Equine ovum pick up services now offered at Veterinary Medical Centre

If your veterinary practice has equine clients with problem breeding mares or performance animals that are in their prime of their competitive careers, ovum pick up (OPU) is an option that's now available through the WCVM Veterinary Medical Centre (VMC) equine reproduction service. 

Here’s how it works:

• the WCVM equine reproduction team will collect a mare’s eggs directly from her ovaries
• the eggs are then fertilized in the VMC's partner laboratory (Viagen) using sperm injection of eggs (intracytoplasmic sperm injection or ICSI)
• the resulting embryos can be frozen for future use or transferred fresh into a recipient mare

OPU/ICSI services are a good option for:

• mares that can’t safely carry a pregnancy to term
• performance mares, allowing them to produce foals without interrupting their showing/competitive careers
• owners seeking to preserve valuable genetics or planning for future breeding

In addition to OPU, the VMC's equine reproduction team offers a wide range of breeding management services including:

• artificial insemination of mares with fresh, cooled or frozen semen
• problem breeding management
• stallion semen freezing
• embryo transfer

Contact 306-966-7178 for more details about the OPU option or other equine breeding management services for your clients' horses.