about it.

 

[rabbitsfizz]

No Joanne I meant 14 days and I saw the heartbeat. I have taken a mare in at 11 days and got a "probably positive" from the same Vet- what can I tell you? . At the time he was the premier obstetrics Vet in the world, so I very much doubt that he was wrong. I have the ultrasound somewhere, but, tbh, I can't be bothered with getting into an argument about it. It happened, I am afraid you will just have to live with it.... The mare went on to foal a Black Dun colt- I had been trying to get her in foal for three years and we finally did assisted natural service right there at the Royal Veterinary College. Gosh, I miss him!

 

[JAX]

Oh wow that must be so cool to see the heartbeat that soon!! I am not breeding anymore but I would always get so excited to see that little "blip" in the middle of the "black blob "( love my description

), of course as soon as she was done making sure it was a single fetus and not a double that was when my excitement would really start. I will miss it but just have too many horses to even consider breeding anymore so I guess I will just have to get my kicks with mare stare and the pregnant mare watch forum here.

 

[kehranc]

No Jane, you cannot see a heartbeat at 14 days. Did you mean 24 days?

At 14 days you have just a small sac. At 20-21 days you see a dot of an embryo. You can pick up a flicker of a heartbeat if you are lucky and have a good machine.

View attachment 13527

View attachment 13528

These photos are amazing Joanne. I have never seen an ultrasound on a horse before and the similarities to a human is quite amazing....Thanks for putting these up they are great

 

[riven]

Thankyou everyone who has replied to this topic - it definitely seems that if done by a good vet with small hands, US for minis is pretty safe. I am quite confident in getting my minis scanned next year, providing I can find the right vet. I would love to be able to see that embryo with my own eyes on a scanner, there is nothing more frustrating than not knowing for sure!

Again thanks to all who have responded, I have learnt a lot from this

Liz

 

[Margo_C-T]

It has been several years now, but I distinctly recall that my equine specialist vet, a small and very conscientious man, ultrasounded a mare when it was REALLY vital to know if she was in foal(outside stallion was soon to leave the area to relocate FAR away). He came here, was able to very carefully put his hand inside the mare(a 34"er), using a wand. Though he(and others)had said they could do the US as early as14 days, he also said that the more 'definitive' sign, a heartbeat, would most likely not be visible until later than that. I had him wait until somewhere between 21-30 days, to be SURE a heartbeat could be seen if there. It was: I saw it myself, and I had my much-desired foal the next year.II did tease the marew/ my own stallion in the interim; I had built a solid 'barrier' that the stallion could tease over, but be out of the line of fire of kicks. I had seen no reaction to the teasing--a good sign--but of course, we all know that a mare can 'fool' us mere mortals!

Margo