Latest News – The Horse

My 13-year-old Quarter Horse gelding is lethargic and has trouble urinating. He stretches a lot and lies down; he’s just not his jovial self. He has been eating, but he doesn’t show enthusiasm about his food. What could be affecting my horse?

When the 56th Annual Convention of the American Association of Equine Practitioners drops anchor in Baltimore, Md., Dec. 4-8, a sea of learning opportunities awaits the equine veterinarians, veterinary students, and technicians expected to attend. Featured in-depth lectures will cover reproduction, diagnostic imaging, and equine welfare, among countless other topics. Write-ups of the convention’s

After the slow times turned in on Sunday’s opening day card, and the forecast of freezing low temperatures for Friday and Saturday, the typical warning flares went up. How fair will the track be for the Breeders’ Cup and what can be done to prevent the track from becoming cuppy, a condition no trainer wants to see, especially those coming from harder surfaces and synthetic

A diagnosis of hereditary equine regional dermal asthenia (HERDA), or hyperelastosis cutis (HC), is frequently a grim one for horse owners. The hereditary skin disease that affects some stock horse breeds can result in isolation and skin lesions for the afflicted horse, and mounting veterinary expenses and heartache for the owner. But one horse-and-owner pair is proving that it’s possible to live

A Texas man faces multiple animal cruelty charges in connection with the alleged maltreatment of animals on his Grayson County ranch. On Oct. 24, county law enforcement authorities and Texas SPCA personnel removed 32 allegedly malnourished horses from property owned by Rodney Lynn Decker after the Grayson County Sheriff’s Department received several complaints about their cond

The American Association of Equine Practitioners Foundation has awarded $262,000 in grants to 15 nonprofit organizations and universities working for the health and welfare of horses. These 2010 grant recipients share the foundation’s mission to support equine research, benevolence, education, and the equine community. From funding laminitis research to sponsoring an “equ

Rescue operators in Arizona whose organizations meet specific corporate and care standards can now register with the state Department of Agriculture for inclusion in an online listing of sanctioned equine rescues in that state Arizona lawmakers created the Equine Rescue Registry last year when they passed SB1115. The registry officially opened in July 2010. Under the measure, inc

Eye injuries are fairly common in horses and can be serious, especially if neglected. They run the gamut from corneal injuries (e.g., superficial scratches, punctures, or a foreign body caught under an eyelid) to full-thickness eyelid lacerations to blunt trauma. Have a veterinarian examine a horse with an eye injury as soon as possible to diagnose the problem, check for corneal ulcers, and

Insulin-resistant horses are prone to laminitis, but owners and veterinarians can often successfully manage them through strict diet and exercise regimens so that they don’t develop laminitis. Ray J. Geor, BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, professor and Chair of the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at Michigan State University, outlined some of those regimens at the Sept. 17-1

An outbreak of abortion associated with equine arteritis virus (EAV) infection occurred on a Thoroughbred breeding farm in San Antonio de Areco, Buenos Aires Province, in March 2010. On March 31, EAV was detected by reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) and virus isolation from an aborted equine fetus and placenta, which was the third abortion to have occurred on the premi

We might be feeding our horses too well, at least as far as predisposing them to laminitis. Ray J. Geor, BVSc, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, professor and chair of the Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences at Michigan State University, spoke about controlling nutritional risks in pre- and post-laminitic horses at the Sept. 17-18 Laminitis West Conference in Monterey, Calif.

Equine and other large animal patients that undergo anesthesia for surgery at the University of Georgia (UGA) College of Veterinary Medicine will benefit from new, state-of-the-art anesthesia equipment, as the Veterinary Teaching Hospital has begun using a unique machine for delivery of anesthesia to their large animal patients. UGA hospital recently became the first veterinary fa