Artificial Insemination Techniques by Horse Breeders

Horse breeders use artificial insemination for a variety of reasons. The technology allows breeders to breed a mare on one side of the country to a stallion thousands of miles away in order to produce a foal with certain characteristics. Stallion and mare owners might prefer artificial insemination because it saves time, travel and reduces the risk of the horse getting injured, such as when a mare kicks a stallion, while attempting to breed a foal.



Equine artificial insemination can be done using several different techniques. Techniques used depend on variables such as whether the breeder is using frozen semen and the fertility of the stallion and mare.

  1. Traditional Artificial Insemination

    • In traditional artificial insemination, the process is done completely vaginally without any kind of surgery. The mare is secured in a breeding stock, her perineal area and rectum are scrubbed with a disinfectant. The semen is removed from the shipping container and drawn through the insemination pipette into a sterile syringe.

      The breeder inserts his arm, lubricated and gloved, into the mare's vagina, palpate the cervix and locate the opening of the uterus. The breeder inserts his finger into the uterus and guides the syringe and pipette into the uterus, depressing the syringe to introduce the semen. The pipette and syringe are then removed without introducing air into the uterus and the procedure is complete.

    Low-Dose Insemination

    • Low-dose insemination is a technique developed out of traditional artificial insemination methods that is typically performed by veterinarians in which a lower dose of sperm is introduced at the uterotubal papilla or junction, using an endoscope and catheter. Hysteroscopic insemination is a method in which low doses of semen are used to achieve pregnancy. This technique allows lower doses of sperm to be used to inseminate the mare.

      Pregnancy rates achieved using this method are reported as lower than average, between 20 and 30 percent, in a paper written by the Department of Population Health and Reproduction, School of Veterinary Medicine, at the University of California-Davis.

      Low-dose insemination procedures, when successful, can allow a breeder to get more breedings out of a single semen sample.

    Deep Intrauterine Insemination Techniques

    • This insemination procedure is similar to Hysteroscopic insemination, except the mare does not have to be fully sedated.

      During this procedure, the veterinarian will inseminate the mare by passing a long catheter through the cervix and guide it to the tip of the uterine horn, applying caudal traction and facilitating the passage of the catheter to the tip of the horn. The semen is then inserted into the mare through the catheter.