While thinking about the foals that we have this year and the new ones on the way, I sometimes think about how humans have taken horses and bred them in a certain way in order to ‘better’ them. In most cases they want the resulting foals to, each generation, be considered more beautiful (set to breed standards) as well as more talented than their parents. And of course, over the years since the different horse breeds were created, we have successfully improved the look and talent of horses.

So sometimes I think about what the human race would be like if we’d done the same thing with ourselves. A horse with two parents who are talented jumpers will likely be a talented jumper. The same way that a child who has two musically gifted parents will likely follow in their footsteps, but in most cases this is just chance in humans. But what if, for the last hundred or so years (since humans have a much longer ‘generation’ than horses) we had taken talented musicians to breed better musicians, or people with high IQs to breed people with high IQs, or even just people with good eyesight, or people who were tall?

We, as a species, stumble around, creating children out of whatever random paring comes up, either through marriage or not. Just think about how amazing our race could be if we actually improved ourselves each generation with the purpose and planning that goes into creating World Champion horses.

So the most common time that a mare loses a foal is between 15 and 30 days. (It’s in general more common at the beginning.) Today was day 32 and the vets came to check her once again. The baby’s still there and I actually got to see her heart beating on the ultrasound. (Well it just looks like a tiny flutter at this point, but still!!!) Nezi still doesn’t have the bright CL, but the vets said that after day 45 the placenta starts developing and that takes over creating the progesterone, so there’s no way I’ll have to keep giving her meds through the whole pregnancy, which is a relief. I know Regimate isn’t cheap, I’m really lucky that Deb just had some around that she’s letting me use.

Vets came back for multiple things, but also checked Nezi while they were here. Baby is still there. YAY, but still no bright CL. I turned down a progesterone test since the Cl wasn’t bright, plan on getting that done at the 30 day check. Nezi is absolutely horrible about taking anything into her mouth (ie, the Regimate she’s been on.) but thankfully if we leave it in some food in her bucket for long enough she gets around to eating it. I don’t think I could have handled twitching her for a month, which is what we had to do the first couple days.

So usually when trying to get a mare pregnant, you check to see they’ve ovulated after you put in the sperm. With Nezi, the follicle we were planning on breeding on ovulated before the sperm arrived, but on the 14 day check, the vets found something that appeared to be a baby. They believe that the follicle that had only been a 28 ovulated a day or two later, and there was apparently still a swimmer around to fertilize it.
The vets then came back the next day saying that it was a baby, but that the CL was not as bright as they like, so Nezi will be on Regimate for a month so she doesn’t lose the baby due to a lack of hormones. And of course, Nezi hates to be given medicine, but hopefully my baby stays in there. I told her to keep it if it’s a colored filly, so hopefully she listened.

So I have entered into a deal with Deb, the owner of the barn where I work, with one of her mares, a golden palomino with a blanket called Nez Tea. I am going to pay for all of the breeding costs for getting Nezi pregnant, and the resulting baby will be mine to do with as I please. Then next year I’ll pay to breed Nezi again and the resulting baby will be Deb’s. This allows me to “lease” a mare to breed without having to pay all of the board and care costs of the mare since I don’t want to use my mare yet since I’m still using her to learn to ride.

Nezi was not under lights, so it was only about the beginning of last week that her uterus started waking up. The vets said we should check her again Monday (yesterday). Well Friday afternoon she was very clearly showing us that she was in heat. Unfortunately it was already too late to order semen that day and Char-o-lot doesn’t collect on weekends, so I prepared to miss her while we waited for Monday.

Monday morning came and the vets checked her to find three follicles on her left ovary, the largest of which was a 41. On their recommendation, I ordered semen and gave her a shot of HCG. The semen arrived today just after lunch. The busy vets were only able to get out to the farm by 3:30 and the 41 follicle was rather predictably gone.

The vets put in all of the semen we had received since Nezi had already ovulated hoping to catch the recently released egg or one of the still growing follicles will ovulate in the next 36 hours with the HCG shot.

In one way it’s nice because it saves me from having to pay the vets to come again tomorrow to put in a second dose and/or check for ovulation. On the other hand it makes me nervous that she just won’t get pregnant and we’ll have to try again. It really does make a difference knowing it’s my money that will have to pay for a recollection, but I really didn’t want to go much longer. I would certainly love to get her pregnant now as the beginning of March is a good time for babies to be born…you know. Right near/on my birthday.

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And yes, I didn’t really explain what the heck I’m talking about, but this is more of a record for me than anything. Though if anyone shows interest I’m more than happy to explain more about what goes on in trying to get a mare pregnant.