How accurate are premate tests , any advice would be appreciated

I have always opted for laboratory serum progesterone test rather than in house test kits. However as an experiment, in conjunction with my vet, we ran both tests when my girl was being monitored on the run up to being mated last year. The purpose was to establish how valuable they may be for him to run as stock item for his practice. 

Blood was drawn first thing and one sample sent to lab for serum progesterone and one sample tested using "in house" kits. On the whole the kits were fairly accurate, the colour change needs to be evaluated against set values on a clour chart and all the tests were assessed as being slightly lower readings than the lab test result but no so far out as to have affected the choice of when to travel to the stud. They are however a bit of a faff to do and if procedure is not followed accurately results can be affected.  I have known of false possitive readings in the past with bitches visiting my dogs....... in one case the test kits were found to be out of date and on another occassion it was believed that they had not been brought to room temperature. 

Costs of the kits worked out very similar to sending off lab bloods so out of choice I would still use lab serum progesterones in preferance totest kits. I would however use the kits if I needed an indicator of progress over a BH weekend when the labs were closed.

K

I think if you use a practice that is good at reading them then they are excellent. Been spot on for me every time.

Thanks for that , had a little trouble with a bitch that is coming to my dog , blood drawn 10am test actually done 2pm  , they had an emergency in , i belive this may affect the test  , dont think the practice has much practice of doing them.

I used Idexx after my girl missed 3 times and it was her last chance, I now have three wonderful pups, so yhep it's worth it.

if you all get our dogs on the back page there an advert for pre mate test.

i use idxx to and had good result in the pass but this is the first my bitch hasnt taken so will try again on the next season,with blood test. swap, you NAME it she having it done

We had swaps done by our vet.  Seems accuate to me, He told my mum the best days would be the next day and then two days later.  Low and behold we had two ties of 20 mins plus.

Personally don't like the idea of drawing blood from a bitch, especially if they have to do it more then once.

Also it wasn't that costly,  The actualy Swap cost us just under £7, of course there was also a consultation fee ontop of that too.

Cost me £16.00 to have my girls blood taken and then the fee from Idexx, luckily I just had to have this done once as she was ready there and then.

> We had swaps done by our vet.

We need to differentiate here between premate tests (the kit colour change ones of that name and others), the Lab progesterone assay (which is what the kits are designed to mimic in a kit form), and swabs taken for vaginal cytology.

The latter is a method of determining when a bitch is ready for mating based on changes to the cells in th vagina, nothing like as accurate as testing for the progesterone levels, taking quite some experience in Reading the results.

I have had the colour change kits used on my Jozi, a bitch that was difficult to persuade to stand, so wanted to ensure I was trying at the correct time.

On my most recent litter my maiden bitch went to the stud, and by day 16 nothing was happening re the dog wanting to mate her.  She had the proper blood test done where the lab test, but the problem with that is the delay with getting the results if it is a weekend as you will probably have a 24 - 36 hour delay, which is fine if your early with the tests, but not if your test was taken on a Friday and result back on Monday saying she had already ovulated a day or so earlier and you need to mate before Tuesday at the very latest!

Brainless Idexx will do it on a saturday for you if you send it special delivery.  I was going to do it last week.

But the Vet will not have the results back, if you have one that will draw blood on a weekend.  Fortunately in our breed it is normal for the bitch to stay with the stud dog over the likely standing period so premates only needed in cases of way off timing etc.

I had a bitch come to a dog I bred where the premate was done and results back too late to be of use as by then a second test should have been done as the first was just indicating rising levels.

my first litter I used Idex, it took 2 days for the results unfortunately and she was rushed to the stud dog...she only had three...

My next three matings I used a cytology test done by a lady local to me, I had 3 litters of 7 pups.....

I know which one I prefer....

Jenny

Cytology done by a skilled professional can be very effective however most GP vets do not have enough experience with this for it to be effective option. If I could get cytology done at my local practice I would certainly use it, currently  I would have a round trip of approx 80 - 90 miles to a specialist vet who could do this which makes it a less viable option for me.

K

Idexx call you direct.  You can either send the blood next day delivery say on the friday OR if you really are desperate you can take it yourself . They take your number and call you personally.

i always have my dogs blood taken early in the morning at my vet  nurse before the first post then rush it the a main post office for first post that morning get the results back the next day after 1pm

the last blood was draw on a friday morning send it by speacial delivrey got there for 9am go the result back at 2pm.

this is the first time that i have a bitch that has miss she was due on monday,