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Topic:Equine Health
Equine health encompasses the study and management of diseases, disorders, and overall well-being of horses. It involves understanding various physiological systems, preventive care, and treatment strategies to maintain optimal health in equine populations. Common areas of focus include nutrition, infectious diseases, orthopedic conditions, and reproductive health. Research in equine health aims to advance knowledge on diagnostic methods, therapeutic interventions, and management practices that improve horse welfare and performance. This page collects peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the diverse aspects of equine health, offering insights into current findings and advancements in the field.
Hendra Virus: An Update on Diagnosis, Vaccination, and Biosecurity Protocols for Horses. Hendra virus (HeV) emerged as a zoonotic pathogen in the 1990s, causing low morbidity but high mortality in humans and horses. Pteropid bats are the natural reservoir of HeV and other important zoonotic viruses such as Nipah and Ebola viruses. Equivac HeV, manufactured by Zoetis (Parkville, Victoria, Australia), is the only commercially available vaccine for horses. There is no commercial vaccine for humans. The epidemiology, clinical features, pathology, diagnosis, management, and prevention of HeV will be reviewed.
Equine Rotaviral Diarrhea. Equine rotavirus is one of the most common causes of infectious diarrhea in foals. Although the infection itself is self-limiting, the resulting diarrhea is due to multiple mechanisms and can be severe, requiring supportive care including fluid and electrolyte support. Prompt diagnosis is important for treatment and biosecurity decisions and can be achieved by several means. Prevention, while imperfect, currently relies on vaccination of pregnant mares before parturition, ingestion of adequate colostrum from vaccinated mares and biosecurity measures.
Validation of an Equine Smart Textile System for Heart Rate Variability: A Preliminary Study. Electrocardiograms (ECGs), and associated heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV) measurements, are essential in assessing equine cardiovascular health and fitness. Smart textiles have gained popularity, but limited validation work has been conducted. Therefore, the objective of this study was to compare HR and HRV data obtained using a smart textile system (Myant) to the gold-standard telemetric device (Televet). Simultaneous ECGs were obtained using both systems in seven horses at rest and during a submaximal exercise test. Bland-Altman tests were used to assess agreement between th...
Plasma Creatine Kinase and Aspartate Aminotransferase Activities Before, During, and After 5 Days of Intramuscular Penicillin Administration in Sedentary Horses. Muscle damage can result in leakage of intracellular enzymes such as creatine kinase (CK) and aspartate transaminase (AST) into plasma. There are no controlled documentations of the effects of intramuscular antibiotic drug administration on plasma CK and AST activities in horses. The objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that 5 days of intramuscular procaine penicillin G injection in normal horses would result in increased plasma activities of CK and AST. Nine healthy adult horses were sampled for 7 days preceding, 5 days during, and 32 days following procaine penicillin G (2...
Equine Granulocytic Anaplasmosis. Equine granulocytic anaplasmosis is a clinically significant and common disease of equids that has a broader prevalence than was once thought. The most common clinical signs include high fever and edema, with mild to mderate thrombocytopenia and lymphopenia typically noted on complete blood count. Subclinical cases are reported and many are self-limiting. Rare clinical presentations include neurologic disease, vasculitis, dysphagia, rhabdomyolysis, or bicavitary effusion. Most cases resolve rapidly with appropriate antimicrobial intervention.
Biliary parascarosis in a foal. Migration of Ascaris lumbricoides through the papilla of Vater in humans, and entry into the biliary tree, is well-recognised. Ascaris suum and Toxocara vitulorum have been recovered from the liver of swine and buffalo. We necropsied a Persian Kurdish filly at age 6 months, weighing ∼100 kg. Death evidently was caused by oleander (Nerium oleander) intoxication. An 8-cm adult male Parascaris was found at the lobar-left hepatic bile duct junction. We suggest that the nematode entered anteriorly into the hepatic tree, via the duodenum, major duodenal papilla, bile duct, left hepatic duct and f...
Infectious Causes of Equine Placentitis and Abortion. A variety of infectious agents including viral, bacterial, and fungal organisms can cause equine abortion and placentitis. Knowledge of normal anatomy and the common pattern distribution of different infectious agents will assist the practitioner in evaluating the fetus and/or placenta, collecting appropriate samples for further testing, and in some cases, forming a presumptive diagnosis. In all cases, it is recommended to confirm the diagnosis with molecular, serologic, or microbiological testing. If a causative agent can be identified, then appropriate biosecurity and vaccination measures ca...
An Overview of Equine Enteric Clostridial Diseases. The understanding of the pathogenesis of equine enteric clostridial organisms is an active, evolving field. Advances will improve our knowledge both from the animal welfare and human health perspectives. The zoonotic nature of this group of diseases makes them relevant in the age of One health, as a significant amount of close human-equine interactions occurs for business and pleasure. Economic and welfare reasons prompt a better understanding of enteric clostridial pathogenesis, treatment, and control of the infection in horses and ongoing efforts are needed to advance clinical outcomes.
Sustainability and the Thoroughbred Breeding and Racing Industries: An Enhanced One Welfare Perspective. As society debates the use of animals in sport, entertainment, and leisure, there is an increasing focus on the welfare, social, and ecological impacts of such activities on the animals, human participants, people close to them, and the physical environment. This article introduces the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" to reveal significant costs and benefits associated with Thoroughbred breeding and racing globally. In addition, relative to calls to ban horseracing and similar activities as part of sustainability approaches that focus chiefly on animals, the "Enhanced One Welfare Framework" is...
First Kiso pony foal produced via transfer of long-distance shipped fresh embryo to Hokkaido native pony. Japanese native horses, which consists of 8 breeds, are threatened with extinction. Embryo transfer (ET) is used to reproduce endangered animals in various mammalian species. We aimed to perform ET using native ponies from Kiso and Hokkaido as donors and recipients, respectively. ET operation included long-distance transport of non-cryopreserved embryos from Nagano Prefecture to Hokkaido. Embryos were transported 1500 km over 9 h in a container maintained at 22°C. After transferring two embryos to two recipients, one mare delivered a healthy live foal. These results demonstrated that reciproc...
The influence of a probiotic/prebiotic supplement on microbial and metabolic parameters of equine cecal fluid or fecal slurry in vitro. The microbes that reside within the equine hindgut create a complex and dynamic ecosystem. The equine hindgut microbiota is intimately associated with health and, as such, represents an area which can be beneficially modified. Synbiotics, supplements that combine probiotic micro-organisms with prebiotic ingredients, are a potential means of influencing the hindgut microbiota to promote health and prevent disease. The objective of the current study was to evaluate the influence of an equine probiotic/prebiotic supplement on characteristics of the microbiota and metabolite production in vitro. E...
Diversity of mitochondrial D-loop haplotypes from ancient Thracian horses in Bulgaria. The domestication of the horse began possibly more than 5000 years ago in the western part of the Eurasian steppe, and according to the leading hypothesis, horses first spread from the Steppe toward the region of the Thracian culture, starting in the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE and flourished from the fifth to first centuries BCE, mainly located in present-day Bulgaria. We analyzed 17 horse bone remains excavated from Thracian archaeological sites (fourth to first centuries BCE) in Bulgaria and successfully identified 17 sequences representing 14 different haplotypes of the mitocho...
Pathological Features and Genomic Characterization of an Actinobacillus equuli subsp. equuli Bearing Unique Virulence-Associated Genes from an Adult Horse with Pleuropneumonia. subsp. is the etiological agent of sleepy foal disease, an acute form of fatal septicemia in newborn foals. is commonly found in the mucous membranes of healthy horses' respiratory and alimentary tracts and rarely causes disease in adult horses. In this study, we report a case of a 22-year-old American Paint gelding presenting clinical signs associated with an atypical pattern of pleuropneumonia subjected to necropsy. The gross and histopathological examinations revealed a unilateral fibrinosuppurative and hemorrhagic pleuropneumonia with an infrequent parenchymal distribution and heavy iso...
Molecular docking and experimental validation of the effect of ergothioneine on heat shock protein-70 following endurance exercise by Arabian stallions. Exercise-induced oxidative stress is a challenge in equine sports. This study aims at determining the effects of ergothioneine on heat shock protein-70 (HSP-70) following the stress of an endurance exercise of 30 km by Arabian stallions. Molecular docking was also done to investigate the interaction between the ligand ergothioneine and heat shock protein-70 using sulfogalactosylceramide and sulfogalactoglycerolipid as standards. The study involved a total of 18 clinically healthy stallions, with an average age of 6.7 ± 2.4 years and an average weight of 411.54 ± 12.46 kg. Only cli...
Identification of a previously unreported site of subchondral bone injury in the dorsodistolateral calcaneus in Thoroughbred racehorses. Increasing accessibility and advancements in computed tomographic (CT) imaging improve understanding of the contributors to poor performance in the Thoroughbred racehorse. Objective: To characterise an unreported site of tarsal subchondral bone injury (SBI) in Thoroughbred racehorses. Methods: Retrospective, cross-sectional analytical study. Methods: Tarsal CT scans of 108 horses were reviewed for evidence of SBI in the dorsodistolateral calcaneus (DDLC). Signalment, including age, breed, sex, and discipline of horses, was recorded. The association of DDLC SBI with Thoroughbred racehorse compa...
A Bioeconomic Model for the Thoroughbred Racing Industry-Optimisation of the Production Cycle with a Horse Centric Welfare Perspective. The Thoroughbred racing industry faces new and competing pressures to operate within a modern, changing society. Three major moderators drive the focus and productivity of the industry worldwide: economic sustainability, horse biology and social licence to operate. This review proposes that despite the apparent homogeneity in the structure of racing across jurisdictions due to international regulation of the sport, there are significant differences within each jurisdiction in each of the three moderators. This creates challenges for the comparison of injury risk factors for racehorses within t...
Changes in equine intestinal stem/progenitor cell number at resection margins in cases of small intestinal strangulation. Intestinal epithelial stem cells (ISC) are responsible for epithelial regeneration and are critical to the intestine's ability to regain barrier function following injury. Evaluating ISC biomarker expression in cases of small intestinal strangulation (SIS) may provide insight into clinical progression. Objective: Intestinal resection margins from cases of SIS were evaluated to determine if (1) evidence of injury could be identified using histomorphometry, (2) ISC biomarker expression was decreased in the proximal resection margin compared to control and distal resection margin, and (3) the ISC...
Fatal Animal Related Incidents on Australian Farms – a 20-Year Review. To assess demographic and causal factors of fatal farm incidents involving animals in Australia. Descriptive study of the National Coronial Information System for persons fatally injured by an animal on an Australian farm over the 2001-20 period. Data were analysed in relation to age, sex, state where incident occurred, work-relatedness and causal agents. There has been little change in the mean number of animal-related injury deaths across Australia in the 2001-20 period (mean 6.5), however this is a 35% reduction on an earlier 1989-92 assessment (mean 10). The majority of incidents (81%) ...
Classification of racehorse limb radiographs using deep convolutional neural networks. To assess the capability of deep convolutional neural networks to classify anatomical location and projection from a series of 48 standard views of racehorse limbs. Unassigned: Radiographs ( = 9504) of horse limbs from image sets made for veterinary inspections by 10 independent veterinary clinics were used to train, validate and test (116, 40 and 42 radiographs, respectively) six deep learning architectures available as part of the open source machine learning framework PyTorch. The deep learning architectures with the best top-1 accuracy had the batch size further investigated. Unassigned: T...
PCR detection of Theileria equi and Babesia caballi in apparently healthy horses in Paraguay. Equine piroplasmosis (EP) is a tick-borne disease caused by Theileria equi and Babesia caballi in equids, including horses. EP has a global distribution and often leads to a significant socioeconomic impact on the equine industry. Infected animals remain as carriers and become a source of infection for tick vectors, thereby posing an immense challenge in the disease management. Therefore, detection of these carriers is crucial to assess the risk of transmission and to implement appropriate control measures in endemic countries. Paraguay is a tropical country where various tick-borne diseases a...
Impact of a 24 h feed withdrawal on active nutrient transport, intestinal morphology, and gene expression in the equine small and large intestine. Horses are often subjected to short-term feed withdrawal (FW) pre- or post-surgery to reduce anesthetic complications. However, removing nutrients from the intestinal lumen may negatively impact intestinal health. Thirteen horses were used to determine the effects of a 24 h FW on gut barrier function, active nutrient transport, transporter gene expression, and intestinal morphology. Following 0 or 24 h FW (0FW or 24FW, respectively), horses were euthanized via overdose of sodium pentobarbital and sodium phenytoin, and segments of proximal jejunum (PJ), mid jejunum (MJ), ileum (Il), and right...
TLR4 and MD2 variation among horses with differential TNFα baseline concentrations and response to intravenous lipopolysaccharide infusion. Gram-negative bacterial septicemia is mediated through binding of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to mammalian toll-like receptor protein 4 (TLR4). TLR4 and its cognate protein, myeloid differentiation factor 2 (MD2) form a heterodimeric complex after binding LPS. This complex induces a cascade of reactions that results in increased proinflammatory cytokine gene expression, including TNFα, which leads to activation of innate immunity. In horses, the immune response to LPS varies widely. To determine if this variation is due to differences in TLR4 or MD2, DNA from 15 healthy adult horses with differe...
A Scoping Review of Non-Structural Airway Disease as a Cause of Poor Performance in Racehorses. The association between poor performance and respiratory disease in Thoroughbred racehorses that do not have a structural abnormality of the respiratory tract, is often based on anecdotal evidence. The objective of this scoping review was to examine the scientific evidence for such associations. Publications were selected based on a search of three databases (PubMed, Scopus, and CAB Direct), in English and without date restriction, followed by a screening process to exclude non-relevant papers, duplicates, and reviews. This process identified 996 publications of which 20 were analysed using th...
Potential outbreak by herpesvirus in equines: detection, clinical, and genetic analysis of equid gammaherpesvirus 2 (EHV-2). Equid herpesvirus (EHV) commonly affects horses causing neurologic and respiratory symptoms beside spontaneous abortions, meaning huge economic losses for equine industry worldwide. In foals, the virus can facilitate secondary infections by Rhodococcus equi, important in morbidity and mortality in equines. A total of five genotypes of EHV were previously described in Brazil including EHV-1, EHV-2, EHV-3, EHV-4, and EHV-5. EHV-2 genotype had only been previously described in Brazil in asymptomatic animals. We report the investigation of the dead of 11 foals in Middle-west region of Brazil showi...
Secrets behind Protein Sequences: Unveiling the Potential Reasons for Varying Allergenicity Caused by Caseins from Cows, Goats, Camels, and Mares Based on Bioinformatics Analyses. This study systematically investigated the differences in allergenicity of casein in cow milk (CM), goat milk (GM), camel milk (CAM), and mare milk (MM) from protein structures using bioinformatics. Primary structure sequence analysis reveals high sequence similarity between the -casein of CM and GM, while all allergenic subtypes are likely to have good hydrophilicity and thermal stability. By analyzing linear B-cell epitope, T-cell epitope, and allergenic peptides, the strongest casein allergenicity is observed for CM, followed by GM, and the casein of MM has the weakest allergenicity. Meanwh...
Voluntary Surveillance Program for Equine Influenza Virus in the United States during 2008-2021. A voluntary upper respiratory biosurveillance program in the USA received 9740 nasal swab submissions during the years 2008-2021 from 333 veterinarians and veterinary clinics. The nasal swabs were submitted for qPCR testing for six common upper respiratory pathogens:equine influenza virus (EIV), equine herpesvirus-1 (EHV-1), equine herpesvirus-4 (EHV-4), subspecies (), equine rhinitis A virus (ERAV), and equine rhinitis B virus (ERBV). Additional testing was performed for equine gamma herpesvirus-2 (EHV-2) and equine gamma herpesvirus-5 (EHV-5) and the results are reported. Basic frequency s...
Training drives turnover rates in racehorse proximal sesamoid bones. Focal bone lesions are often found prior to clinically relevant stress-fractures. Lesions are characterized by low bone volume fraction, low mineral density, and high levels of microdamage and are hypothesized to develop when bone tissue cannot sufficiently respond to damaging loading. It is difficult to determine how exercise drives the formation of these lesions because bone responds to mechanical loading and repairs damage. In this study, we derive steady-state rate constants for a compartment model of bone turnover using morphometric data from fractured and non-fractured racehorse proximal...
Comparison of systemic trimethoprim-sulfadimethoxine treatment and intrauterine ozone application as possible therapies for bacterial endometritis in equine practice. Bacterial endometritis is one of the major problems in equine reproduction and usually treated with antimicrobial drugs. The study aimed to compare the effects of intrauterine ozone application and systemic antibiotic treatment (trimethoprim-sulfadimethoxine) on intrauterine bacterial growth and possible side effects on the endometrium in a clinical setting. Mares ( = 30) with signs of endometritis (positive uterine bacterial culture and cytological findings) were assigned randomly to different treatments: intrauterine insufflation of an ozone-air-mix (240 ml, 80 μg ozone/ml) twice at a 48 h-...
Prevalence, genetic characteristics, and antimicrobial resistance of Clostridioides difficile isolates from horses in Korea. Clostridioides difficile is an etiological agent of enteric diseases in humans and animals. Animals are considered a potential reservoir due to the genetic and antimicrobial resistance similarities between human and animal C. difficile isolates. In this study, we evaluated the genetic characteristics and antimicrobial resistance profiles of C. difficile isolated from 942 fecal samples collected from horses in South Korea during 2019-2020. Methods: The C. difficile isolates were tested for toxin genes including tcdA (A), tcdB (B), and cdtAB (CDT) and deletions of the tcdC gene by PCR. In add...
