ADVICE PLEASE?

by **gbt** on Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:21 pm

Hi, so I have a 24 year old mare who has ringbone and we decided we wanted to have a foal with her, except she would be able to carry a foal herself anymore so we decided on using embryo transfer with a surrogate mare. We do not think that she will be able to last comfortably through the winter and so we wanted to do this this summer. I have looked into all the embryo transfer details however there is some debate as if we did this the foal would be born out of season. can someone please help me as to whether this is important or not? I don't want to risk the foals health but at the same time i am a little reserved as using frozen eggs may not be as effective and this foal is important to me as i have grown up with this mare and would love to have a foal left from her. please help?

by **Sasca** on Wed Jul 18, 2012 4:08 pm

If you are set on having a foal then as long as you have the set ups the timing shouldn't mater to much. I wouldn't leave it much longer as you want the foal to get the good grass before winter and to be very well socialised before having to be stabled. Doing it now you would get a July foal so should still be well within normal time periods. i had an august foal and he was fine, just don't wean till much later.