[Redfishy]

Thanks for the education! I'm not planning on doing it, just a friend was talking about it and I thought she was loco as I knew it had to be $$$$ and no the mare aint worth it.

[Equine Repro]

Originally Posted by Spotted Mustang

Could you explain the process to those of us who have little experience with it? I understand the basic idea, but I would love to hear more detail.

It's actuallly relatively simple. The mare is bred as for any other cycle or breeding, but is followed for ovulation. Depending on what is to be done with the embryo, she is flushed anywhere from day 6 to as late as day 9. If freezing the embryo is desired, she is flushed earlier as embryos larger than day 6.5 tend to not freeze well.

The flush is done by inserting a catheter through the cervix into the uterus, inflating a cuff on the catheter and pulling it back against the cervix to "seal" things. A flush medium is placed into the uterus and different techniques are used. Personally, I'll flush multiple times if I don't find an embryo on the first flush. Some facilities will flush once or twice. I'll flush up to three times. The flush medium is then run back out of the uterus and through a filter. The filter is then taken into the lab, rinsed into a search dish and then the search dish is placed under a low power dissecting microscope. When (if?) an embryo is found, it is picked up with a "straw" or pipettor and placed into a cleaning medium. Embryos are sticky and you want to wash any debris or material off of it. It is placed in anywhere from 4 to 6 rinses and then drawn up into a straw - often the same straws as are used for frozen semen. When I do it, I draw up a small amount of fluid, a bubble, fluid, a bubble, the embryo, a bubble, fluid, bubble and fluid. The reason is to have medium to flush the embryo out of the straw and fluid at the end of the straw to prevent inadvertently "droppping" the embryo out of the end of the straw. The embryo is then transferred into an appropriate recipient mare that has been syncrhonized with the donor mare. You want the recip mare to have ovulated no more than one day before or three days after the donor mare for optimal chance of success.

Oversimplification of the entire process, but it gives you a basic idea of how it is done. I absolutely love doing ET's and would do them all day long if given the chance <smile>. It's just incredibly fascinating to me.

Hope that helps!

Kathy St.Martin
Equine Reproduction Short Courses
http://www.equine-reproduction.com

[Spotted Mustang]

Thank you very much for the explanation.

That is very interesting. I did not realize the little embryos were so tough! I assume you have to be very careful with rinsing and moving them, but still it seems a lot for a little tiny ball of cells to go through intact.

Oh, and thank you Lindsayanne for the article. I am reading it now.

[gypsy84]

How many embryos can be taken from each flush? I personally know someone that owns dairy cattle and got 27 embryos from a cow. Are the species that different?

[Equine Repro]

Mm...they're tough to a point, but we handle them GENTLY!! <smile>. It's not like we take a power washer to them! Just gently pick them up and drop them into a wash cup, and repeat the process...

How many embryos can be taken from each flush? I personally know someone that owns dairy cattle and got 27 embryos from a cow. Are the species that different?

The equine, unlike cattle, cannot be superovulated. In recent years, with the use of eFSH (equine follicle stimulating hormone) there has been some success with increasing the number of ovulations and embryos per cycle, but it still is somewhat limited. The average embryo flush results in an embryo about 50% of the time. With the use of eFSH, it doubles the chances of an embryo, so that's a definite plus. It means however, that you're not going to get an embryo every time, but some of the time, you "will" get two embryos and on rare occasions, three. Statistically speaking, with the equine, you flush an embryo about 50% of the time and successfully transfer those embryos about 75% of the time, so your overall success rate is about 1 in 3 flushes and transfers will result in a foal. Definitely not phenomenal odds. With the introduction of eFSH to the mix, you're odds increase to about 75% of the time a flush and transfer will result in a foal.

Hope that helps!

Kathy St.Martin
Equine Reproduction Short Courses
http://www.equine-reproduction.com

[Spotted Mustang]

Originally Posted by Equine Repro

Mm...they're tough to a point, but we handle them GENTLY!! <smile>. It's not like we take a power washer to them! Just gently pick them up and drop them into a wash cup, and repeat the process...
Kathy St.Martin
Equine Reproduction Short Courses
http://www.equine-reproduction.com

Oh, no doubt!

I was just thinking how very easy it is for a mare to reabsorb or abort, and then thinking what these little embryos go through and still make it!

I mean, it is just a tiny little ball of cells. It gets flushed, strained, poked, picked up, rinsed repeatedly, looked at again, and then put in an entirely different mare!

It is very fascinating how resilient and yet fragile they are. I would not have thought they would be able to handle all that, but they seem to with a decent amount of success. It is amazing to me.