Recent study results suggest small but significant differences exist between how much foals slip and slide when standing and osteochondrosis incidence in Warmbloods. | Photo: iStock

“Watch out, little foal! Don’t slip and make yourself vulnerable to osteochondrosis!”

If we adhere to the latest research on osteochondrosis development in young horses, this might be our new warning to the babies in the barn. Recent study results suggest small but significant differences exist between how much foals slip and slide when standing and osteochondrosis incidence in Warmbloods. Whether environmental factors are causally related to these differences, however, remains to be seen.

“We hypothesized that rapidly growing foals with their rapidly increasing height, housed on conventional, slippery flooring would develop osteochondrosis significantly more frequently,” said prof. dr. Machteld VanDierendonck, of the Department of Equine Sciences, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Utrecht University, in the Netherlands