BREED Q&A from MyHorseForSale.com
QUESTION: What should a stallion’s shipping rate be in order to insure my mare gets pregnant on the first shipment?
ANSWER: There is no way to insure that any mare gets pregnant on her first cycle even when using live cover or fresh semen, let alone the first shipment of cooled or frozen semen. The stallion, and his semen are only half of the equation and the mare and her follicle are the other half. The mare owner, if he or she does their homework, can insure that the stallion they have chosen to breed their mare to is standing at a reputable Stallion Station and has proven semen that has been tested for it’s cooling or freezing ability. The mare owner and his/her Veterinarian will even get the information regarding the stallion’s semen, included with the shipment of semen, that will tell them exactly what the stallion’s concentration, volume, and motility were, at time of collection. Most Stallion Stations/stallion owners even guarantee, in their shipping contract, that the stallion’s semen, when collected and packaged for shipping, will be of such a degree of concentration, volume, and motility, and packaged professionally and in accordance with industry standards so as to be reasonably acceptable for breeding, or it will not be shipped. The mare owner’s Veterinarian also has the right (and is encouraged by the stallion owner) to test the semen once it arrives, for motility under a microscope before inseminating the mare, with the right, in that contract, to send it back and have another shipment sent, at no charge, if it is not reasonably acceptable for breeding.
The stallion owner, on the other hand, has absolutely no control over what happens to the semen once it leaves their hands and is shipped by overnight courier. They have no control over who will handle the semen once it arrives at it’s destination and no control over how it will be handled, if the recipient mare is breeding sound, if she has had previous foals, cysts or infection or bacteria in her uterus, venereal diseases or may be too old to get in foal, etc. The stallion owner has no way of knowing if she will even be ready to ovulate once the semen arrives. Even if the Stallion owner or Stallion Station Technician is in contact with the Veterinarian on the other end and confident in his/her ability and breeding soundness of the mare, there is no way for the Veterinarian to be able to insure that the mare will ovulate with the semen in her once it gets there, even if it arrives in perfect condition for breeding. Mares are individuals and they are all different. Each cycle of each mare and each follicle she forms, is different from one mare, one cycle and one follicle to the next. A 40 mm follicle that a Veterinarian would normally assume would progress may order the semen and give the mare a shot to help her ovulate only to find that she may hold that follicle (despite the drugs) for a day or two longer than he/she expected and even regress instead of progress or not hold that follicle long enough for the semen to get there, ovulating before the Veterinarian can get the semen into the mare, and no matter how good the semen is, or how good the Veterinarian is, he/she may not be able to get the mare in foal on that first try. Breeding is a gamble at every turn and conditions must be just right in order for the miracle of conception to happen, even under the best of circumstances and the most prime conditions. There are never any guarantees with regard to a mare getting in foal on the first cycle or getting pregnant with just one shipment. The stallion owner just cannot make that kind of guarantee no matter how good the Stallion’s numbers or track record are, as he/she cannot control the conditions on the other end of the shipment, and, as they say in the reproductive world, “some mares just don’t read the book”.
Most stallion owners do offer live foal guarantees (some offer live colored foal guarantees if they stand a homozygous stallion). A live foal guarantee is basically a guarantee that your mare will get in foal and you have 2 full seasons included in the cost of that one stud fee, to get it done. Some Stallion Stations offer multiple mare discounts and the opportunity to synchronize your mares and ship 4 doses together, in one shipment, saving you half the cost of shipping semen, even if breeding to different stallions.
There is a standard breeding dose that is acceptable in the Equine Reproductive Industry for shipping a stallion’s semen, whether it be frozen or cooled, and a standard breeding dose that is used for on farm breeding with fresh semen when a stallion’s semen must be divided up in order to breed multiple mares on the farm. There is a basic math equation that is used with each collection, wherein each stallion’s numbers (volume, concentration and progressive motility) are plugged in, before packaging and shipping the semen, and tells the Stallion Station Technician how much semen and how much extender is needed for each shipping dose and insures that each recipient mare will receive, on the other end, enough semen to get her in foal with that one shipment. The end result of that simple math equation, using those variables, is considered a standard shipping dose which is equal to a full breeding dose.
At some of the larger Stallion Stations, it is quite common for there to be several shipments sent out in one day, to several different mares, from a single stallion’s ejaculation, as long as the numbers add up to a full shipping dose for each mare on the other end. This is one of the reasons why it is customary for Stallion Stations to require 24 hours notice, or at the very least, a phone call by 6 p.m. the evening before, to order a shipment of semen and many have a rule of only collecting stallions on certain days, such as odd or even days or Monday, Wednesday, Friday, giving the Stallion’s a chance to recoup from the rigors of breeding and the staff time to coordinate collection, shipping and on farm breeding. The Stallion Station must plan for the amount of mares that need to be bred by one stallion, with one ejaculate, on any given day, and plan for how many mares on the farm will need to be bred with fresh semen and how many mares must have semen shipped to. Traditionally, the breeding of on farm mares, done by live cover or fresh semen via collection of the stallion and artificial insemination of the mares, takes precedence over shipped semen mares and order of booking comes into play if demand happens to exceed supply. Booking your mare early each year earns you more than just a discount on the stud fee (at most Stallion Stations) and is more than just a deposit and a promise to breed your mare to their stallion. Booking early gives you seniority if your mare and another mare are ready to breed at exactly the same time and there is not enough semen to go around. Booking early may keep you from having to wait for your mare’s next cycle or short cycling your mare in order to get semen, which can cost you dearly in both time and money. A stallion is generally only collected once per day and is best collected every other day to ensure peak fertility. It is common to send 2 doses in each shipment of cooled shipped semen by overnight courier so the Veterinarian can use one dose for breeding the first day it arrives and the other for breeding the next day if the mare has not yet ovulated and he feels it is necessary to do so. If the mare has ovulated, of course, the second dose would not be necessary and may be discarded.
Stallions are as individual as mares are with the way their bodies and reproductive systems work. One stallion may have a large volume of semen while his concentration (total amount of sperm cells per mm of ejaculate) or percent of progressively motile sperm may be a little on the low side. Another stallion may give smaller volumes of semen, but make up for it with higher concentration and a higher percent of progressively motile sperm cells in each ejaculate. It is quite possible to end up with virtually the same amount of shipping or breeding doses with 2 different stallions with 2 totally different sets of numbers with regard to volume, concentration and progressive motility. Stallion Stations and stallion owners usually have tested each stallion prior to the breeding season for shipping ability in the lab by taking several samples of semen and performing test cools, checking the semen under a microscope after 12, 24, 36 and even 48 hours so they know how well each stallion cools and ships. The bottom line is shipping a breeding dose with at least 500 million progressively motile sperm cells, making it a sufficient amount to impregnate a mare in just one shipment. The rest is up to the mare and the educated and capable hands of her Veterinarian on the other end.
Answer submitted by Tina Lewis of the Lewis Stallion Station. If you have a Breeding question send to info@myhorseforsale.com and check back for the answer!
