Mare not cycling?

[cadeby]

One of our Dales mares who has a 14 week filly foal at foot does not appear to have come back into season since foaling. We deliberately didn't put her back to the stallion on the foal-heat, as our foal was really early (6th Feb) and we didn't want a January offering for next year!
However, we have been presenting her to our stallion since mid April roughly every 3 days and NOTHING! Poor lad keeps getting his hopes up, all to no avail.
It's not as if she's even foal-proud. We've tried with her foal being held in-hand in view, and also with the foal in her stable but Mum is having none of it. The stallion is now running in a field alongside the mare but she's still not getting interested.
The mare doesn't seem to be ill, infact she looks the picture of health - a good weight for breeding, shiny coat and bags of milk.
My OH reckons she just doesn't want any more kids, lol!

Has anyone else experienced this before ? Can mares have catastrophic hormone changes / loss of fertility after foaling ?
Do you think it's time to get the vet in for a blood-test?

Thanks.
Helen.

[dalesponyrider]

I know just how she feels! LOL!

Sorry, I hope someone can make a more helpful comment!

[Debbie]

I wonder as the last foal was so early (Feb) if she will 'skip' this year and start in again next year? I was thinking about this with the wild ponies last night and came to the conclusion if they got into the winter months, the mare may very well skip a year, and so have a rest before going back to foaling. But keep in mind, that's just my mind wanderings Nothing solid or scientific about it at all. Perhaps one of the more knowledgeable breeders will answer for us??

[admin]

I once used a herbal product designed to get mares to cycle regularly. I can't remember what it was called, but Wendal's herbs made it. I don't know if you can use it with mares with foals at foot, but it might be worth looking at.

Olivia

[admin]

Just done a quick search and it's called "Mare Cycle" Here's the link to the web page - you'll need to scroll down a bit:

www.wendals.com/equindex.htm

[Rowndan]

LOL linda me too

not sure what to say about the mare. my yard owner is having probs with his mare not coming in season, he has had her injected twice and still no signs of it.. i will tell him about this link though..

[dalesvic]

It might be worth asking the vets advice and they could have a feel/scan and check out what's going on. Probably not much from the sounds of things but if she has a cyst then they should be able to detect that I think.

They might suggest Regumate to try and get her cycling. It's a progesterone that you put in the feed for 9 days and has a bounce back effect. Because the weather was so awful when I was seeing practice in April most of the mares weren't doing anything (2-3cm follicles) and for one mare he suggested regumate as the owner really wanted her serving that month.

Sounds as though she isn't very impressed with the boy! Hope she comes to her senses soon