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Discussion on Age Where Significant Problems Occur?

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Scott Fouch (Fouch)
Posted on Saturday, Nov 3, 2001 - 8:50 am:   Edit PostPrint Post

I didn't see anything in the article that indicated the probability of a problem given a certain biopsy score and the age of the mare. It just said they were correlated.

I have an opportunity to purchase an 18 year-old mare that absorbed last year and had a live foal this year that died a couple of days after birth. The mare did adopt another foal. They were unable to get her in foal this year.

I asked about a biopsy but she indicated that their vet didn't like to do biopsys unless the mare is in heat. I am not sure why.

This is a multiple world champion producing mare and I would really like to take a chance but I don't want to just throw my money away. I probably only need to get one foal to break even. Do you have any assessment of my risk?
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Robert N. Oglesby DVM (Dro)
Posted on Sunday, Nov 4, 2001 - 7:22 am:   Edit PostPrint Post

I think you missed the point Scott: age alone was not a good predictor of the ability to settle. You had to take into account the results of the biopsy to accurately predict fertility rates in large populations of older mares.

It is important that biopsy done during a heat because the uterine wall changes remarkably at this time, particularly the expansion of the glands. The appearance during diestrus and particularly anestrus resemble chronic inflammation. For more information Scott run a search on uterine biopsy this is a oft discussed topic.

To get back to your last question, this mare has had three strikes in three years. Knowing the actual cause of each problem would make prediction easier but just from the history, getting a healthy foal out of this mare is likely to be an up hill battle.

Obviously the man who wins the lottery did not throw his money away, it was just all the other poor chumps who came up empty. Now if we just knew the chumps from the winners before we buy the tickets.....
DrO
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