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