Testing mammary gland secretions to help predict when a mare will foal.

The research article is about assessing the reliance of mammary gland secretions to predict the exact time of foaling (birth) in mares. This can help avoid complications associated with unpredicted births.

Background and Objectives

• The article starts by discussing the economic value of horses and the need for assisted foaling to prevent any complications related to births.
• The challenge addressed in the paper is that most mares give birth late at night or early morning—times when human attendance might be difficult. Therefore, a method to accurately predict a mare’s foaling time would be beneficial to both the horse and its carer.
• Traditionally, physical signs like an udder filling with milk and teat ends waxing up have been used to predict foaling, but their reliability can vary considerably among individual mares.

Dependence on Electrolyte Composition

• The authors explain that major changes occur in the electrolyte composition of a mare’s mammary gland secretions during late pregnancy. Sodium and chloride ions decrease while calcium, potassium, protein and lactose concentrations increase significantly before foaling.
• Measuring these changes—especially calcium’s concentration—has become a standard method to predict foaling in mares.
• However, this testing doesn’t necessarily predict when a mare will give birth, but rather when it is not ready to foal. Nevertheless, this method can offer helpful information on when not to monitor a pregnant mare at night.

Role of the Foal and the Mare

• The research article ends with an interesting observation – it is proposed that the foal chooses the day it will be born, while the mare chooses the hour. The mares most likely have an innate instinct to choose a quiet time for foaling such as late night or early morning for protection purposes.

In summary, this study seeks to solidify the use of testing mammary gland secretions in predicting foaling times, with the understanding that the method chiefly predicts a mare’s unpreparedness for foaling rather than the precise birth time. This can nevertheless have significant implications on horse breeding and care management practices.