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Discussion on Predicting fertile times and id'ing pregnancy | |
Author | Message |
Member: Chrism |
Posted on Monday, Jun 21, 2004 - 1:19 pm: This may seem like a silly question, but why wouldn't there be easy to use kits that allow mare owners to 1) predict optimal time for insemination and, 2) determine if a mare is pregnant?Humans have drug store pregnancy tests and ovulation predictors that work off of urine. I believe there is even a kit that predicts ovulation based on the way saliva dries on a slide. Seems like there would be a nice niche market for horse people out there. Cheers. |
Moderator: DrO |
Posted on Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004 - 7:14 am: Hello Chris,Taking your questions in order: 1) Optimal insemination (ovulation prediction)is much harder in a mare. While humans have a remarkable LH spike at ovulation, horses have a gradual increase through out there heat cycle and ovulation occurs across a rather large range of absolute values of LH. That does not make it impossible just less precise and there is currently work looking for other indicatiors of imminent ovulation. 2) Here there is a real possiblity of detecting a successful breeding as early as 2 days post breeding but currently there is no commercial kit that I am aware of: Am J Reprod Immunol. 2000 Mar;43(3):174-9. Study of early pregnancy factor (EPF) in equine (Equus caballus). Ohnuma K, et.al. Department of Bioscience and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, Iwate University, Japan. PROBLEM: Early pregnancy factor (EPF) is an immunosuppressive protein detected in the early pregnancy serum. We have already reported that we developed the rosette inhibition test for mare EPF and detected EPF in thoroughbreds. The aim of this study was to determine whether or not our method could be used clinically. METHODS OF STUDY: The rosette inhibition test for equine EPF was carried out on serum from six nonpregnant and six pregnant Shetland ponies, a female and a male Chinese pony, and four nonpregnant and 13 pregnant thoroughbred mares. In the thoroughbreds sera were collected during the pregnancy period. Furthermore, we measured progesterone and detected pregnant mare serum gonadotrophin (PMSG) in order to confirm pregnancy of the Chinese pony 3 and 6 months after mating. RESULTS: In the nonpregnant Shetland ponies, the rosette inhibition titre (RIT) was 6.0+/-1.0 and EPF was negative. In contrast, in the pregnant ponies, the RIT was 9.2+/-0.4 and EPF was positive. Based on these results, we diagnosed pregnancy of the Chinese pony. The RIT of the female Chinese pony (3 months after mating) was above 10 and EPF was positive. Furthermore, we detected PMSG and progesterone in the serum of this pony. EPF appeared in the maternal blood circulation at 24-72 hr after mating, it was detected until the second trimester, and after that it disappeared from the maternal serum. CONCLUSIONS: The pony's EPF was detected by using the same rosette inhibition test as in the thoroughbred and was present from 24 to 72 hr after mating until the second trimester. The results indicated that our method was useful for pregnancy diagnosis of Equine. I suspect that the test they used might be technically challenging but a clever company with ELISA experience should be able to manage this. DrO |
Member: Goolsby |
Posted on Tuesday, Jun 22, 2004 - 8:25 am: I have seen pregancy test kits in valley vet. Dont know if there worth a flip tho. |