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Tuesday / November 19. 2024

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HomePosts Tagged "ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines"
Agro Universities, Animal Health, India, Live Stock, R&D

Zanskari breed of horses is known for their ruggedness, ability to withstand extreme cold climates, work tirelessly, and carry loads at high altitudes.

Continuing their success in producing foals through Embryo transfer, Scientists at the Equine Production Campus, Regional Station of ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines, Bikaner for the first time in the country have produced a Zanskari horse foal using Embryo transfer technology.

To produce the viable embryo, fresh semen from a Zanskari stallion has been used for artificial insemination and the embryo was recovered through flushing from the mare at 6.5 days after ovulation. The recovered embryo was transferred to the estrus-synchronised surrogate mare. The mare delivered a healthy female foal on 23rd April 2024. The birth weight of the foal was 28 kg.

The team led by Dr TR Talluri, Equine Production Campus, ICAR-NRC on Equines, Bikaner has also successfully vitrified 18 Marwari horse embryos and 3 Zanskari horse embryos till now and currently, studies are in progress to revive the cryopreserved embryos and transfer them into surrogate mares.

Zanskari, a native pony breed of Leh-Ladakh in Trans-Himalayan region of India is well adapted to high-altitude regions. This breed of horses is known for their ruggedness, ability to withstand extreme cold climates, work tirelessly, and carry loads at high altitudes. According to 20th Livestock Population Census, the total population size of Zanskari is 6660 and comes under the endangered category. There is an urgent need to conserve this precious breed in the country. In this endeavour, ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines, Hisar is working strenuously to conserve the breed and has standardised the technology of embryo transfer in equines.

Congratulating the team of Scientists, Dr. TK Bhattacharya, Director, ICAR-NRC on Equines said that the need of the hour is to conserve the indigenous population of horses which are under the threatened or endangered category. He further elaborated that ‘Raj-Zanskar’ is the first Zanskari horse foal produced through Embryo transfer technology in the country.

Zanskari breed of horses is known for

Agro Universities, Agrotech, Animal Health, India, Live Stock, R&D

This technology may be used for faster multiplication of elite germplasm and resurrection of endangered horses or valuable/desired horse germplasm.

Continuing their success in producing the foal through Embryo transfer, scientists at Equine Production Campus, Regional Station, ICAR-National Research Centre on Equines, Bikaner, Rajasthan for the first time in the country have produced a horse foal using an admixture of two technologies viz. frozen semen technology and Embryo transfer technology.

During the process of producing the viable embryos, frozen semen from a stallion was used for artificial insemination and the embryo was recovered from the inseminated mare on the 7.5th day after ovulation. The recovered embryo after flushing was transferred to the estrus-synchronised surrogate mare. The mare delivered a healthy female foal at 3:40 AM (IST) on 4th October 2023. The weight of the foal at birth was 35 Kg. This foal developed through these assisted reproductive technologies has been named ‘Raj-Himani’.

This technology may be used for faster multiplication of elite germplasm and resurrection of endangered horses or valuable/desired horse germplasm. The combination of semen cryopreservation and embryo transfer technology in the production of foal will greatly benefit the farmers, equine rearers involved in racing, sports and other commercial activities for replicating their own elite horses or elite animals having reproductive disorders.

Dr. TK Bhattacharya, Director, ICAR-NRC on Equines said the population of equines in India is dwindling at a faster rate India and infertility and non-reproducing mares are also one of the reasons for this. The technology could also be applied to those animals which do not respond to the conventional infertility treatment regimes, he added.

Dr. SC Mehta, Head, Regional Station, Equine Production Campus, ICAR-NRC on Equines, Bikaner said the technology would have a tremendous impact on the conservation and propagation of superior indigenous horses in the country.

This embryo transfer foal using cryopreserved semen was developed by Dr TR Talluri, Sr. Scientist and his team of ICAR-NRC on Equines (Dr Yash Pal, Dr SC Mehta, Dr RA Legha, Dr RK Dedar, Dr Sajjan Kumar, Dr. Jitender Singh, Shri Paswan and others).

This technology may be used for faster