March 2024 NL
Black Gumbo
Now that the weather is warm and dry It’s a good time to work on mud control. If your soil is black gumbo, you likely fight it every year when the spring rains come. Here are a few suggestions from clients and Facebook that will help with the deep clay/mud that is often difficult to work in.
- Put a load of sand or rock in the area. If gumbo is really deep this may be a summer project.
- Put secrete sacks in the area, wet the top of the sacks, cover with sand
- Install Light Hoof mud panels 6×12 for $219. Information is on the internet.
Using gumbo as a base for your stalls can work well if done correctly. You will need to flatten and pack the base then let it dry and harden. Place down well-fitting stall mats (locking ones are best), use bedding pellets in urine spots, and cover the stall with shavings.
What is ICSI?
ICSI, Intra Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection is a reproductive technique used in humans (test tube baby), horses and cattle with fertility problems. In horses, the eggs (oocytes) are retrieved from the follicles on the mare’s ovaries and put in a maturation solution for 30 hours. Then one sperm is injected into the egg, fertilization takes place, and hopefully an embryo will develop. The embryo is either put into a recipient mare (surrogate mother), shipped to an embryo transfer facility to be put in a recipient mare or frozen for future use. Often the ICSI is done in the fall where the embryos are frozen and put in the recipient mare in the spring breeding season for a foal to be born the next spring.
For horse ICSI, the eggs are obtained with an ultrasound guided needle aspiration through the mare’s vagina from the ovary. Each follicle contains an egg. The mare does not have to be in heat (estrus). Because only one sperm is needed, only a small amount of semen (1 straw) is required. The fertilized egg is put in a special culture media and into the incubator where hopefully it will grow into an embryo in 10 days. The odds are not good in that only 1-2 out of 10 become embryos. The ICSI procedure is used for infertile stallions, mares with fertility problems, or mares that are competing. It is expensive, about $10,000 (not including the Stud fee).
ET Embryo Transfer
Embryo transfer is done during the spring breeding season. The mare is bred to the stallion usually through AI Artificial Insemination. It is of utmost importance to know the day of ovulation for the mare.
Fertilization takes place up by the ovary. The egg is released from the follicle on the ovary and 1 lucky sperm that has successfully swam from the uterus up to the ovary penetrates the egg. 8 days later the fertilized egg comes down to the uterus as an embryo. That is when the embryo transfer is done. The embryo is flushed out of the uterus of the donor mare by filling the uterus with ET solution and draining it out through a filter device. The filter is then examined under a microscope looking for an embryo the size of the head of a pin. The embryo and some solution is sucked up into a syringe and then put into the uterus of the recipient mare. The recipient mare is chosen by the day that she ovulates which is usually the same day of ovulation as the donor mare. If you provide your own mare as the recipient mare, you must have the donor and recipient synchronized to ovulate on the same day for the ET which is a little difficult to do. Cost is $6000 for ET embryo transfer and the recipient mare.
Founder Alert
Spring is 3 weeks early and the grass is green so it is time to remove those fat horses from the pasture and limit their grazing time especially those that have foundered before. They can easily do it again.
Castration Signs: March 5-12 to castrate yearlings, 2-year-olds and older
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