Sometimes, no matter the length owners and veterinarians go to, they just can’t get to the bottom of a mare’s fertility issue. | Photo: Kevin Thompson/The Horse

Sometimes, no matter the length owners and veterinarians go to, they just can’t get to the bottom of a mare’s fertility issue. All the routine diagnostic tests—transrectal ultrasound, vaginal speculum examination, digital examination of the cervix, uterine culture and cytology, hysteroscopic examination, and uterine biopsy—have revealed no signs of pathology (damage or disease) other than the mare’s failure to get pregnant from a fertile stallion.

Here’s where the veterinarian might want to perform hydrotubation to determine if blocked oviducts are to blame.

Etta Bradecamp, DVM, Dipl. ACT, ABVP, a member of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital’s reproductive specialties team, in Lexington, Kentucky, recently evaluated pregnancy rates post-oviduct hydrotubation in mares with otherwise mystery infertilities. She presented her findings at the 2016 Theriogenology Conference, held July 27-30 in Asheville, North Carolina