Female Horse in Heat...help

[hulahula]

Hello, my family and i are new to this horse stuff and we belive our mare is in heat. I am researching right now but in the meantime have a few questions i hope some of you can help me with. 1- how long will she stay in heat? 2- how often will she go into heat? 3- will her acting up ( as in not being good) stop after shes out of heat? 4- are there any behavioral/ physical changes to watch for in advance so we can predict when she'll go into heat? thanks for you help and time in advance.

[ros]

Mares are like people - they all vary! Usually they come on heat every 3 weeks or so and it lasts from a few days to a week or so, depending on the mare. Some get PMT, some don't; some are tarty, some aren't. I'd have thought it's a bit late in the year for your mare to be coming into heat - generally they stop through the winter and start again in early spring. Pony vet will probably tell you more.

[ponynut]

I own a real mare of mares- a real equine bimbo!
I know know that for four days out of 21 she is completely at the mercy of her raging hormones but a sweetie for the rest!! She winks at stallions, geldings or mares! (works well in an open show class she is sensational!)
Atfer a while you can spot your own mares symptoms- all my mares are different some go really soppy and sweet, some stroppy some you never notice!
People say seasons stop in October- mine never stop!
Be patient it is what makes mares so special- I could never love a gelding! Some say a mare is more of a challenge than a stallion because of their unpredicatabilty!
Tell a gelding;
Ask a mare:
Discuss it with a stallion!
Hope this helps! Seaons go in 21 day cycles or thereabouts- mares tend to be awkward for about four days as they are at the coming to and at theheight of fertility. It should dwindle as Winter comes as gestation is eleven months and foals need to be born in Spring/early summer if possible! Or so theory goes!!

[H & Bailey]

as said before..they all differ my mare seemed to be in season constantly..but remember if there is a stallion locally he can bring her into season too(well thats what I was told..)there are supplements stoppy mare which are herbal and are supposed to calm them down but you have to feed them all the time to benifit.

[ponyvet]

oooh, this is my specialist subject!

Horses are seasonal breeders and tend to come into season (naturally) from around late February to September (ish). Of course all horses vary so there will be some exceptions to this - also this only applies to the northern hemisphere too!!!:D

Mares typically have a breeding cycle which lasts three weeks, and will come into oestrus (heat) for 3-7 days. Like I said there will be some exceptions. Some mares will have longer cycles, some will be a bit shorter.

If your mare seems to come into season more frequently than this, or seems to be continuing to come ito season outside these periods, she may have problems. For example I have recently treated a mare who has been continually coming into season for 3 days every other week, since January, and in December, is still doing so. I scanned her, and she has cystic ovaries. This simply means that when follicles have developed, they have not ovulated as they normally should, but have persisted. The follicles produce oestrogen and this is what brings her into heat. A mare with this problem will also seem to have serious PMT so it's well worth asking your vet to check her out if you think her behaviour is a bit over the top or they seem to be nymphomaniacs! :eek:

You can get some medications from your vet if your mare has normal ovaries, but is still a nightmare when she's on heat. This is effectively putting her on the pill, and is what many showjumpers and dressage horses have done, so their performance doesn't suffer from their raging hormones.:p

[Dizzy]

My 4 yr old mare is still coming into season. This year a gelding was added to the herd, 'til then it was 4 mares. Since he's been in the herd she's been showing in season behaviour more than out of season. Though she's never awful to deal with, in fact she's usually lovely, her normally happy, easy come, easy go tempermant can change and be challenging, nothing horrendous if nipped in the bud straight away, but with other people has the potential to be nasty.

She's showing in season now, peeing with in smell distance of the gelding - do you think this is young raging hormones that will settle as she matures? or should I look a bit deeper? Quite a few people have said it will settle down, its just because she's young.

Lesley

[Chloe1]

hi Dizzy

My mare is nearly 14 now and she must be the most desperate tart I know. She is in a field of mares only and has been in season for the last 4 days, so I don't think it is something they grow out of.

However the first year I had my mare she appeared to be in season for the entire duration of the summer when she was with a mixed herd. This changed when she went into a herd with mares only and her cycles corrected themselves, but she will come inot season at any time of the year, but has PMT everyday. A REAL STROP. But she can be so loveable and trusting even when she is really frightened.

They are all so very different, there are about 15 mares in her herd and everyone is different.

[Pixie]

My mare is also in season right now and can be a bit stroppy and just like Dizzy said has the potential to be a bit nasty with other people but she knows I am the boss and respects that. I have her on D and H Stroppy Mare and find that is enough to keep those moody strops to a minimum. Overall she is very sweet and I don't have a problem with her moods as I feel just the same sometimes!! and them we are two moody old bags together!!:D

[ponyvet]

Although they seem healthy it is worth getting these mares checked out. It isn't normal for them to be in season all year, and it's not usually something that resolves itself, so I do think it's worth it. In fact the high hormone levels can cause problems themselves, especially in older mares.

From the sound of yours dizzy I think she's certainly likely to have polycystic ovaries.

A course of hormone injections gets rid of it and then they are back to normal. You'd be surprised what a difference there is in their behaviour, even out of season.

[Dizzy]

Thanks everyone for your replies, I won't say I'm glad I'm not the only one. It's such a pain in the kneck and embarrassing, Breeze missed peeing down my friends back by centimetres because she was stood close to the gelding while he was tied up and we were walking past. We did laugh, but its not a nice thought.

Ponyvet thanks for your advice, I'll have the vet look to her in the New Year.

Lesley

[Speedy]

And I thought I had the biggest equine tart ever to walk the earth!! She was in season over New Year with temps of minus seven!!

Ponyvet - I had her scanned just before xmas, but she was showing normal, quiet ovaries. However, she was still tarting it up with the next door gelding. The vet took a blood test and sent it to Newmarket. Apparently her hormone levels are 15, when they should be 5 in winter and 30+ in summer (don't really know what this is all about). Anyway, if her levels are lower than summer and her ovaries are normal, why was she winking and squirting with urine the colour of chalk? Is it worth getting her hormones checked in the summer as well?

When she's in season, she is usually ok to handle on the ground (just a complete nymphomaniac) but riding is a nightmare - she's very stiff behind and just stops and plants herself with her legs spread! She also screams for her field mates, whips round, spooks, naps etc and I've had to stop riding her when she's in season, which is a bit of a pain.

The vet has recommended Regumate or an injection, but apparently the injection may interfere with her chances of becoming a broodmare (she's well bred and talented and had three foals about six yrs ago - is now 14). Is this true? Please help as I'm at my wits end...

She is turned out with 5 other mares but there are colts from the local racing stables turned out in fields about half a mile away, which she has to ride past.....

Thanks xx

[ponyvet]

Sounds like although her ovaries appear normal on scan, there might still be something going on which is not detectable. There may be some small "something" going on that the scanner cannot pick up depending on how good the actual scanner machine is, as quality does vary. What may be picked up on a top notch scanner may not be detectable with a cheaper one. Anyway that's really beside the point.

Her hormone levels are too high for this time of year for whatever reason (you may never know why) and maybe that's just her. If you want to have them checked again in the summer then I would. You may have a mare that is recovering herself from a bout of cystic ovaries, or maybe just has some sort of over-active oestrogen producing cells. Either way she sounds like she's being a problem for you. Perhaps get her scanned too in the summer to see how normal her cycling is then. Perhaps she's over-fertile or something!! (very interesting anyway! I'd love to scan her and have a look!)

I suggest you go with regumate. The injection isn't really likely to cause a problem, but it's a fairly new treatment regime he's probably thinking about and there's not been a lot of research into it yet. If you are thinking about using her as a broodmare again regumate will be fine. You just need to add it to her feed and in a few weeks (maybe even days if you're lucky) you should see a tremendous improvement.

This is exactly the sort of situation and behaviour I'd expect from a polycystic mare and why I suggest people with mares in season at the wrong time of year to have them checked out. Although they start of being very well behaved, the prolonged levels of oestrogen can make them agressive, as oestrogen is actually metabolised in the body to testosterone. By the time this happens you may have a serious problem horse!

[Miriam]

Hulahula the hores on my yard have not stopped coming into season this winter for some reason. It may be that we have had two fairly recent new arrivals both geldings.

Ponyvet maybe you could help me with a little question. Is there anything you can give a mare that tends to mount other mares when they are in season. She only does this occassionaly.

[Speedy]

Thanks ponyvet

I didn't realise that she could have polycystic ovaries and recover by herself. I also didn't realise that the excess oestrogen turns to testosterone. She did go through a very aggressive period in the summer, where she was rearing up and striking out at me when I was trying to lunge her - very unlike her. She was also a lot worse this summer than she had ever been before, which was why I suspected a problem.

I'll try the regumate for a month and see if things improve. If you're ever in the Herts/Bucks area then feel free to come and scan her - my vet says that she is just over-sexed!!

[ros]

With all due respect to your vet, what exactly is "just over-sexed" supposed to mean? Is this some sort of horsey emotional roller-coaster????? Not very scientific!

[ponyvet]

DUH!!! ;)

Oversexed means too much oestrogen - which must have come from somewhere!!!! Sounds to me like her ovaries were going mad in the summer!! :D

Regumate might help with the mounting mare too, but I'd also get her ovaries scanned too just to check them out.

[Miriam]

Thanks pony vet. Just wondering though If she had a cyst would she still be hanging around and in season? We have a Rocky on the farm and she is winking and hosing for me. I think she must have something about horses called Rocky as she used to do the same for my friends foal (called Rocky) but not this amount for the others.

Seems to me if your names not Rocky you don't stand a chance :D

[ponyvet]

They tend to have several cysts on one or both ovaries, and yes that's why she'd still be in season at this time of year. there seems to have been a lot of it around this winter, and As horses breeding cycles are also affected by temperature and light, I wonder if the mild winter this year has had something to do with it!


Also - just by the way - if you keep a mare under artificial light for long enough each day you can keep them coming into season during the winter, but it does need to be at least 16 hours of artificial daylight.

[Speedy]

Would her ovaries have been going mad because of the entire colt turned out about half a mile away? We had to go past him everytime we hacked out last summer and he would chase along the hedge line, screaming. Fortunately he has now been moved to Scotland as a stallion (but she is still nervous on that stretch of the bridleway). Would the close proximity of an entire be enough to cause excessive hormone production? (Apologies for my ignorance!)

[ponyvet]

Probably not with horses, but in some other species (e.g. pigs) you can bring young sows (called gilts) into early puberty by allowing them to see and smell a boar! I don't think horses have the same effect - otherwise lots of racing stables would be over-run with polycystic mares as many racehorses are left entire!

Interesting theory though! :D

[Speedy]

Yeah, that makes sense, durrrrr! But on the racing yard, the colts are under control when ridden so not allowed to scream and chase the fillies up the lane. Colts and fillies are often seperated when ridden, always seperated when stabled. Also, I've heard of fillies who come into season when they get to the racetrack and come into contact with colts, and colts who have to be gelded because they don't concentrate and become dangerous when at the track. At the racing yard where my friend works, they put a lot of the fillies on regumate cos they have so many problems with the fillies coming into season - we don't have that problem here so much, but the filly lads don't handle colts and vice versa.

Was just an idea - she's such a floozy, she came into season when a new gelding arrived on the yard! Plus, unlike racing fillies, she's had three foals, so knows what she's missing when I refuse to let her into his field!!!

[ponyvet]

yes a lot of fillies are on egumate, but more because the effect they have on the colts is lessened then. I's a real problem for studs, because the colts are so restrained in their instincts, due to heavy handedness when they do act stalliony, that when they are required to do the business some of them have no idea. In fact some of the biggest names in studs are rubbish at actually doing the job!!

i can imagine that fillies can be brought into puberty by proximity of entire males, but I dunno about mares. Maybe she is just more sensitive to it than others, and like you say maybe as she has had foals she's even more sensitive.

Are you trying any regumate yet? and if so how's she taken to it?

[Speedy]

Now you mention it, I think I even heard of a TB stallion who couldn't perform with attractive young fillies, but got excited about a scruffy pony, so they ended up having to make the mares look really scruffy so that he would mount them - they put that down to him being conditioned into not responding to the racing fillies - does make sense actually.

Haven't started the regumate yet - my vet is talking to some stud expert to see if there's anything else we can do as well. Oh, and I changed vets during this scenario - the first one (who said "she's just oversexed") advice was to "get rid of her and buy a gelding". That wasn't very helpful, so I got another more sympathetic vet. Will let you know when we start....