This is an archived Horseadvice.com Discussion. The parent article and menus are available on the navigation menu below:
HorseAdvice.com » Equine Reproduction » Horse Breeding & Artificial Insemination » New Technologies in Equine Reproduction »
  Discussion on Embryo Transfer
Author Message
Member:
Canter

Posted on Friday, Jul 2, 2004 - 8:13 am:

DrO,
After reading through the articles on embryo transfer I noticed many of the studies are 5+ years old...Is there any more current research available?

I have a few questions regarding this procedure:
1. What is the risk to the donor mare?
2. What are the risks (other than those normally associated with pregnancy) to the recipient mare?
3. Although some of the articles speak to freezing the embryos for transfer, I didn't see anything about long term freezing.

Here's the situation. Since purchasing my mare from my trainer, the trainer has frequently expressed regret that she didn't have the mare bred prior to selling her. She jokes about "renting" the mare's uterus from me. I too would love to breed my mare (lovely horse, great disposition, talented, excellent confirmation & bloodlines), but am reluctant simply because she's my only horse and I don't want to take time away from training and also I'm not sure I want to risk her with a pregnancy. Then, in this month's Dressage Today, I read an article about embryo transfer and it got me thinking. My trainer could get a baby without risking my horse, and if it's possible to freeze embryos (with high success rates) then I could "save" a baby for myself, sometime in the future.

Any members of HA have any experience with this procedure? Would love to hear about it.

Thanks,
Fran
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Saturday, Jul 3, 2004 - 8:53 am:

Fran that article also has papers as recently as 6 months ago. I do think I need to pull out the embryo transfer information and put it in its own article and I will review the current research and put it in there, maybe I can get that done next week. For your specific questions:
1) For the donor mare there are no more risks than that associated with regular breeding which is primarily associated with moving and handling the mare and the rectal exams where there is a small chance of rectal tearing.
2) This depends entirely on the method used to put the embryo in the mare.
3) If by long term you mean "years" there are no long term successes currently reported. If fact I can only find one successful report of a frozen equine embryo transfered:
Dtsch Tierarztl Wochenschr. 2002 Feb;109(2):61-2.
Successful direct transfer of a deep frozen-thawed equine embryo
Ulrich P, Nowshari MA.
Interuniversitares Forschungsinstitut fur Agrarbiotechnologie, Tulln, Osterreich.
Embryos were flushed on day 7 after ovulation from two mares, and frozen using a conventional slow freezing procedure in phosphate buffered (PBS) saline supplemented with 10% FCS, 1.5 mol/L ethylene glycol and 0.25 mol/L sucrose. One of the two embryos was thawed after 10 months of storage in liquid nitrogen and transferred directly (without dilution of the cryoprotectant and quality examination) to a synchronized recipient. This transfer resulted in the birth of a live female foal. To our knowledge, this is the first live foal born after direct transfer of a frozen-thawed equine embryo.
DrO
Member:
Canter

Posted on Saturday, Jul 3, 2004 - 7:10 pm:

Thanks, DrO...I must have missed the more current info and will review the articles again.

Whenever you get a chance to update the articles, that would be great. The whole idea is just that at this time~an idea I'm considering but am in no hurry to do.

Thanks also for the info on long-term storage. Yes, I was thinking years, but it doesn't look like an option with any reasonable chance of success.

Thank you!
Home Page | Top of Page | Join Us!
Horseadvice.com is a BBB Accredited Business. Click for the BBB Business Review of this Horse Training in Stokesdale NC