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Topic: pseudo pregnancy (Read 2389 times)
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Karen P.
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Have any of you ever had one of these? I bred my mare last summer but ultrasound showed nothing although blood test came back positive. Next ultrasound also showed nothing so we chalked it up to an opportunity lost. I weaned her filly in December and she still has a bag. She did last year too while pregnant. She is pretty round so I had the vet palpate her a month ago and again "not pregnant". Well, no one told her, she acts pregnant (much nicer), she's rounder than she should be and tonight was dripping milk! Not a lot just a few drops. Vet says it will resolve with the lengthening days.
Has anyone else had experience with this?
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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Yep, we had one of these five years ago. What a bummer   But it should--and did, in our case--with the change of the seasons. Your mare should start coming back into heat sooner or later. Ours got her act together by June. Depending on your mare's situation, I think there is a possibility that this thing is being maintained by persistent corpus lutei, so you may decide to give a dose of lutelyse/prostin/prostamate to break those up. Actually, give 1/10 of a dose two days in a row to simulate the natural gradual rise in blood levels and your mare won't hate you so much for that treatment. This may help speed things up.
Other than that, ask Heather (Sovereign Farm/Sovereign Horses). She works for Dr. Lloyd Kloppe, who is an equine repro GOD.
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Lara, Gryphon Farm
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In all of your experiences, have you ever known a mare to be diagnosed having lossed her embryo early on, only to carry to term secretly? I have a mare the doc diagnosed "slipped," at 36 days - since it was July, we decided to keep her open and ride her this year. Nine months later, she is rather large. All of the other young mares have come into heat, yet she shows nothing (usually she's the first and the most visible). '03 was her first foal, and we have had only one foal this year, a filly this mare is only moderately interested in. Is it possible this mare is having a false pregnancy due to the arrival of her herdmate's foal (new mom is the alpha mare)? The mystery thickens by this mare's loss of weight until the last two weeks due to weaning of the '03 foal a few months back. She paced and fretted, losing weight at an alarming rate. We did the prescribed with Strategy, Corn Oil, rice bran, etc - but it only kicked in recently (a good 10 or 12 weeks into our regimen for her, in spite of her good appetite). She's suddenly quiet and heavy, swinging her belly from side to side at the walk, never pacing or concerned. I have noticed her quieting and body development only since the new foal was born - before that, every pound was a struggle. She was last bred beginning or mid July I believe. Is it possible she took and has been hiding it? Do broodmares take on that "look" after the initial breeding year, displaying the physique of a mare in foal, even if open? I apologize for the stupid questions, but I'm stumped here. This mare is healthy and happy, but her size and behavior make me wonder. Anyone have experience or ideas about this? Palpation would be conclusive, but calling my guy to palpate conjures visions of me playing checkers in a room full of nuts. 
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Joy
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Lara, your mare could be having a false pregnancy--or she could be pregnant. A few years ago some women at a barn I boarded at brought in a mare that they'd just bought from a QH breeder, who sold her because she just wouldn't settle. The vet had been out 3 or 4 times and each time confirmed the mare was NOT PREGNANT. When she kept getting bigger, the vet wrote it off to false pregnancy, the owner sold her---and 2 or 3 months later she delivered a very nice, well-bred little colt. (Needless to say, the previous owner was PO'd.)
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Karen P.
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Lara, I vote to have the vet out. Last year a breeder on the COTH board had a surprise foal from her 20 something broodmare that the vets checked multiple times "not in foal". Even my old vet says he's missed a few so I wouldn't be at all shy about making sure!
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Joy
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But if the vets have missed the pregnancy several times already, and she is pregnant, don't be surprised if they miss it again. My vet won't ultrasound after a certain time--says it's too risky for the pregnancy.
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Karen P.
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Tannewald, just how convincing was your mare? I swear mine is getting bigger and bag is definately not going away. She would be about 9 weeks out from 340. Our days are up to 12 hours of daylight and still no heat.
Lara, did you decide to have the vet out?
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Tannenwald Trakehner
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TANZBRISE by Windfall out of Tariana
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Karen, our mare did not "shape up" (as the olde-farm vet referred to it). He said that could happen, as well as having milk, but I don't know if I believe him. The only thing that our mare did indicating that she was still pregnant was maintaining a dramatic change in disposition (which she only has when pregnant) and not cycling.
From talking to local vets and Darla Carleton, the therio expert at Michigan State, at the time, I seem to recall that if a mare has an infection, a mucometra or pyometra, resulting from the breeding she may maintain that isolated infection like a pregnancy and shape up to a degree and bag. Our mare did not have that; her case was more like a persistent CL.
Do you have other preggies to look at? I ask because the mind can be deceiving when you are thinking a mare is pregnant and you can start "seeing" a baby-belly when the mare is really not pregnant. With Tara I imagined a baby-belly through 7 months. But getting to the time frame you are talking about, it should be pretty obvious if there is a baby-belly or not.
If she IS actually shaping up, I would suspect she IS pregnant. Is it possible that your vet is not particularly capable of determining pregnancy through US and palpation? I forget what all the time frames are, but there are many times in the course of the pregnancy where the foal is not detectable by one method or the other due to it being out of reach beyond the pelvic brim. Depending on the time frames of your ultrasound the fetus may not have been easily detectable by that method.
What kind of blood test was done? A progesterone assay, ECG, or an estrone sulfate assay? According to the notes from the Equine-Reproduction.com seminar, progesterone levels start being a decent indication after day 16, but can remain elevated even if the pregnancy is lost (even between 35-120 days because the endometrial cups are kicking out progesterone). OTOH, the estrone sulfate test is supposed to be an excellent indicator, since only pregnant mares have it. It can be used from day 90 through two weeks pre-foaling.
What does the vet say about her matronly figure? What did he feel on palpation? Are her ovaries active? Are there follicles or what may be CLs present? What is her uterine tone and does it seem to have ANYTHING in it (considering the pyometra/mucometra scenario)? A palp at what seems from your time frame would have been 8 months should have told him something. If there was a foal it probably would have been recognized by ballotment, and if the uterus was EMPTY, he should have been able to pretty well feel all the way around it. What was her cervix doing at that point?
It seems to me that 9-10 weeks out is awfully early to be dripping milk if there is a pregnancy, and that would make me think it is just a hormonal weirdness. But again, according to olde-farm vet, it could be an indication of a Braxton-Hicks type of early contractions.
I would definitely check with the vet and figure out what he found other than the every-annoying "not pregnant", and have her checked again, perhaps by someone else if you don't have a good feeling about the vet's capabilities. And I would definitely consider an estrone sulfate assay.
I also would post your scenario with as detailed a time frame of all of the procedures as you can muster on the Yahoo group list for Equine-Reproduction. Jos Mottershead and Kathy St. Martin have really been around the block with breeding.
Isn't this a PITA? If only the darn mares would read the books and do what they ought to...
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Karen P.
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Well, this would be her third pregnancy in a row if she is and even the vet said she thought her shape was suspicious when she palpated. The mare is very wide in the barrel anyway so she is roundish all the time and may have lost her "girlish figure" after her two foals at her age (18). There were drips of milk again tonight and I keep staring at her sides to look for fetal movement, always hard to see and I don't have as much time to watch. Her tail is easy to swish around and her tailhead seemed a little soft. I think I'll call the vet and see what she felt when she palpated. Ah mares, the mystery!
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