People in increasing numbers are seeking limited acreage where they can enjoy the rural way of life, including horses. For some the small farm must at least be operated efficiently in order to be affordable.
Bone chips in a horse’s movable joints can compromise the animal’s ability to perform, and, in some cases, they can even end the animal’s career. However, not all bone chips are created equal.
If the horse’s gastrointestinal (GI) tract were a highway, no self-respecting engineer would take credit for its design. Take a trip along the highway of the equine GI tract to learn more about how your horse digests his food.
There was a time when an individual seeking a horse-related vocation had few choices for equine
The mare’s reproductive tract is similar to the respiratory tract in that both have mucosal immune systems. In both areas, the mucosal immune system is capable of producing excessive quantities of mucus when persistently irritated. Robert C.
Vaccinating 5-month-old foals with a single dose of West Nile virus chimeric vaccine in the presence of maternal antibodies to West Nile virus does induce a cell-mediated response (in the foal).
Rhodococcus equi bronchopneumonia is a prevalent cause of disease in foals, said M. Keith Chaffin, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, a professor of medicine at Texas A&M University’s vet school, at the 2008 American Association of Equine Practitioners convention, which was held Dec. 6-10 in San Diego, Calif.
Start your foal out right to help avoid bone and tendon problems later in life.
The foal’s immune system is almost a blank slate at birth; researchers are figuring out how to best protect horses as they grow.
Timely deworming, immunizations, and farrier work are only part of the equation. Ongoing observation is required to ensure your horse is properly fed and cared for.
The combination of ketamine and diazepam (Valium) commonly comprise anesthesia agents in horses. However, she added, many surgeons steer away from the combination when anesthetizing mares that are suffering from dystocia (difficult birth).
Embryo transfer is a management procedure for producing foals by mares that either are in training or have reproduction problems. In some cases the goal is to allow young performing mares to reproduce while continuing their careers. In other cases the donor mare might be afflicted with a reproductive problem, such as chronic uterine infection or a cervical laceration, that does not allow her
“In my opinion, a mare that fails to become pregnant by AI with good semen quality and does so by natural cover without human intervention is an example of poor or inadequate breeding management by the personnel performing the AI,” said Samper.
To rectify the lack of information problem, Barbacini and colleagues launched a study to determine the fertility of barren mares inseminated with either fresh or frozen-thawed semen. Researchers investigated the effects of mare age and uterine fluid
A product that could stimulate the immune systems of newborn foals to better fight infection of Rhodococcus equi would be very beneficial, said Steeve Giguère, DVM, PhD, of the University of Florida, at the 2008 American Association of Equine
Tissues from both the recipient and donor mare, as well as from the two stillborn foals, were submitted for microsatellite analysis. The analysis verified that the foals had identical genotypes and resulted from the transferred embryo.
Stay on top of the most recent Horse Health news with
