Mare Services

Artificial Insemination

Whether you are breeding to a stallion on-site or with cooled/frozen shipped semen we have the capability to assist in getting your mare in foal.

Embryo Transfer

Embryo transfer is an increasingly technique with many advantages. Here at PFER, we are excited to offer this service to the US equine breeding market.

In practical terms, embryo transfer (ET) is essentially a surrogate pregnancy. A donor mare is inseminated, but instead of carrying the pregnancy, the embryo is flushed from her uterus and implanted into a recipient mare, which then carries the pregnancy to term.

One of the main advantages of ET is that it allows for the production of a greater number of foals, with minimal disruption to the biological parents’ sporting careers.

ProFuture performs a significant amount of successful embryo transfers every season. We have the capability to transfer flush embryos, and frozen ICSI embryos.

Recipient Mare Lease

ProFuture works hard to make sure we have recipient mares available for multiple embryo transfers per day. We palpate daily to record ovulations and ensure that we are able to synchronize them with our donor mares.

Foaling

ProFuture operates a foaling program with attention given to all details. Our extremely experienced staff makes sure your newborn foal receives all needed care. The mare's colostrum is checked for level of antibodies and the foal is observed for adequate nursing and good health. A blood test (IGG) is performed on the foal at 18 hours of age to determine if adequate levels of antibodies were received from the colostrum. ProFuture does everything we can to make sure your foal goes home thriving.

Oocyte Aspiration

For on-site oocyte collection, mares can be housed at ProFuture or can be hauled in. Generally, we can collect two types of oocytes from mares:

Immature oocytes: Often collected from smaller follicles and must be artificially matured within an incubator.
Mature oocytes: We can also collect an oocyte from a large follicle just prior to ovulation. In this case, the oocyte has begun to mature and prepare for fertilization naturally within your mare’s follicle.

Each situation is different, and the decision to collect either is based upon consultation with one of our veterinarians.

For either oocyte collection technique, an ultrasound probe positioned within the vagina of the sedated mare provides images of the follicles while positioning the ovary. For the oocyte collections, a needle is punctured through the vaginal wall and into individual follicles, and gentle suction applied to collect oocytes. The number of oocytes recovered varies per mare and aspiration attempt.

Stallion Services

Semen Collection and Analysis

Confirm that your stallion is producing a sufficient quantity of progressively motile, morphologically normal sperm prior to the breeding season.

Cooled Transported Semen

We perform fresh collection and shipping services for regional stallion owners. Cooled-transported semen is generally shipped via FedEx, but can also be shipped for same-day delivery using commercial airlines (i.e. counter-to-counter).

If your stallion is entering a shipped-semen breeding program for the first time, we can perform a "test cool" to determine how well your horse's semen maintains its motility under standard cooling and shipping conditions. After collection, we will identify which extender is most suitable for preserving motility.

Once an extender and/or additional procedures are selected, the appropriate volume of raw semen is mixed with semen extender so that each insemination dose contains at least one billion progressively motile sperm cells. After processing, semen is packaged into an appropriate shipping/cooling container and sent to the mare owner.

Semen Freezing and Storage

Advantages of frozen semen are long-term preservation of genetic materials, insurance against unanticipated loss of a stallion, access to frozen semen if fresh or cooled semen is not available. For frozen-thawed stallion semen to be considered commercially acceptable, the percentage of progressively motile spermatozoa should be at least 30% at 10 minutes after thawing. To ensure acceptable motility of your stallion's sperm after thawing, we will perform a test freeze before freezing or storing semen long term.

In addition to providing semen freezing services, the ProFuture Equine also serves as a commercial frozen semen storage facility. Please contact us for information on options for short-term and long-term storage of frozen stallion semen.

Semen freezing services include:

Freezing from a fresh collection
Freezing from cooled semen
Semen storage

Phantom Training

Training a stallion to safely and successfully mount a breeding phantom to facilitate semen collection reduces the risk of injury to horses or breeding farm personnel compared to collection off of a mare. Use of a phantom also reduces the potential for transmission of microbial pathogens.

Our staff is experienced in training a wide range of stallions to collect off of a phantom - from young novice stallions to older pasture-breeding stallions

Stallion Management

Seasonal stallion management is a highlight of our stallion service offerings. We can "stand" or house up to ten stallions at our facility during the breeding season, as well as manage contracts for frozen semen banked from stallions that will be busy performing or deceased stallions.

Reproductive Evaluation

Services include:

Physical examination
Examination of external genitalia (to determine testicular volume and expected daily sperm production)
Examination of internal genitalia
Evaluation for venereal disease
Semen evaluation
Test cool (if needed)
Test freeze (if needed)
Other tests (if needed

Our Services

Focused on equine reproduction, Profuture Equine offers a large variety of services.