The world’s first cloned horse, created by Italian scientists from a mare’s skin cell, has been born, according to a Washington Post article.

The birth of the healthy foal, announced in the Aug. 7 issue of the journal Nature, brings to nine the number of mammalian species that scientists have cloned from adult cells, along with sheep, mice, rabbits, goats, cats, pigs,

Now is the time to make improvements to your pastures in order to have the best and most nutritious grazing for your horses next spring. A well-maintained pasture also offers a practical and economic break for you, as well. Through pasturing, your feed and supplement costs are likely to be reduced, particularly if you have a mature, idle horse, or a mare in the early stages of gestation. Plus

Approval of the Parelli Natural Horsemanship University in late June as a private occupational school by the Colorado Department of Higher Education distinguished Parelli Natural Horse-Man-Ship (PNH) as the first such institution in the country to do so, according to Neil Pye, dean of instructors and of the group’s international study centers. Key to the unanimous approval given by Colorado’s

Because of the demands of competition and sales, following the natural reproductive cycle dictated by Mother Nature often doesn’t fit into man’s breeding program. While Mother Nature’s time frame stipulates that the mare should be receptive to the stallion in late spring/early summer to produce a foal when the grass is green and the weather is warm, man, as steward of the horse, often has

The inaugural “Bridge to the Future” veterinary conference, hosted by Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine, was held in Providence, RI, on Aug. 10-11. This year’s speakers included Mary Rose Paradis, DVM, MS, Dipl. ACVIM, associate professor of large animal medicine at Tufts, who spoke about geriatric horses and ponies. Paradis discussed the results of a recent study designed to

There are limited options for effective treatment of horses with lameness due to chronic laminitis. A common practice involves therapeutic shoeing, which is intended to reduce pain, aid in healing, and help return the horse to activity. Recently, researchers from Texas A&M University examined four types of therapeutic shoes to determine their effectiveness at rapidly reducing pain and

Texas officials have detected the state’s first case of anthrax for 2003 in a white-tailed deer near Del Rio. “It’s not unusual to have a few cases of anthrax in livestock or deer each year in Texas,” said Bob Hillman, DVM, state veterinarian and executive director for the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), the state’s livestock health regulatory agency.

Anthrax naturally occurs in

Busy training schedules and fears about injury often limit pasture access for performance horses. Prolonged stall confinement, however, can be detrimental to a horse’s attitude. Boredom can lead to destructive behaviors, including weaving, pawing, and ingestion of bedding. Recently, researchers from Southampton and Leicestershire in the United Kingdom, collaborated on a study to examine the

The death of at least one Oklahoma horse has been definitively linked to Potomac horse fever (PHF), a disease rarely found in the state. Two of her stablemates likely died of the same illness. The horse manager at the farm with the confirmed case said 11 other horses in the area have died with similar clinical signs, but blood and tissue samples from those horses were not submitted for

During intensive training, young racehorses experience a thickening in the layers of bone under the cartilage of joints. These layers, called subchondral (located nearer the surface) and cancellous, become harder and better able to handle the rigors of training. Unfortunately, the process is painful, especially in the carpus (knee). Therefore, it is fairly common to inject corticosteroids int

The Blood-Horse magazine reported that 1986 Kentucky Derby winner Ferdinand died sometime in 2002. He likely met his end in a slaughterhouse in Japan, where his career at stud was unsuccessful.

Ferdinand earned nearly $4 million, retiring as what was then the fifth-leading money winner of all time. He was retired to stud in 1989 at Claiborne Farm near Paris, Ky. After a brief,

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article gives horse owners a glimpse into the methods used by one experienced veterinarian to monitor the feet of his clients’ horses. Your veterinarian might have developed his/her own special way to follow the normal/abnormal foot, or you might be looking for a place to start a program to track your horse’s foot health.

It has been said that more than

Hurricane Isabel hit the Virginia coast 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), then dropped to a

The talks in the conference room to the group of bright, young attendees might have sounded a bit like a revival to the uninitiated. In fact it was…well, a bit like a revival. And one that is needed sooner rather than later. Last year, from the 2,243 students who graduated from veterinary schools in North America, only 94 (4%) said they planned to become equine practitioners. That’s a