How to Determine Gestational Age of an Equine Pregnancy in the Field Using Transrectal Ultrasonographic Measurement of the Fetal Eye

摘要

In equine practice, pregnant mares may be pre-sented for examinations without known breeding or ovulation dates. In these instances, owners fre-quently ask the veterinarian to estimate the age of the pregnancy or the parturition date. Depending on thestage of gestation, this can be a difficult task, and practitioners would benefit from a straightfor-ward field method for accurately determining gesta-tional age of a mare’s pregnancy. In early pregnancy (before approximately day 70), the gesta-tional age of the pregnancy can be reliably deter-mined using transrectal palpation and transrectal ultrasonographic examination of the conceptus.