Stallions
For stallions standing at Irvine Training, a primary consultation between the owner(s), our trainer, and manager is arranged to to determine how best to market and promote the stallion and his offspring, as well as the owners' farm if needed. Attention to details such as developing name and logo recognition by proper advertising promotion is imperative. We help plan media purchases and we design logos, flyers, email blasts, and advertisements. Every stallion receives his own page on our website, as well as listings on other breed and/or discipine-specific stallion websites. The stallion owner further determines the foal incentive programs and futurities for the stallion to participate in. Care is taken to review and monitor the progress of the promotion as well. Here's the best part: we do it all for 15% of the stud fee. The only other cost our stallion owners incur is what the publications charge to run the ads.
Annual Evaluation
In our opinion, keeping accurate, detailed breeding records for the stallion is imperative from season to season to manage him for the best reproductive efficiency. We recommend annual evaluations to record scrotal size, annual overall health examination, and periodic semen evaluation.
Semen Collection, Evaluation, & Storage
We utilize Countryside Equine Hospital or the University of Tennessee Equine Hospitalfor all of our reproductive services. Both facilities provide complete pre-breeding evaluations for stallions and mares.
Mare Embryonic Management
Although not as pupoular as standing a stud, embryo transfer is a wonderful option for owners of talented performance mares. As we do with our stallion owners, we meet with the mare owners to discuss marketing and advertising strategies. We help plan media purchases and we design logos, flyers, email blasts, and advertisements. Your mare will receive her own page on our website, as well as listings on other embryonic-purchase websites.
What are the benefits?
Your performance mare can keep on performing as Embryo Transfer allows a mare to produce foals from as young as two (2) years of age without any health concerns.
Embryo Transfer may allow a mare that has a history of pregnancy loss or soundness issues to produce by transferring the Embryo into a young, sound mare to carry.
You are not restricted to one foal per breeding season.
The Parties do not have to wait between 2-5 years to buy and sell.
What is embryo transfer?
Embryo transfer (ET) is a procedure that is becoming more and more popular in the equine world for obtaining foals. This technique involves recovering embryos from bred (donor) mares and placing them in a recipient mare that, in turn, carries the foal. There are several reasons for the use of this procedure. Multiple foals can be produced from one mare (possibly genetically superior) in a breeding season. It can be used to produce foals from mares that cannot take time off from showing. Embryo transfer can also be used to produce foals from subfertile mares that are unable to successfully carry a foal to term. Young fillies that can produce viable embryos but are not yet able to carry them may be used as donor mares. Older mares no longer capable of carrying a foal also may make good candidates for embryo transfer.
How is embryo transfer performed?
Embryo transfer involves the use of a donor and a recipient mare who must be synchronized in their estrous cycles. Both mares should be healthy, reproductively sound, and cycling regularly. During the breeding process, the mares are examined daily to accurately determine the day of ovulation. Seven days after the donor mare is bred, her uterus can be flushed to
recover the embryo. Several liters of flush media are warmed and infused into the uterus through a catheter. The uterus is flushed several times and drained into a filtered collection bottle. The collected embryo is washed to remove any contaminants and evaluated for viability based on their size, grade, morphology and developmental stage. It is placed into a nutrient media. Non-surgical embryo transfer is the method most commonly used in private practice, but does have a slightly lower success rate than surgical transfer. When transferring the embryo to the recipient mare, it is important that she has ovulated no more than one day before and two days after the donor mare. The embryo is placed in a straw attached to an insemination gun. The gun is placed in transcervically into one uterine horn, aided by rectal palpation. The embryo is deposited and the gun is removed and checked to make sure no embryo remains in the straw. Only the most valuable embryos are used for transfer in order to maximize the use of the recipient mare and not waste her time on poor quality embryos. The first pregnancy checks are usually 5 and 7 days after transfer, which would be days 12 and 14 after ovulation.
What is the success of Embryo Transfer?
Success rates for embryo transfer can be measured for two facets of the procedure:
1.) Embryo recovery from the donor mare
2.) Establishment of pregnancy in the recipient mare.
Embryo recovery is usually the rate-limiting step in equine embryo transfer. Recovery rates will vary with the individual mare’s fertility. Young mares can have very high rates, typically around 80% per cycle. Older mares with history of infertility, as a group, will have recovery rates around 30% per cycle. Individuals within these groups will have higher or lower recovery rates. Once the embryo is recovered, one can expect a pregnancy success rate of approximately 75% at 14 days, with about a 10% rate of pregnancy loss following that time. Pregnancy rates for transported embryos are approximately 5-10% lower than for on-site transfer.