Ovine Laparoscopic
(Continued from Page 13)
take less than 10 minutes. Most ewes stand as soon
as they are released from the cradle and suffer no
after effects. As with any surgical technique, there
can be complications. But these are rare and usually
are minor.
Pregnancy rates vary depending on the breed, the
season and the semen quality. Highly fertile ewes
under excellent management and bred in season can
experience pregnancy rates as high as 80%, al
though more typical ranges are from 40 to 70 per
cent in season.
These kinds of pregnancy rates make this proce
dure very practical for valuable animals and open
up the possibility of using imported frozen semen
from some of the most valuable males in the world.
Another assisted reproductive technique that is
gaining in popularity with small ruminant breeders
is embryo transfer.
Embryo transfer greatly increases the potential
number of offspring that a single, valuable female
can produce in a year.
This can be of great economic benefit to produc
ers and also can help propagate valuable genetics on
the female side.
For this procedure, the donor animal’s estrous
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cycle and the estrous cycle of a group of recipient
(surrogate) females are synchronized hormonally.
Additionally, the donor animal is given hormones
that make her ovulate a very large number of eggs
(sometimes more than 10 each cycle). The donor is
bred either naturally or laparoscopically at a set
time.
Several days after the breeding, the donor ewe is
placed under anesthesia. A surgical incision is made
in her abdomen and her uterus is exteriorized. A
small incision is made in the uterus and a tube is
threaded into the uterine lumen. Flush media is in
jected through the catheter and collected.
Hopefully, this media rinses the embryos out of
the uterus. The media is searched under a micro
scope and embryos are identified. The incision is su
tured closed and the ewe recovers from the
anesthetic. Any resulting embryos can be frozen for
long term storage or they can be immediately trans
ferred into a synchronized recipient.
For the actual embryo transfer, the recipient ewe
is sedated and an appropriate number of embryos
are placed into her uterus with the help of the la
paroscope. The recipient ewe then carries the preg
nancy for the donor ewe.
As many as 15 embryos can be recovered from a
single flush, although more typically the number
ranges between five and ten.
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