Fertility and Artificial Insemination

Artificial Insemination Packages

Summerleaze is a BEVA approved practice for Artifical Insemination, we are very happy to help in that exciting time of producing a new foal. We are there to support you with pre-breeding tests and scans for natural cover but also for Artificial insemination.

The packages include:

All scans leading up to insemination, post insemination and a16 day pregnancy scan
Reproductive drugs including chorulon, estrumate and oxytocin but NOT regumate
Insemination
Flushing out including fluid for flushing out

They do not include:

sedation
visit charges
CEM lab fee
taking CEM swab

Before Booking

It is important to make sure you speak to a vet before booking in an AI package to discuss if your mare is suitable, logistics etc.

For chilled/fresh AI most studs have a deadline each day in the morning they need to know by as to whether they collect that day, this may be 9am or 10am but is stud dependent. As a result, scans near ovulation are likely to need to be early in the day so please ensure you know how early the stud needs to know and to let us know when booking.

For frozen AI semen should ideally get to the practice for storage before we start scanning if possible, although we are happy to liaise with studs this is your responsibility.

AI procedure

The procedure in general will be us collecting a CEM swab at the initial visit, scanning to identify where in the cycle your mare is. Depending on where your mare is in her cycle, we may then short cycle her or opt to do so in a few days. We may also at this point need to flush out your mare or deal with any concerns we face.

As your mare approaches when she is likely to be in season, we will then likely be scanning the mare daily. When your mare has a suitably sized follicle you will then need to order the semen for the following day if chilled/fresh, or if frozen hopefully we will already have it in stock in the practice. We will generally give your mare an ovulation agent to ensure she ovulates within the next 36 hours or so and then inseminate her accordingly. For chilled this would mean one visit to inseminate her with the semen once it has arrived, but for frozen due to having to be more accurate as to how close we need to inseminate your mare to ovulation, this would likely mean two visits to inseminate, one last thing in the afternoon and the following morning first thing.

After inseminating your mare we may need to flush her out to prevent her reacting to the different extenders used to prolong the semen, so for chilled this would generally require us to go out the following day and scan her to identify if there is fluid and potentially flushing her out. For frozen they are far more likely to have a reaction so ideally any time after 4 hours we can return and flush them out. The mare should then be scanned the following day and flushed out again if needed. We may also need to give your mare injections of oxytocin to help her push out excess fluid.

Your mare should then be scanned hopefully in foal at 16 days. Additional scans can be discussed for heart beat and later gender scans but these would not be included in the original package.