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On one hand, the argument for vaccinating Australia's 350,000-plus horse population against equine influenza seems a no-brainer. In the Hunter Valley, EI will cost breeders almost $1 billion in lost matings revenue if the season cannot be ignited. Foal crops will suffer, future race fields will be affected and more billions will disappear. "Vaccinate and save us," is the desperate plea. Every horse at Randwick contracted EI within days of the first case; except...
A recent study in Canada has informed that floating the teeth of dressage horses seems to have no effect on the equine performance. Dr James Carmalt and associates have evaluated dental floating and its repercussion on equine performance, by studying 11 horses who had not had their teeth floated for a year against 5 horses that had received dental care 2 times a year. Horses performed one of two standard dressage tests approved by the Canadian national equine...
MAF Biosecurity has given the all-clear to all the horses recently imported from Australia which were tested for equine influenza (EI). Horses that had been in contact with the recent imports had also tested negative, MAF Biosecurity director, post border, Peter Thomson, said. "There is currently no evidence of equine influenza in New Zealand. All imported horses have been visited by a veterinarian and examined as part of the blood sampling process. No clinical signs of...
Racing officials warned the government three years ago that changes to quarantine procedures could lead to an outbreak of equine influenza like that now devastating Australia, Prime Minister John Howard said Monday. The government had received a letter from the Australian Racing Board (ARB) with such a warning in 2004, he said, but defended the action taken at the time, including the use of private vets. Howard denied that the outbreak could have been prevented by stricter...
DNA technology is causing a revolution in every area of the sciences at the present time, and also by diagnosing gastrointestinal parasites in horses. A Danish Ph.D. student from the University of Copenhagen has developed a new diagnostic method to detect equine bloodworms, Strongylus vulgaris . The bloodworm has its name because of the extensive migrations in the blood vessels of the horse. After being ingested during grazing, the larvae occupy the blood stream for...
Two new species of bacteria have been discovered in the gut of horses. Streptococcus henryi and streptococcus caballi , were found by accident by University of Queensland veterinary science PhD student Gabriel Milinovich while researching the hoof-deteriorating disease laminitis. Mr Milinovich made the discoveries in 2004 in horses at St Lucia but has only recently classified and confirmed their existence. He said he did not believe the bacteria, two of...
Australia has quarantined 79 horses on concern they may have been exposed to equine influenza, a highly contagious virus never previously found in the country, Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran said. One horse being kept at a government quarantine facility at Eastern Creek in western Sydney has symptoms consistent with horse flu and blood tests show a "strong suspicion"' the animal was infected recently, McGauran said in a statement on his Web site. A horse from Japan is suspected to...
The OSU Center for Veterinary Health Sciences reports that Dr. Lara Maxwell, Assistant Professor of Physiological Sciences, has received a grant from Grayson Jockey Club to study the efficacy of an antiviral drug to fight Equine Herpes Virus Type I (EHV-1). “This virus can affect horses of any age, but causes different signs of disease in foals, pregnant mares, and in other adult horses,” explains Dr. Maxwell. “Recent outbreaks of EHV-1 at farms and racetracks around the...
During the first 30 days of life, newly born horses (called "foals") are especially sensitive to bacteria and other dangers commonly found in their every day surroundings. Each year between January and June, dozens of these foals are brought to Virginia Tech's Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center for treatment where the hospital's experts work diligently to return the critically ill young animals to full health. “We work with extremely compromised patients that sometimes arrive...
The US Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) proposes to amend its regulations so that noncompetitive entertainment horses from countries affected with contagious equine metritis (CEM) can be temporarily imported into the United States under certain conditions. The regulations currently provide for the temporary importation of horses from countries affected with CEM to compete in specified events. The proposed changes would allow horses to be...
Mares, like other animals, consume various kinds of microorganisms with their feed that do not always have a positive effect on host health. In controlled feeding environments, the development of positive bacterial microflora in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) can be stimulated by introducing probiotics or prebiotic substances to diets. These substances act to boost the immune system of the host animal by stimulating the growth of microbial populations that are beneficial to the...
Colic in horses encompasses symptoms of general abdominal discomfort rather than an actual diagnosis. Frequently an owner will notice a colicky horse at feeding time when the horse shows no interest in feed, may be standing stretched out, pawing the ground or kicking, bending and staring or biting at the abdomen, or lying down and rolling. There have been few study protocols inducing colic in horses. For this reason, studying cause and treatment is very difficult. ...
How the horse sees the world and the colours they can see is something that horse people have wondered about for many years. Researchers in the US have performed a study to investigate what colours horses could distinguish. In humans, light is detected by specialised receptors in the retina at the back of the eye. The receptors responsible for colour vision are called cones. People with normal colour vision possess three types of cones, each of which contains pigment that responds to a...
Equine scientists will work on developing research tools to discover genetic factors in horses which influence inherited and common horse diseases, such as tying up, heaves, laminitis and osteochondrosis. The research is being made possible by the Morris Animal Foundation's Equine Consortium for Genetic Research. The first of the research tools, SNP chips, will help consortium members take the first step in reaching the long-term goals of understanding inherited diseases as well...
The use of herbal products in equine diets is gaining popularity rapidly. The reasons for this are several, but center around a changing makeup of the horse owner population. First, there are a greater number of horse owners with fewer than five horses than there were 15 to 20 years ago. Participation in equine sporting events has also increased, which has resulted in increased moneys being paid out by these people for successful horses. The net result of these two factors is that horse...
Mezey Howarth Racing Stables has announced that it is negotiating a contract with GeneThera to create a vaccine for Equine Infectious Anemia virus (EIA). EIA is a horse disease caused by a retrovirus and transmitted by bloodsucking insects. Currently, the Coggins Test is used to test for EIA. The Coggins Test is a blood test that checks for EIA antibodies in a horse's blood. "We would like to develop a test that can shorten the current 3 days for...
The elimination of a debilitating, degenerative skin disease in horses is now possible, thanks to the recent identification of a gene mutation and development of a new diagnostic test by researchers at the University of California, Davis. Findings from the study on the genetic cause of hereditary equine regional dermal asthenia, or HERDA, which primarily affects the American quarter horse breed, were reported last week in the scientific journal Genomics by veterinary geneticist Danika...
The neonatal foal is born immunocompetent. The foal can produce antibodies at birth and can respond to vaccines as early as 2 weeks of age, however the foal has a naive immune system. Cell-mediated immune responses are immature, and serum has few antibodies. This is because the mare’s placenta does not allow transfer of antibodies in utero. The foal must therefore rely on the dam’s colostrum for antibodies to provide passive immunity until its immune system can produce...
Developmental orthopaedic disease (DOD) is a syndrome including a variety of lesions in young horses (Figure 1). Within DOD, osteochondrosis is one of the most important skeletal problems encountered; and it has been studied worldwide for decades (Knight et al., 1985 and Gabel et al., 1987, in Ohio and Kentucky; O’Donohue et al., 1992 in Ireland; Pearce et al., 1998 in New Zealand; Denoix et al., 1996 in France, Coenen et al., 2004 in Germany). This interest is mainly due to the...
Overview Horses over 20 years of age constitute about 15% of the equine population and many remain actively involved in equestrian sports and reproductive capacities as stallions and brood mares (Malinowski et al., 1997). However, advancing age in horses, as with other species, is eventually associated with a decline in body condition and muscle tone as well as an increase in susceptibility to infections (Atwill et al., 1996; Austin et al., 1995; Ralston et al., 1988). This...