Equine Reproduction Service

Welcome to the Equine Reproduction Service at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital. Faculty and resident veterinarians in the service provide routine and advanced reproductive care to patients at the VMTH.

Services provided for mares include diagnostic work-ups on infertile mares, artificial insemination, ultrasonographic pregnancy diagnosis, twin reduction, pregnant mare care, obstetrics, and foaling management. In addition, our clinicians manage mares experiencing dystocia (difficult foaling), working in close collaboration with veterinarians specializing in surgery, neonatology, critical patient care and anesthesia.

Services provided for stallions include fertility evaluation, investigation of infertility, stallion breeding management, semen collection and evaluation, preparation and shipment of cooled semen, and freezing of semen. Also available are advanced reproductive technologies, including transvaginal aspiration of oocytes, ICSI, embryo transfer and collection and freezing of epididymal sperm.

Discover the latest equine clinical trials at UC Davis

Visit the Veterinary Gamete Biology and Assisted Reproduction Technology (ART) Laboratory 


Clinical Activities and Procedures

Medical/Obstetrics Services

A board-certified veterinary specialist in the obstetrics area of theriogenology and a veterinary technician are always available at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital, where we can evaluate horses with medical needs such as:

  • Dystocia
  • Healthy broodmare management when accompanying sick foals
  • Late twin reduction
  • Fetal loss
  • Retained placenta
  • Endometrial cysts
  • Reproductive system tumors
  • High-risk pregnancy monitoring and foal watch
  • All manner of stallion fertility complaints
     

Reproduction Services

A board-certified veterinary specialist in reproduction area of theriogenology and a veterinary technician are always available at the Center for Equine Health, where we can evaluate horses with reproductive needs such as:

  • Mare breeding management
  • Pregnancy evaluations
  • Early twin reduction
  • Mare infertility evaluations
  • Healthy pregnant mare foal-watch
  • Embryo transfers services
  • Stallion semen collection and processing for shipment
  • Stallion semen freezing
  • Stallion training for semen collection
  • Stallion infertility evaluations
  • Limited space for select breeding stallions “to stand”

Semen Shipping and Storage Forms


Advanced Equine Assisted Reproduction

Visit laboratory website

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) technology requires technical skills that are typically not offered by veterinary practices and include aspiration of immature or mature eggs from mares using ultrasound-guided transvaginal aspiration (TVA) of follicles, in vitro culture of the eggs, micromanipulation and microinjection of eggs with a single selected sperm, and laboratory embryo culture, freezing, and transfer to synchronized recipient mares. Successful production of healthy foals is now routine from valuable mares and the ICSI technique has been commercially successful from several centers in the U.S., Europe, and Australia.

NEWS: UC Davis Announces First In Vitro Equine Pregnancy


Faculty

dini

Pouya Dini, DVM, PhD, PhD, DECAR, DACT
Assistant Professor - Chief of Service

dujovne

Ghislaine Dujovne, DVM, MS, DACT
Associate Professor

 

Martin

Soledad Martin-Pelaez, DVM, DACT
Staff Veterinarian

Daniela Orellana

Daniela Orellana, DVM, MS, DACT
Staff Veterinarian

Renaudin

Catherine Renaudin, DVM, DECAR
Staff Veterinarian


House Officers

de Castro

Thadeu de Castro, DVM
Resident I

Omyla

Kornelia Omyla, DVM
Resident II


Staff

Wheeler

Nicole Wheeler
Animal Health Technician

corea

Jasmine Corea
Animal Health Technician