Posted 2009-05-02 11:18 AM (#104339) Subject: ?hormones therapy for mare
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 317 Location: Barnesville, Ga.
Can anyone tell me if there are hormones injections you can give to mare to make them not cycle? Trying to avoid my daughter's mare from coming into season during drill team competitions. She isn't real bad, but seems to get pretty sensitive around other horses while in season. She is usually not one to kick, but seems more likely to do so during her cycle. Are there any risks for further breeding with giving hormones to suppress cycles? I don't plan to breed her now, but plan on it in a few years. Thanks.
Posted 2009-05-02 8:26 PM (#104361 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 317 Location: Barnesville, Ga.
No way. She is very well bred and I bought her to eventually breed. My daughter has been using her for drill team and she is doing well and is not horribly bad when in season. I just didn't know if you could give them anything to suppress the cycle during competition times. I guess I'll ask my vet.
Posted 2009-05-02 8:33 PM (#104362 - in reply to #104361) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Elite Veteran
Posts: 792 Location: East Tennessee, USA, Planet Earth
Ask your vet about a marble. You put it in before the season's first heat and remove if for the winter months. Works wonders!! The mare's body will think she's PG.....and no heats.
Or you can use Regu-mate. BUT....the injections should be done by a male or a post menopausal woman.
Posted 2009-05-04 9:34 AM (#104418 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Regular
Posts: 97 Location: Newport News, VA
If you do use Regumate, be VERY careful, if you get it on your hands AT ALL, it will cause you to bleed. If you could possibly be pregnant, I would not touch the bottle or anything. Regumate is quite expensive.
They do have hormone implants that last for several months that your vet injects under the skin in your mare's neck. I haven't ever used it, so I don't know how well it works.
Posted 2009-05-04 7:47 PM (#104452 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Veteran
Posts: 225 Location: Urbana,MD
We have a mare that is on regumate now! It is not given by injection.It is given orally.We just put it on the feed once daily and the mare eats it right up. This mare is like night and day on it. She was rearing and and just uncontrollable when not on it.Now she is like a little puppy dog. It works wonders.It is fairly expensive.$300 a bottle.It is given depending on weight.Our mare is 16.3 and probally 1450 lbs she gets 12 cc once daily.
Posted 2009-05-04 9:40 PM (#104457 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Extreme Veteran
Posts: 303 Location: Grapeland, Texas
I would check into the marble also. A lot cheaper than regumate and safer for you. I was talking to a man this weekend that had one in his mare and he said it took a couple of months but her attitude is so much better now.
Posted 2009-05-10 9:23 PM (#104738 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Elite Veteran
Posts: 681 Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
I have heard of giving regumate to bred mares to keep them from losing their foals due to inadequate hormone production. Have any of ya'll heard of this? My mare was bred once (in KY) before I bought her and lost it at 8 mos... presumably due to a kick from another horse. She has not successfully been bred since then.. The previous owners said they did not try to rebreed her, but I think (now) that they DID try and she was unable to keep it... i myself have tried several times and she actually palpated in foal at the breeders (after a month-long stay) but showed open again somewhere between 60 days and 120 days.. The vet for the breeders is a reproductive vet and said that she might be hormonally deficient... My little mare is just a big pet, really, and even though she is (to me) beautiful and a tough little trail mare, it's not like she is a super-duper show mare who would be worth the financial output to keep trying, despite the fact that a friend has a really nice arab stallion who would be more than happy to put out for the cause... I have been very tempted until cold sanity rules supreme and I realize that there are too many homeless horses out there.. Still.. every now and again I wish for a baby to raise, and a arab/rocky cross would make a good trail/endurance prospect for me.
Posted 2009-05-11 8:43 AM (#104748 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Expert
Posts: 1989 Location: South Central OK
I have heard of mares taking regumate so they won't 'slip' a foal. Reading your story I'll offer my advice. Stop now, enjoy your little mare and save the money.
Posted 2009-05-11 12:31 PM (#104754 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Elite Veteran
Posts: 681 Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
That's pretty much where I am in my thinking, too.. My luck, after tons of money, she'll have a difficult delivery and I'll end of losing both her and her baby..... She is my heart ( right up there with the kids..) and the loss would be devastating..
Still... Like I said.. every now and then I get to wanting a baby..
Posted 2009-05-12 8:26 PM (#104813 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Regular
Posts: 97 Location: Newport News, VA
Go buy one. It will be a lot cheaper in the long run and you will be able to see what you are getting. No risk to your mare, either. I always tell people who are interested in breeding their mare to think long and hard and be sure they can live with the reality that they could lose her. Sure, fortunately, it doesn't happen often, but it DOES happen and you need to be prepared for that possibility.
Regumate is used in mares that have a low level of progesterone. Sometimes vets will put mares on it when they aren't too sure of their ability to hold a pregnancy, just to try and help out. It gets quite expensive, especially if you have to keep them on it until the foal starts to produce their own progesterone. That is the most common time to lose a foal, as the progesterone production is taken over by the foal from the mare's body.
Posted 2009-05-13 1:22 PM (#104853 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Elite Veteran
Posts: 681 Location: Corpus Christi, Texas
When is that?
Being as my mare came from Kentucky right smack in the middle of Thoroughbred country, I had at one time surmised that she had been exposed to whatever the virus or illnes that went around breeding farms that caused their mares to abort... I used to know the name, but have forgotten it now..
I had e-mailed HorseJournal about it to find out more information.. ie: Does it have lingering effects, or it a "here and gone" -type thing.. They indicated that they would do an article on it, but I never saw it... Again, this is all a moot point, since I am not in the horse breeding business and am not likely to ever be..
Posted 2009-05-13 9:08 PM (#104875 - in reply to #104339) Subject: RE: ?hormones therapy for mare
Regular
Posts: 97 Location: Newport News, VA
Between the third and fifth month of pregnancy, the placenta takes over production of progesterone from the ovaries. When my mare was first ultrasounded, the vet found what he thought was an embryo, but he thought it was a bit small, so he started her on Regumate ("just in case") and came back a couple weeks later. The embryo had grown, so it was definitely an embryo, but he didn't think it had enough fluid around it, so again he came back in a couple weeks and we continued the Regumate. The third try, he was finally happy with the preganancy, so he tested her progesterone level and it was low, so she stayed on Regumate for 5 months. At 5 months, he did another progesterone test that would only show natural progesterone (that produced by the placenta) and it was noraml, so no more Regumate (HooRay!). That embryo turns 5 on Saturday and is big and fabulous!
?hormones therapy for mare
