Wendy Scholten (WS): Rumour has it that there has been a shortage of recipient mares. Have you encountered this problem and how did you cope with it?

Hans Hurkmans (HH): You are right, because last year an incredible number of embryos were created by ICSI. All these embryos have to be implanted in a recipient mare and everyone is in a hurry to do so. This caused a run on recipient mares. We anticipate this by buying surrogate mares much earlier than they are needed which means that the embryos can be implanted in February/March.