FOR successful breeding outcomes, timing is everything. As we start nearing 2022, the focus is now on boosting breeding efficiency. In the Thoroughbred sector, early ovulations mean the production of early season foals and increases in the economic value of youngstock. In the Sport Horse sector, timely conception means less disruption of competition schedules, reduced workload managing multiple cycles and increase the chances of success using valuable semen.

Equilume provide breeders with simple-to-use tools – award-winning mobile Light Masks and smart Stable Light system – that ensure maximum success for breeding programmes, as well as optimum health and wellbeing for horses using these products.

Equilume’s scientifically designed blue light mimics a natural summer day, in both the quality of light delivered and the duration of daily light that has applications for barren and pregnant mares. It is exposure to optimum daylight intensities and wavelengths, and their suppressive effect on the production of melatonin, which influence’s when a mare will start cycling, as well as positively influencing her health and wellbeing.

Published scientific studies confirm that extending day-length for barren mares using blue light from Equilume Light Masks advances reproductive cycles as effectively as stable lighting, with the bonus that mares can be kept at pasture. New research has also shown that pregnant mares wearing blue light masks in the final 100 days of gestation had shorter pregnancies, earlier post-foaling ovulations and more mature foals at birth. The blue-light stimulated mares developed larger follicles in the late stages of gestation and could be bred sooner after foaling.

For barren mares, blue light treatment should begin approximately 70-75 days in advance of when they are required to cycle, around Dec 1st, and for pregnant mares 90-100 days before their due dates. For optimum results, the mask should remain on until the mare is scanned back in foal.