Equine Reproduction Concepts (ERC) is only one of a few facilities in the eastern U.S. that offers a full-service embryo transfer program. By maintaining a large herd of recipient mares, we are able to offer 5 different options to the program. Mare owners can choose what option is best for their situation.
In the event that a local veterinarian has experience with embryo recovery procedures, the donor mare can remain on-the-farm for breeding purposes allowing the veterinarian to perform the recovery either on-the-farm or at a nearby clinic. An embryo can then be sent to ERC via airlines or federal express and transferred into a recipient mare maintained at our facility. If there is no veterinarian in close proximity that is skilled with this technique, then the mare can be shipped to ERC where all breeding, embryo recovery and transfer procedures can take place. Owners situated relatively close to ERC may elect to breed their mare on the farm and then transport her to our facility just for the embryo recovery procedure.
We offer both surgical and non-surgical embryo transfer techniques. The surgical technique exteriorizes the tip of the uterine horn through a 4 to 6 inch flank incision thus allowing a small, sterile straw to deposit the embryo directly into the uterus. An alternative is a non-surgical approach whereby a long implantation pipette is passed into the vaginal cavity of the recipient, guided through the cervix and into the uterus where the embryo is deposited.