Latest News – The Horse

Since December 2001, the donors have been vaccinated multiple times with the WNV vaccine. The company had to prove purity, safety, and reasonable expectation of efficacy to have the plasma conditionally licensed for treating WNV.

Even as the California fires were beginning to rage out of control, Sebastian Heath, VetMB, PhD, Dipl. ACVIM, Dipl. ACVPM, senior staff veterinarian for USDA-APHIS, Emergency Programs, was discussing the consequences of animals in disaster situations to an audience at the University of Kentucky.

Rural hazards range from natural disasters to epidemics (such as the foot and mouth diseas

Mare reproductive loss syndrome (MRLS) has been a primary research project for many veterinarians and scientists since it began causing early and late term abortions, sickness in foals, pericarditis (heart problems), and uveitis (eye problems) in horses in the spring of 2001. Manu Sebastian, DVM, MS, a resident in Veterinary Pathology, and a PhD student at the University of Kentucky’s Gluck

The raging California wildfires that have killed 20 people, destroyed about 3,400 homes, and blackened approximately 552,713 acres, also had a profound effect on the equine population. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of horses were evacuated from the fire’s path, by owners with their own trailers, volunteers who rushed in from as far away as Los Angeles (to the San Diego area), and commercial

Yankee, a 30-year-old bay gelding, is one fortunate survivor of the rampant California wildfires that have plagued the San Diego and San Bernardino areas, and other parts of the state, since late October. Owner Carol Prida’s home in Wildcat Canyon burned and fell on his stall Oct. 26, before he could be evacuated. Everything plastic in Yankee’s stall (including his buckets) melted from the

A Veterinary Advisory Board made up of equine practitioners in Virginia and Maryland has been created for the Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va. Like members of the Equine Medical Center’s Council, Veterinary Advisory Board Members will provide advice and counsel to the Center’s director and staff in order to meet the needs of the equine industry and of the

The Marion duPont Scott Equine Medical Center in Leesburg, Va., recently was awarded a $25,000 grant from Thoroughbred Charities of America. Grant funds are designated for building research facilities to enable collaborative research efforts to benefit equine health. The Equine Medical Center, located in Leesburg, Virginia, is one of three campuses comprising the Virginia-Maryland Regional

Large colon torsion is one of the most severe and life-threatening forms of colic. Although survival of horses with large colon torsion can be as high as 80-90%, the overall survival rate is 30-50% due to delays in transport or performing surgery.

In decades past, colic treatment was actually a misnomer. “Treatment” consisted of waiting out the colic while offering sedative-like drugs to dampen a horse’s misery. Either his body healed of its own accord, or he succumbed to death from overwhelming pain and shock. Veterinarians were reluctant to euthanize a horse with colic because one could never tell if he was going to make it or not. A

YOUR GUIDE TO THE 2003 AAEP CONVENTION
NEW PRODUCTS AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES

The American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) is the leading provider of continuing education for veterinarians. Their education not only comes from the lectures given in the vast, darkened halls, but from the brightly lit exhibit hall. Each year at the AAEP Convention,

A proactive passerby helped save the lives of eight horses in a burning barn early Sept. 10 at Equestrian Park in College Station, Texas. Sixteen died in the fire due to burns and/or smoke inhalation and three more were euthanized shortly thereafter due to their injuries, said property owner Brazos Joe Varisco. Ten of the barn’s inhabitants were racing Quarter Horses (all of which died in the

Hurricane Isabel hit the North Carolina and Virginia coasts with fury on Sept. 18. At its peak over the Atlantic, Isabel was a Category 5 hurricane (winds greater than 155 mph), sending coastal horse owners scrambling for safe shelter for themselves and their animals. When the storm hit land, it had faded to a Category 2 hurricane (winds from 96-110 mph and storm surges of six to eight feet),

Some scam artists in Nigeria and other West African countries have engineered a particularly nasty Internet scam, known as the 4-1-9 or advance fee fraud scheme. All classified ad web sites have been fair game to the fraudsters, including online horse ads.

According to the United States Secret Service, the 4-1-9 fraud (which refers to the Nigerian penal code section that addresses these

The Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) announced to its members and to the feed industry on Aug. 4 that kava should not be used as an ingredient in animal feeds. An enforcement strategy event for kava in animal feeds, recommended to begin on Dec. 2, follows a notification period informing manufacturers and distributors of animal feed that many of the ingredients they are

Purina Mills nutritionist Randal Raub, PhD, began his lecture at the 2003 Purina Farriers’ Conference with a little-known statistic–horse owners are most likely to discuss their horses’ nutrition with their veterinarians, followed by their farriers. Moreover, farriers notice weight gain or loss in the horses they shoe, since they see them regularly. Weight loss, gain, or feeding changes migh