The University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, has unveiled plans to build a new multi-million-dollar Equine Performance Centre for diagnosing and treating problems in performance horses. The facility is
One of the most potentially damaging drugs to hit the racetrack in recent years is erythropoietin, or EPO. A synthetic version of a naturally-occurring hormone which stimulates the bone marrow to make more red blood cells, EPO was designed to
EDITOR’S NOTE
This is part ten of a 12-part series on internal parasites of horses.
Our horses are lucky to live in an age when modern deworming drugs can pretty much rid them of parasites. They’re living longer an
The University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, has unveiled plans to build a new multi-million-dollar Equine Performance Centre, dedicated to diagnosing and treating problems in performance horses. The
Every spring, you ask your veterinarian to vaccinate your horse to protect her from disease while she’s showing, racing, carrying a foal, or hanging around your pasture. But is this yearly routine the best way to confer immunity with the vaccine
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part nine of a 12-part series on internal parasites of horses.
Most people assume that when they administer a tube of dewormer to a horse, the drug is effectively killing worms. The drug must
How do you choose a dewormer when you’re presented with a bewildering array of product types?
Diagnosing equine gastric ulcers might soon be a procedure that’s short and sweet. Until recently, ulcer detection depended on using an endoscope to peer at the stomach lining. Now, a team of researchers at Texas A&M University, led by Noah
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part seven of a 12-part series on internal parasites of horses.
Back in January, in our first installment of this series, we described what makes a parasite different from other kinds of infectiou
Any horse owner who tours the medieval gallery at a museum must stop at the displays of suits of armor and marvel. Imagine the sheer weight of such an outfit–then imagine trying to maneuver oneself into the saddle wearing it! Visions of metal-sheathed knights being lowered by crude cranes and slings onto their groaning draft horses might in fact be hyperbole since historians say knights
Flanders and Swann, a singing comedy team from the United Kingdom, once penned a song that went like this:
“Mud, mud, glorious mud,
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
So follow me, follow,
Down to the hollow,
And there let us wallow
In glorious mud!”
Of course the song was written from the perspective of a hippo.
For that animal’s distant
How do you really know if your worm control program is working? If your horses are looking good, are they doing as well as they could be? If they are not doing as well as you would like despite frequent deworming, is the problem due to worms?
Quite often, the diagnostic tools and techniques at the disposal of your mobile veterinary service are all that are needed to solve the mystery. Some horse owners have been through this routine a time or two: Your vet will ask to see your horse move on a straight line and on a circle, then on a hard surface and a soft one. He or she will ask when you’re most likely to notice the gait
Editor’s Note: This is part 3 in a 12-part series on internal parasites of horses.
In the world of internal parasites, ascarids get no respect. Unlike strongyles, they aren’t a high-drama threat to your horse’s health, and they
Let’s start by taking a look at how parasites differ from other infectious organisms that damage horses, and go on to explore the historical perspective on equine parasite control–where we’ve come from, and how far we’ve yet to go.
It has taken months of preparation for this moment. You’ve done the roadwork, marched your horse up and down hills, put in miles on the training track, added the speed and agility sessions, plugged in that heart rate monitor, and assessed your horse’s growing fitness by the numbers and by feel. And the hard work and dedication you’ve put into it have paid off–your horse just successfully
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