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Day 1/ Filly
#2
Day 1/ Filly
#1
Day 2/ Filly
#2
Day 2/ Filly
#1
...for those
of you that have asked me if the fillies
can reach the TB's milk bar!!! :)
I'm SO excited to
share this story with you because it's a dream come true for me...
After searching for
these bloodlines for almost ten years, without success, we finally
were blessed with the opportunity to purchase an older PPR mare with
the hope breeding her in order to obtain the bloodline through her
foal.
The PPR mare that we purchased, Kira de Bucanero, is also the
dam of my all time favorite gelding, Alegre Kofresi, sired by Alegria
de Blanca, for ultimate smoothness and rang of gait! After a lot
of consideration, we finally chose to breed her to a legendary sire
named, "Alejandro" because this breeding would produce a 7/8th sibling
to my gelding (mentioned above). Plus, Alejandro on his own
merit, is one of the best gaited, conformed, and even tempered PF
stallions in the world! He just seemed like the perfect
choice...
From there, "Kira"
spent a lot of time at the Peterson & Smith breeding center in Ocala,
FL. Dr. Matthews is the main repro vet there. He
recommended AI instead of live-cover for Kira. We waited for
what seemed to be forever for her to produce a follicle. When
she finally did, there was a twist of fate because she ovulated not
one, but two follicles!!! After AI was performed, I was given
the choice to either pinch one of the embryos or transfer them into
recipients. After waiting so many years for this opportunity, and with
the support from Helen & Jud, I decided not to pinch an embryo.
Against the odds, and with lots of prayers, a week later, Dr.
Mattews himself retrieved both embryos and transferred them into their
huge, "maiden" TB recipients mares for me! A few weeks later,
they were officially pronounced in foal and came home with us!
Typical of many maiden
mares, these recipients were really unpredictable regarding their
foaling date! Despite the fact that they never waxed, never had
any softening or changes in the tail bone, one never elongated (she
tore pretty bad!) and one barely did, on day 335 gestation, at 6:00am,
we went back out to check our older mare that had been dripping milk
for 3 weeks and lost her cervical plug three days ago, only to find
that both maiden TB recipients had foaled Kira's twins on their own in
the pasture on the same morning! By the time we found them, they
were both nursing!!! (whew!) What are the odds of
that?!?!?!
The twins are both beautiful bay fillies, with a left rear sock and
star...the only difference is that one of them has a snip! They
look, act, and move so much alike that could pass for identical twins.
Even their own recipients can't tell them apart, so we decided to
separate them for a while.
What a perfect ending
to a perfect story...
"Very special thanks"
to Peterson & Smith Repro Clinic and Helen and Jud Box (Alejandro's
owners) for helping to make one of my dreams come true, to Joane
Watson-Parkins for allowing me the privilege to own Kira (and Stolie),
to Barb Preiss & John for helping care for the recipients while I
summered in MI, and to everyone that followed this wonderful
experience through with us. You guys are the best!!!
Thanks for being there
for us!
Deb & Tony
PS---The only thing left to do is to pick out names...
YEPPIE!!!!
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I'm really happy to hear how much interest our story has generated in
the embryo transfer program. It offers such an amazing
opportunity for helping to preserve the older bloodlines and/or
protect special mares from having to carry their own offspring.
Many of you that
have written to me are either considering ET, or are interested in the
service for possible future use, and have asked me to share a little
more info about the ET process and my actual expenses. In order
to do this, I thought it might be helpful to create a table (rough
draft form below) with the service types, dates and expenses.
Please remember, the expenses listed below are for a 24 year old mare
that needed more meds, time, and care than most. Expenses for a
younger/healthy mare should be even less. If you have specific
questions, please email or pm me on the PF BB! I'll try to help
in any way that I can...
I'll try to share more about our ET experience after "Stolie" (pic
below) foals!
Deb
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