DIY A.I    
Breeders can now train in the skills of inseminating their own mares
Article by Anne Brown
 
 

The advent of artificial insemination (AI) in horses, and the acceptance by the Arab Horse Society over the past few years to register the resulting foals, has opened new opportunities for breeders in Britain.

For many reasons, stallion and mare owners often prefer AI. It is usually safer, and more hygienic than live covering. It allows a working stallion, such as WAHO winner PHA Silvern Risalm, to keep competing without risk of injury. And for a mare with a young foal at foot, it obviates the need to travel to a stallion. The semen can be collected to order and delivered to your door overnight in an Equitainer or purpose-made polystyrene box.

But until recently, there has been an extra cost to pay for the insemination, a procedure previously limited to qualified vets (although stallion-owners have always been able to collect semen without restriction).

As DEFRA has relaxed the strict rules governing insemination of mares, laymen can now train as AI Technicians on an approved course, and practise insemination if they pass the qualifying exam. This is very good news for breeders.

To find out just what degree of expertise is involved, I signed up for a course organised by BEVA (the British Equine Veterinary Association), approved by DEFRA. The fee for the two days of lectures and practical seminars was a very reasonable £395, including excellent meals at the hospitable Hare and Hounds Hotel at Westonbirt, near Tetbury, but not accommodation. The two-night stay added another £160. The course is quickly oversubscribed as soon as dates are set.

The location was chosen for its proximity to the Willesley Equine Clinic, a mile away, run by AI specialist Chris Shepherd and his cheerful team, and base for most of the practical sessions.

The line-up of vets greeting us for the first morning’s lectures represented the most experienced and respected practices in the country. Chris started introductions with world-renowned AI expert Martin Boyle from Stallion Reproduction Services in Cambridge. Next was the ever-patient John Gilliver from Lancashire, then enthusiastic Jonathan Pycock from Equine Reproductive Services in Yorkshire, and finally a non-vet, but the person who probably does more stallion collections than all the rest put together: Tessa Clarke who runs the West Kington Stud, a centre for excellence near Chippenham.

Then our 20-strong group of novices (three men, 17 women) studied the relevant anatomy of mare and stallion, learning how to collect, evaluate and package semen with extender to prolong its viability, how to prepare a mare for insemination, how to complete the paperwork to ensure accurate records, how to set up the ideal AI unit with AV preparation, collection and a lab for subsequent microscopic exam all kept separate, and what health checks to vaccinate or swab for.

Hands-on experience allowed us to poke around the insides of docile mares and watch rather more rampant stallions.

It seems the AV (artificial vagina) plays an all-important part in successful collection as each stallion needs a slightly different size and temperature for successful ejaculation. Finding out what suits individual stallions will ensure better results. Knowing which and how much extender to add to the semen for transportation to the mare owner is another ingredient of this complex process.

Chris Shepherd then took us to his Willesley Clinic for the practical insemination session, preceded by a most useful hands-on gynaecological exam of post mortem uterine tracts laid out for us on a work bench. This was a vital help in understanding the physiology of the organs and the location of the ovaries, Fallopian tubes and oviducts, allowing us to understand exactly how and where we would insert the catheter through the cervix, without risk of damage to the mare.

Then, to the live mare and the heart of all we were learning. In the stocks, poor patient Dreamcatcher tolerated not only five sets of exploratory forefingers, then fists, fumbling through her reproductive passages to locate the entry to the cervix. She then had to endure a further session while each student nervously introduced the plastic catheter the required distance into the uterus.

You could practically hear her mutter: “Oh no, not the orange glove brigade….”

Fixing the two-part syringe full of a solution doubling as semen to the end of the catheter required a third helper, illustrating the need for teamwork in such a delicate operation.

But certainly this hands-on experience under the guidance of experts John Gilliver and Jonathan Pycock proved the very essence of the course.

It even overshadowed the more dramatic task of collecting from the stallion – a fine racing Arab from Shadwell Stud called Jiyush, learning the ropes at West Kington. We were most impressed as one of our students Alexander Peternell prepared the AV with the required amount of 50 degree water in sterile conditions. He then gently introduced it on to the stallion, redirecting the flow of semen from the jump mare (in kicking boots) to the largest condom any of us had ever seen. We then realised that, to Alexander, this is all in a day’s work as he runs his own livery and training yard locally with wife Alice and helps out regularly with semen collection at West Kington.


Frozen semen is available from Sambist
 

A small amount of semen was then rushed back to the lab at Willesley for us to examine under the microscope for volume, progressively motile sperm, and concentration. From this, we learnt how to calculate the sperm count.

Welcome tea breaks allowed us to view the products sold through EV in Shropshire, a leading supplier of vet equipment, specialising in AI.

This course qualifies participants who pass the exam to inseminate mares in the UK with fresh and chilled semen. Using frozen semen from overseas stallions is a much more complex operation. It needs skill to identify the follicle’s optimum moment for insemination, involving a rectal ultra-sound, and this procedure is forbidden to all but qualified vets.

All vets stressed ‘best practice’ throughout and passed out the HBLB Codes on sexually-transmitted diseases such as CEM, EVA and EHV. Many breeders already receive this useful booklet via the AHS. As EVA is fortunately not present in the UK, though rife on the Continent, semen-importers have a duty of care to ensure semen from Europe has a clean bill of health to avoid the risk of contaminating Britain’s entire equine population. Equally, CEM seems endemic in the USA though very rare in Britain, so all imported semen should test clear.

     
Here at Gadebrook Stud, we plan to use the top quality semen imported from the all-round athlete and WAHO Horse of the Year in America, Remington Steele*++ (right), whose impressive post-thaw motility is between 60% and 68%. Australian breeders at the recent World Crabbet Convention in Queensland also expressed huge interest in sending over frozen semen from their excellent stallions.

A final written exam sorted out the sheep from the goats. To date, 240 students have qualified as AI Technicians and received their DEFRA exemption allowing them to inseminate mares.

The two abiding lessons students learned from the course, apart from the obvious clinical opportunities, were the importance of cleanliness and meticulous record-keeping, to protect both stallion owner and mare owner.

However, no-one ever explained why it takes a billion sperm to fertilise ONE egg! .......

 

Rem's frozen semen has been
100% successful in the UK