Personal Biography
South Valley Equine has been in practice for over 50 years. It has become one of the largest equine hospitals in the west. One of the founders, Dr. Charlie Heaton, has been focused on reproduction since 1987.
“I believe the most significant advancement in the equine reproduction world is the recent improvement of the ICSI. This has opened many doors that were seemingly closed. Here are a few of the reasons for my excitement.
- The down time for donor mares is usually less than one day, this allows these donor mares to be back performing or training.
- Older mares that were unable to carry to term or unable to even get pregnant because of infection or accumulation of excess uterine fluid now have an opportunity to carry their genetics on.
- The limited number of sperm cells needed for the process prolongs the genetic
- viability of deceased stallions or those unable to be collected.
- The frozen ICSI embryos are easy to be lined up with recipients, decreasing the numbers of palpations and days of boarding.
- TVAs and ICSI limit a lot of the routine palpations, drugs given, and boarding required for regular breeding situations. This also decreased the cost, and time sensitive stress, of ordering semen, which can be lost in shipment, and then reordering if your mare doesn’t ovulate in a timely fashion.
It has been exciting to watch the advancements in equine reproduction, from the natural cover to shipped semen, embryo transfer, and upward to ICSI. I hope we can find significant rewards with this new addition to SVE’s desire to improve the equine experience.” - Charlie Heaton DVM
