Reproduction

The Reproduction Department is lead by Angus McKinnon but the day to day client management is through the skills of Leann Newton. Leann can be contacted on 0427 299 568. Angus tends to be too busy scanning, breeding collecting and performing surgeries to manage the client communications that Leann does so well. Nevertheless he is responsible for your mare's and/or stallion's management at the hospital. He can be contacted on 0409 575 261. If things are going well you will only here from Leann. If there are problems of any sort you will hear from Angus.

Our management of reproductive problems in mares and stallions using advanced technology is recognised as being in the forefront of this field world-wide. Every year we present scientific papers both locally and internationally on our research in this area.

Pictured here is Music (an acronym for 'method using sperm injected cell'), the second foal we produced from sperm injection.

Some of the procedures and services we offer are:

Evaluation and treatment of subfertile or problem broodmares.
    We are well known in this area, have a large programme and have some spectacular successes.

Artificial insemination (AI) of fresh, cooled or frozen semen.
        Make no mistake, this can be can be very challenging work. It certainly is an important part of the Reproduction Department.

Embryo Transfer
        We perform ET on more problem breeders and with more horse breeds than anyone else in Australia.

Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI)
        Did you know that we produced the world's first foal (and second) from ICSI using eggs from a live mare.

Semen/stallion evaluation
        When not as many mares are in foal as you expect it may be time to make sure it isn't the stallion. We perform this service all over the world for many people, including major insurance companies.

Freezing semen
  Every week of the year there are 2 or 3 stallions at our hospital for semen freezing. Some are heading overseas and some are going to be castrated soon. Some are just being collected and frozen in case there is a problem later on in the stallions life. Recently we formed a company named Select Breeders Australasia (SBSA) to function as the parent company for a group of veterinary clinics that freeze semen using our standardised protocols and will have identical quality assurance. The aim is to standardise freezing and frozen semen distribution amongst Australia, New Zealand and in other countries with SBS affiliates.

Quarantine facility for semen export
        Do you want to send semen from your stallion overseas?
We do this every few months.

Monitoring high risk pregnant mares
        Each year mares that have 'high risk' pregnancies have problems maintaining them. We have the ability to monitor those pregnancies using ultrasonography and institute appropriate therapy before the foal is compromised to much.

Reproductive surgery
        There are a lot of new techniques and modifications of old techniques that improve mares (and stallions) fertility as a result of surgery. These range from simple things like a 'caslicks' to very sophisticated surgeries such as removal of large ovarian cancers. Warning!! This file may take a few minutes to download.

Research
        The GVEH is well known for its efforts in horse reproductive research. We did all of the original work on Ovuplant.
We maintain mares in our ET herd and Research herd for the opportunity to contribute to the understanding and knowledge of horse reproduction and breeding efficiency. A project that we have just published is 'Breeding Efficiency of Horses in Australia'. That study is funded by RIRDC.