Fact Sheet: OCD in Horses
Stacey Oke, DVM, MSc
July 9, 2018
Do all young horses with fluid-filled joints or lameness have osteochondritis dissecans (OCD)? Download this fact sheet to find out.
Horse breeding from planning through foal care
Do all young horses with fluid-filled joints or lameness have osteochondritis dissecans (OCD)? Download this fact sheet to find out.
Recent study results suggest small but significant differences exist between how much foals slip and slide when standing and osteochondrosis incidence in Warmbloods.
Ippo is unwittingly giving scientists a powerful look into the science of how equids (and other species) evolved, researchers say.
Learn about equine oviduct anatomy and function and the role oviduct pathology on fertility from of Maria R. Schnobrich, VMD, Dipl. ACT, of Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital’s LeBlanc Reproduction Center.
Researchers have learned that foals and dams appear to prefer looking at each other with their left eyes and keeping each other in their left field of vision in most situations.
Changes in the diameter of the caudal vena cava (a large vein that returns blood to the heart from the back half of the body) during respiratory cycles could be used to evaluate fluid volume in foals, researchers found.
Scientists are continuing to uncover which genes are responsible for certain traits in horses.
A mare’s attraction to a stallion—specifically, to his body odors, or “MHC”—affects pregnancy success rates. And, researchers found, mares appear to prefer stallions with MHCs that differ from their own.
Iron deficiencies are rare in horses, especially in those with access to good-quality pasture and hay.
In horses bone development begins in the womb, but researchers are still working to understand the complexities of in utero bone growth.
Horses with Warmblood fragile foal syndrome have extremely fragile skin and abnormal joint laxity.
Carleigh Fedorka, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Kentucky Gluck Equine Research Center, started the campaign to fund her study “Hormone therapy: Suppressing your mare’s estrous, or suppressing her immune system?”
Chromosomal anomalies like chimerism are one of the leading genetic causes of infertility in horses.
When veterinarians detected pregnancy loss in horses early enough for mares to be rebred, 57.3% delivered a live foal the following spring. Of those, mares 3 to 8 years old had a 73% live-foaling rate.
Horse owners might want to have their mares’ ovaries surgically removed for a variety of reasons, including to prevent pregnancy, get rid of tumors, or, most commonly, resolve behavioral issues.
Foals from mares undernourished in late gestation had modified bone growth and slowed testicular development, while foals from overnourished mares had a higher osteochondrosis rate.
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