Nixon Equine Vets Reproductive Services
Nixon Equine Vets provide a comprehensive horse breeding reproductive service including artificial insemination (AI) at the Maids Moreton, Buckingham equine clinic. Any information and horse breeding advice you require is readily available through Nixon Equine. If you wish to discuss any aspects of breeding, please do not hesitate to contact Jane Nixon weekdays between 8 and 9am, as horse breeding and particularly sports horse breeding is a particular interest of Nixon Equine veterinary practice.
Breeding horses in the UK
The equine industry throughout Great Britain had the second largest increase in gross national turnover of any industry during 2006. This indicates the huge following of the horse in Great Britain. Nevertheless, the Sports Horse in particular must now be bred for performance and when you first embark upon horse breeding we would strongly recommend that the first decision to be made is the type of horse that you intend to breed. From there on select a good quality mare in terms of temperament, performance and conformation. Consider the facilities that you have available for breeding the mare and producing and looking after the developing youngster and, lastly, choose a stallion.
Artificial insemination or natural stallion service
Artificial insemination is a very popular method for breeding horses on the Continent and America, as an alternative to natural stallion service, but the British public is less familiar with it. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to natural service and AI which should be considered and discussed in detail with us, before embarking on a breeding scheme. For example a choice of three different types of semen is involved with artificial insemination: fresh semen, chilled semen or frozen semen. Frozen semen may be kept indefinitely but chilled sement will only last for 36 hours. Nixon Equine veterinary practice has the facilities, techniques and knowledge to advise you as to the best breeding method to suit your particular circumstances.
Stallion and mare grading
Nixon Equine veterinary practice has considerable experience in the veterinary aspects of the production of the sports horse in Great Britain and to this end Jane Nixon has been invited to act as veterinary surgeon to a number of Sport Horse Breed Societies for well over 20 years.
Jane Nixon is the veterinary surgeon to the Trakehner Breeders Fraternity, British Hanovarian Horse Society and one of a panel of veterinary surgeons to a number of other Societies such as the NASTA (National Stallions Association). Jane also chaired the British Equine Veterinary Association working party on mare and stallion grading which is currently undertaking the huge task of investigating the heritable disease in the sports horse with regard to mare and stallion grading. This work is being undertaken in combination with Dr Josh Slater, formerly of the Equine Medicine Department at Cambridge University Veterinary School and now at the Royal Veterinary College and Matthew Binns, Head of the Genetics Department at The Animal Health Trust, Newmarket.
